Saturday, 10th November 2007

Bangsaen Street race

This track was very unique and really fun to drive because of all its blind corners, narrow streets, and long straight. The organizers only allowed 2 practice sessions on Thursday and 1 on Friday, so we had to learn the new track fast. I was quite confident as I had already done around 10 laps on a scooter that I managed to borrow. The first session I didn’t really push to hard because if we made any mistakes we would hit the barrier right away and damage the car. My best time was around 2 minutes and 6 seconds. Second session I knew my way around the track now, and I started to push and managed to get a best time of 2:00.2. I was fastest in c class and overall.

Friday : I got a good night sleep and thought a lot about how I could gain time around the track and was keen to get out to try it on our last practice session. I really pushed this time out to see where the limit because qualifying was coming up soon, and I got a best time of 1:57.6 seconds. It was fastest overall, 2 seconds faster than anyone else, and around 4 seconds faster than my nearest rival. Qualifying: Felt very good for qualifying because of my fast practice times. I went out on the first lap warming up the new tires getting ready to put in my fast laps until I felt something really strange happening in the engine. I tried to keep on going but the car would not move at all, so I was unable to qualify and for the race I had to start 27th, which is last. When we got the car back to the pits we found out the flywheel was broken. Race 1: Now we have a brand new flywheel in so we hope it will last the whole weekend. Starting from 27th position so I knew I had my work cut out because it is also really hard to pass on this narrow track. I had an amazing start passed 8 cars before coming out of turn 1, and was able to get 3 more on the first lap. When we finished the first lap I was already up to around 16th and could already see the leader in my class. But then on the third lap the gears started to fail, and I couldn’t get it into first and second gear. Everyone passed me and retired in the race and walked back to the pits disappointed. Race 2: We have to start last again, but I knew that I could win in my class because the last race I was already able to pass so many in so few laps, but already in the warm up lap I could feel something wrong with the gear box, especially 2nd gear. Whenever I would put it in 2nd gear it would jump out into neutral so I had to drive with one hand in many of the corners. But I would not give up because of this and I had a great start again, and passed around 10 cars on the first lap. The next three laps I was just passing cars one at a time, even when I had a problem with 2nd gear. But on the next lap the gear would not go any further as it locked up on me forcing me to retire, and ending a bad weekend. Really a shame because I had the pace to win not only in my class, but overall as well.

---

3rd/4th November

ZHUHAI - China

I felt good coming into this race as we had already tested formula 3 for 2 days on this track so I already knew the track. All together we had 3 practice sessions, the first practice session I was over 9 tenths faster than anybody else and the car felt good so we decided not to touch the setup for the next session. Second session and third practice session I was still very much setting the pace so I felt confident for qualifying. For qualifying we normally change the setup a little because when we use new tires and the car tends to generate some understeer/push for the first few laps, so we added more front end grip before the session. This was a bad mistake from us and the car did not have any understeer in qualifying, and because we added more front end grip we were struggling with oversteer all through out qualifying so I could not put a perfect lap together so we ended up qualifying 4th for the Saturday, and 6th for Sunday.

Race 1: Started from 4th position, had a good start got out of the first corner still in 4th. By the end of the first lap I passed into 3rd and was now trying hunt down Ross Jamison who was in 2nd. We had about the same pace through out the race and I was not catching him, and he was not pulling away. There was 3 laps left to go and Ross was starting to feel the pressure and starting to make some mistakes, so I caught him very fast. I felt like I had to make my move and I went for the inside in one of the u-turns, braked really late but I accidentally shifted down a gear to much so I locked up, spun, and lost the position. I recovered from the spin and got back and finished in 6th position.

Race 2: Because of the spin I had to start from 6th which made it quite difficult because all top 6 were running about the same pace. Got an ok start and was fighting a lot in the field. Then I got stuck behind teammate James Grunwell because he had a wing problem so he was very slow and blocking a lot. While he was blocking I ran into the back of him and that ruined my front wing aswell. The lap afterwards someone ran into the wall on the straight so I slowed down, but the drivers behind me didn’t see that so they ran into the back of me and crashing heavily into the wall ruining many cars and mine. Only about half the grid finished the race under safety car and the other half broken down.

Race 3: Started from 6th position, by the third corner I got up to 5th. After that 2nd from 5th swapped position all the way through out the race, and it was a great battle with me, Zahir, James, Sebastian, and Kyle Mitchell. Finished 5th.

Race 4: Got a great start of 5th position and passed 2 cars on the outside on the first corner. Then there was a big crash behind involving James Grunwell and David Zhu so they had to red flag the race. At the moment I was in third, and there was some confusion on the grid as Sebastion Saveedra decided to go in the pits, which moved me up to 2nd position for the restart. So I was Me and Jazeman leading the race. The restart Jazeman got a little gap, but I managed to close it and passed him into the first u turn to take 1st place. But Jazeman didn’t give up and did the same move to me into the next corner slowing us all down. After I had to fight off Zahir Ali and Kyle Mitchell which gave Jazeman a chance to break away. Then I was lucky that Kyle started to pressure Zahir so he had to take very defensive lines to give me a chance to break away aswell. After that the gap between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd stayed the same all the way through the race with Jazeman taking victory, me in 2nd, and Zahir Ali in 3rd place.