Castle Combe Championship Rounds 4 & 5

29th May 2018

Tough day at the track yesterday.

Qualifying was all about hooking a good lap with a tow. I spent the first half of the session on my own, but quickly realised to match the times I’d need to follow another car to get the final chunk of performance. It was worth such a difference that I managed to find 4 tenths of a second, it was far from a perfect lap too as the car in front slowed me up with a few errors. I took pole with one lap to go, but unfortunately lost it on the last lap. We would however start in 2nd, on the front row for both races.

Race 1 was bitterly disappointing, we easily had the pace to challenge for the win. We pulled a gap from the rest of the field, but unfortunately the clutch failed. I knew as I pulled away at the start there was a major problem, I drove for a few laps losing a bit of a gap to first, but thought I might be able to hold my second position, that wasn’t meant to be, I had to relinquish my place as the problem worsened. I then focused on just trying to finish the race, but it got so bad that there was eventually absolutely no drive at all. I pulled over and that was that.

Race 2, new clutch fitted and determined to make progress. Unfortunately for whatever reason the car just didn’t feel quite as good. I managed to take the lead on lap 2 but lost it the following lap, I fell down as far as 5th but managed to fight back to 3rd.

Overall pretty disappointing, and really a weekend to forget.

Fortunately we are racing at Brands Hatch this weekend, a track I love and perform well at. So I have put it behind me and I’m looking forward to a better one!

I’d just like to say a really big thank you to everyone who stuck in to fix the clutch at the end of race 1 yesterday. Without their help we might not have made it out for race 2, so a massive thank you to all of you!