Managing director at UKIP Media & Events, publishers of PMW magazine and organizers of Professional MotorSport World Expo
Championship: Ginetta G40 Challenge
Team: Colards Motorsport
Sponsor: Nuffield Press
You'd think that having raced in the series for the year, I'd be choosing the correct tyres by now, but alas no! Qualifying was yet another wet/dry affair, and myself and team mate Mike Robinson both opted for the slick tyre... Cue pathetic low-speed spins and a message that wets were the order of the day! Mike pitted two laps earlier than me, getting in four flyers on the wet to qualify 10th and ninth, while I had just two laps, meaning I lined up 13th and 14th on the grid of 35 cars - in that respect, it could have been a lot worse.
Come the first race, the track was as good as damnit dry, but as I demonstrated on the first lap and Mike subsequently demonstrated on two further occasions later in the race, the track was still damp in places! We both had embarrassing spins. Having dropped to 29th place after just four corners, I climbed back onto Mike's tail to finish 11th, but it was not my finest hour.
Race two and we welcomed a bone dry race track surface for the first time in four months! A reasonable start saw me climb three places on lap one, so I was soon on Mike's tail once again. Together we climbed the field getting up as high as fourth and fifth places at one point, but dicing three abreast on numerous occasions. It was good to remember that racing can be rather fun! I got passed Mike with three laps to go, but succumbed to Rick Parfitt and William Burns to finish in sixth place, with Mike seventh.
The results saw Mike finish fifth overall in the championship, with me one place behind in him in sixth. As I always say at the end of the season, next year...!
They say a picture speaks a thousand words... The above snap was taken by Jakob Ebrey on lap four of 10 in race two and as you'll have noticed, my car is missing a headlight and the tire is falling off the rim. Did I have a successful weekend? You'll have guessed not! Still, it could have been worse: my team mate Mike Robinson didn't make the first corner of that race, a race that began with a dry circuit on the green flag lap, but that was rather wet by the time the lights went out! Cue carnage as the slick-shod G40s spun out of contention left right and center! As it happens, I was in third place and lapping rapidly – too rapidly it transpired – before I dropped it around the left-hand kink under the bridge at Donington. As I completed an almost a delightful 360-degree spin, the nose was just caught by the passing William Burns. The image above shows what happened. We swapped the smashed wheel and tire when I eventually got back to the pits, but by then I was a lap down. Mike at least got out of the gravel trap, but then he further spun more times than he'd like me to write about, so let's just say that he went on to finish 13th...
Race one was a more enjoyable experience, especially for Mike who finished in second place, but it was yet another wet race in the Ginetta. And yet another race in which I was minding my own business in sixth place hunting down the fifth-placed car, when Ryan Ratcliffe clobbered me off the road, dropping me to eighth on the last lap. Silverstone can't come soon enough (8-9 October 2011)!
This weekend I followed my now-traditional pattern of being quick on Friday and Sunday, but screwing up Saturday! I'd been third fastest during Friday testing, the team and I finding great speed on the half-banked circuit of Rockingham, but come qualifying I didn't lean hard enough on my new slicks and ended up 9th on the grid for both race starts. Team mate Mike Robinson, meanwhile, put in a stellar performance to start 2nd.
Come race day, the heavens opened and for once there was little doubt about which tires to run on. Visibility was as bad as I'd ever seen - I could barely see the end of my bonnet, let alone the car in front - but we made great progress through the pack on the rain-soaked track. A poor start had me in 11th place half-way through the first lap, but I'd climbed to 4th place overall after just five laps! Indeed, I was right on Mike's 3rd-placed tail, chasing down second place with relative ease. I've rarely felt so much more confidence and speed in relation to those around me in this Ginetta! Unfortunately we had to lap numerous of the slower, road-tired G20s around half race distance, which broke-up the pack and ruined any hopes of a higher placed finish, but it was unquestionably my best race of the season thus far.
Race 2 was an altogether different affair. The rain had stopped an hour before the lights went out, so I took a gamble and bolted on slick tires on the basis that I had nothing to lose: I was unlikely to win from 9th on the grid, while I can't win the championship this year. Only my other Colards team mate, Clive Richards, copied my strategy, so if the slick was the right choice, I'd finish at least second. Or at least that was the plan! As I looked through my wet windscreen on the green flag lap, the rear-driven wheels spinning with the slightest prod of the throttle pedal, doubt had well and truly set in! And indeed I was right to be worried: as Richards speared into the wall at great speed on the first lap, I knew I'd made the wrong call. Cue 20 minutes of slithering at pathetically low speeds, sweat and finally relief as I crossed the finish line in 11th place. I had dropped as low as 20th in the first few laps, but the tires finally started to work in the last four laps, meaning I could at least overtake the stragglers. I might not be so 'clever' next time!
Following a successful dry test day, during which I was the only G40 driver doing a sub-53 second lap, we had high hopes for qualifying, but the powers that be decided to dump a tremendous amount of rain on the circuit throughout Saturday, meaning we started the day with zero track knowledge in this car. Unfortunately, I simply didn't have the same turn of speed in the wet, and we finished the day lining up eighth on the grid for both races. Team-mates Mike Robinson and Tony Robinson were to start sixth and 16th respectively, and Tony in particular was pleased to have put in his best performance to date.
On race day, the weather was extremely changeable: downpours, a rapid drying of the track, then more rain. My car was seemingly endlessly up and down on its jacks as we swapped from wets to slicks in preparation for race 1, but ultimately wets were the order of the day, with a good thundering of rain deciding our fate as we waited in the assembly area. I had another shocker of a race start, losing two places by turn one and then it went from bad to worse on lap three when Brazilian driver Thiago Calvet knocked me into a spin at Clearways. That incident; a subsequent long safety car period as numerous cars were cleared from the gravel-trap excursions that can be expected in wet conditions; and then an early red flag as my team-mate Tony Robinson dropped it on the restart, meant that I had little chance to finish higher than ninth. A frustrating and disappointing first wet race in the Ginetta... Mike thankfully saved Professional Motorsport World Expo on-track honour by getting his car home for another third-place podium.
Race two and yet more changeable conditions. This time, though, the track was just about dry enough for slicks, but as an unfortunate Mike Robinson showed on the first corner of the race, it was all too easy to spin! So after Mike's car was cleared from the gravel under the safety car, I was in fifth place and feeling rather racy – we certainly had front-running pace and seemingly the measure of those ahead of me who appeared to have less confidence in the tricky conditions. That was until my Colards Motorsport team-mate hit me on the exit of Druids and spun me out of contention! I was on full power at the point of contact, so there was nothing I could to do to save myself from falling down the order to 24th and thus being second from last! In the remaining 10 minutes I fought back to 13th place, but the fact that I was over 45 seconds down after the contact meant it was a fairly hopeless race. Tony went on to finish 26th, a result that sees him 16th in the overall championship. Mike is currently fifth overall, with myself two spots behind in seventh. This was always going to be a year of learning...!
Next round: Rockingham, 3-4 September 2011
My first time at the Grand Prix version of Brands Hatch, a legendary but little used track, and I was in for a treat! The circuit tumbles up and down with genuinely steep gradients and features a fine combination of slower, technical corners and heroic, fast, blind bends. It’s unquestionably up there with Donington and Zolder as one of the best tracks in existence…
Qualifying was another interesting affair, the clouds deciding to dump a substantial quantity of water on the track just as we’d started the 15-minute session on slicks. What made matters all the more interesting was that it stopped raining within two minutes, making tire choice rather confusing! It was the right option to stay on slicks just as I had at Snetterton (see below), but there was a great deal of slower traffic and just six minutes or so of the session left in which to bang in the two fast laps required to decide grid position in both races. Unfortunately, I seemed to catch cars at just the wrong moment each time, and ultimately I ended up seventh and sixth on the grid, but some way off my ultimate pace that I’d set in morning practice. My fellow Professional MotorSport World Expo team-mates qualified fourth and third (Mike Robinson) and 29th and 31st (Tony Robinson following an incident that saw him damage the car and compromise performance).
Come Race 1, a reasonable start had me left me just behind Mike in seventh place (he clearly had a terrible start from fourth!), but while he quickly passed ex-F1 driver Tiff Needell in the guest car, I got well and truly stuck behind him for 10 minutes of the 20-minute race. By the time I eventually got by, I was seven seconds behind the lead pack, by which point Mike had got himself into the lead! (Tony meanwhile had been collected by another car on the first lap and had retired in the tire wall.) Life thereafter wasn’t tremendously challenging for my car number 13 as I simply held station. Mike, on the other hand crossed the line first, but unfortunately immediately received a 30-second penalty for ignoring the boundaries of the circuit and was demoted to seventh place. With another competitor receiving the same penalty I found myself finishing fourth.
The second race was altogether more challenging, with Mike and I in the thick of the race-long, seven-car battle for the lead. Positions – and paint – were exchanged frequently until the last lap when we came up to lap a back-marker and carnage ensued! The driver in second place spun in the confusion, Mike leaped from sixth to third place, and I dropped from fifth, to sixth and just back to fifth place again across the line. The whole race had been entertaining, but that last lap will be forever remembered! Tony had an altogether less exciting race, but given his series of misfortunate, he was happy to finish in 21st place.
Back to Brands in July, but on the short Indy circuit this time. The plan is to keep moving forward!
Wounds still slightly raw from the opening round’s goof (see story below), I wasn’t delighted when a rain shower fell while we sat in the assembly area five minutes before qualifying started. The plan was to actually qualify this time, and a wet road with slick tires don’t gel well! Cue half the grid frantically swapping to the wet tire, including my fellow Professional Motorsport World Expo-backed drivers Mike and Tony Robinson. Me? I listened to my mechanic’s promises of blue sky en route and so I stuck to the slick tire and dry setup...
And did I make the right call! The track dried very quickly, the only true hindrance being the folk out on the rapidly degrading wet tire who couldn’t help but get in the way – the difference in performance was enormous. After the 15 minute session, I’d qualified 10th and 8th for each race, but was happy that I could have gone substantially faster had I no continuously caught traffic. Tony and Mike, who’d been out there on wets remember, had to start way down in 22nd and 26th places, but they weren’t alone with a starting order that resembled a reversed grid in many places.
Come the start of race 1, and I had a shocker, the car bogging down and the clutch letting me know just how poorly I’d started the car with a puff of smoke. The first few laps were extremely challenging, with numerous cars out of position and some competitors spinning wildly out of control on a track that was more slippery than it had been in qualifying. The good news is that just one car overtook me and I did a lot of overtaking, but the bad news is that it was my team mate Mike who got by following a mighty surge through the grid early on. He was to finish in 4th place, with me 5th and Tony coming home 17th for his best result to date.
Race 2 and I performed another terrible start, but this time it probably helped me as there was a pile up at the first corner and I arrived there as it was coming to an end rather than be in the center of it! From there on in, it was simply a matter of getting past the cars who had qualified out of position, which at a track with as many overtaking opportunities as the new Snetterton 300 track, wasn’t too much of a challenge. A safety car late in the race bunched the grid back together, and so in what became a one-lap sprint I managed to go from 6th place to finish 4th, just 20cm ahead of the 5th place car. Mike crossed the line one car back in 6th, with Tony being disappointed to finish 22nd following a mid-race spin.
Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit next. I’ve not raced there before, but I’m told that it’s one of the greats so I’m looking forward to putting in a decent showing.
A new season, new car and a new championship! I’m competing in the Ginetta G40 Challenge in 2011 – and I’ve been joined by Professional Motorsport World Expo and magazine founder and CEO, Tony Robinson, along with Professional Motorsport World Expo-backed driver Mike Robinson, who has been competing successfully in the Renault Clio Cup UK for the previous three seasons.
The car is rather different to the Caterham that I’ve raced for the previous five years, the most obvious change being that I now have a roof over my head... But make no mistake: the G40 is tremendously more challenging to drive than the Caterham, the 1.8-liter car built in the north of England featuring slick tires and a sequential shift. And it also has the high cabin temperatures to go with it! This is without question the most difficult race car that I’ve ever driven, the vehicle being relatively under-powered and over-gripped, but I’ve been relishing the challenge to conquer the vehicle in pre-season testing.
Unfortunately, however, the car conquered me in first qualifying when I stupidly didn’t get enough heat into the rubber on the out lap and then subsequently dropped it permanently into the gravel at Oulton’s Shell hairpin on my first flying lap. Cue starting last on the grid of 32 in both races. Tony Robinson faired better qualifying 19th, while Mike was to start 2nd in both races.
Lights out in race 1 and it was time for me to get frustrated. Stuck behind a host of cars whom I was significantly quicker than while Mike disappeared off to fight for the last podium spot, I lost a tremendous amount of time battling through. I managed to overtake team mate Tony on lap three, but he was just one of 17 cars that I overtook in the first race to finish a grumpy 15th. Mike Robinson, meanwhile, drove a solid race to secure that third place.
Race two started even worse for me and I was still dead last after three corners as the cars ahead jockeyed for position, blocking the road ahead. Once clear of the slowest, I as soon passed Tony on lap two and then on to pick-off 20 cars by the time the chequered flag dropped, meaning a 12th place finish. Not quite what testing the previous day had promised! Tony finished the race 22nd with Mike taking another third place.
Here’s to finishing qualifying at rounds 3 and 4 at Snetterton in May!
Click here to view the 2010 Caterham blog entries
Click here to view the 2009 Caterham blog entries
With the news that SEAT’s ultra-successful León Super 2000 touring car may be given a new lease of life in 2012, PMW presents an insider’s perspective on its development to date
Click here to read more
In October 2011, PMW got an insider's view of race day at Brands Hatch with multiple champion BTCC team, Triple Eight Race Engineering
Click here to read more
Under the skin of the innovative, all-electric Formulec single-seater
Click here to read more
We are building a list of leading suppliers covering all aspects of the professional motorsport industry. Want to see your company included? Contact v.lesishin@ukipme.com for more details.
Do you have an opinion you'd like to share with the professional motorsport community? We'd like to hear your views and opinions on the leading issues shaping the industry. Share your comments by sending up to 500 words to g.heeps@ukipme.com
To send us your recruitment advertising or to receive information on placing a banner please email v.lesishin@ukipme.com