Competition Car Insurance Ford Fiesta Championship Anglesey 25th/26th September It was a busy week for the team after the problematic Scottish Championship rounds at Knockhill last weekend. After initially trying to fix my race the team decided it was best to swap the engine and gearbox out of another car into my car. This left the team with little time to get the car ready for testing at Anglesey on Friday. We decided to take another car to the circuit for me to learn the track and my car was toed down later on Friday afternoon to ensure it was prepped properly. This made the logistics for the weekend pretty hectic but we were determined to do everything we could to get a good result. Testing in the spare car on Friday was not ideal as it meant we were not getting my race car set up. However, it was useful from the point of view that I was getting to learn the track, as I had never been there before. We did a lot of work on the car throughout the day to try and gauge how we would roughly set my car up for qualifying on Saturday. I enjoyed the track itself, it is quite technical in places and requires you to be very smooth and precise. It appeared to be a very difficult track to set the car up for though, and we were having to do things to the car that we had never done before to try and get it to work. Qualifying After only doing a handful of laps in morning warm up due to a power steering failure on my car, we were very much on the back foot with set-up going into qualifying. We did an initial qualifying run on old tyres, where I went quicker than I had ever been before that weekend and so I was confident that when I came into the pits to put new tyres on we were going to go even quicker. I went back out onto the track once the team had changed the 2 front tyres and began a flying lap. I was a little surprised to find the car felt like it had less grip on new tyres than it had on old ones. I could see from my lap timer that I was a couple of tenths slower than I was on my first run, so I came back into the pits to make a set up change to try and solve the problem. I went back out on the track again but could not improve on my first lap time. It was a bit of a puzzler, but it appeared this circuit didn't like new tyres. My initial effort put me 5th on the grid for the race. This was not quite as high as we had hoped but put us on the inside of the grid, which was the best side to be on. I knew we had to do something a bit drastic with the set-up of the car to make improvements but was confident the races on Sunday would be much better.
Race 1 Starting from 5th, I knew it was going to be crucial to make a good start and make up ground on the first lap. The start lights seemed to take forever to go out but when they did I made a good start. Although I did not make up any places off the line, I positioned myself well on entry to turn 2 and made up 2 places to put me into 3rd position. I had a run on the car on front on the long drag down to turn 4 which is a really tight hairpin left. he blocked me on the inside but I was able to place my car so that I had the inside line for the following right hander. We were side by side down the next short straight but again I had the inside line and managed to make the move stick and get up into 2nd place. We then descended down the 'corkscrew' section of the circuit and I noticed the driver behind was really close to my bumper, so I moved to the left to guard my line into the following left hander. As I did this, he caught my bumper and flicked round to face the other way! I was now sliding on the grass backwards at about 60mph and was a complete passenger! I honestly thought I was going straight in the wall but somehow I rejoined the circuit backwards and I was able to quickly bury my foot in the throttle to draw the slide back round! With a flick of the steering wheel I was pointing the right direction and had no time to catch my breath as I immediately had to fight off three cars behind me! After this quite spectacular last couple of corners I was surprised to have only lost 2 places and I was now sitting in 4th. I knew I had to get passed the car on front immediately otherwise I was going to completely lose touch with the 2 leaders, who were already a a good 3 or 4 seconds up the road thanks to my escapade across the grass! My car was handling really well through turn 3, which is a fast 4th gear corner which I was just managing to take completely flat and this enabled me to get a run on the 3rd placed car straight away. I knew he would defend the inside line into turn 4 if I made it to obvious I was going to make a move there, so I dummied him to make him think I was going to take a normal line into the corner on the outside. At the last minute I darted to the inside and got hard on the brakes and just managed to get the car slowed down in time, to slip up the inside and take 3rd place back! There had been enough action in the first 2 laps to fill a whole race but it was now time to try and get into a rhythm and try to chase down the 2 leaders. I knew this was a near impossible task as they had such a big lead due to the eventful first 2 laps but I was going to try my best. My first few clear laps were the quickest ones I had done all weekend and I began to slowly chip away at the lead of the front 2 cars.
Unfortunately, after about 4 laps this gap plateaued as my tyres began to go off. I then started to lose ground on them, in the second half of the race, as my tyres got even worse. I think we had set the tyre pressures slightly too high, which meant my car was good for the first quarter of the race and then the grip began to fall away and I began to get major understeer, which means the car basically wants to go straight on when you turn into a corner! I crossed the line at the end of the 20 minute race to finish 3rd. I was quite happy with this result (considering how close we came to having a premature end to our race on lap 1!) and I was happy with the way I drove as I had to fight really hard at the start of the race and felt I had got the most out of the car after that. Another plus point from this race is that my lap one excursion apparently provoked quite a reaction from the crowd and should probably get us a fair bit of exposure on TV! Which was exactly why I did it of course...! Race 2 I started race 2 from 3rd position and again I was hoping the changes we had made to the car would help me make more progress towards the top step. I made a pretty good start but unfortunately the car next to me made a better one and I dropped a place down to 4th off the line. Down the long back straight I was passed by another car, which appeared to be a lot faster than mine. I fought back under braking into the next corner but there was little I could do to keep it behind me. On the following lap I managed to out brake the car in 4th position into the tight turn 4 hairpin again. I was then chasing the 3 cars ahead, which had again pulled out a big gap. It felt like we had gone backwards a bit on set-up as the car did not feel as good as in the first race but I battled on and tried my best to keep in touch with the leaders. The car on front of me made a mistake going onto the back straight and I was able to carry a lot more momentum than him down the straight and make a move into what appeared to be my favourite overtaking place, turn 4! I was now up to 3rd but was having to defend really hard from the car behind. I seemed to have the edge in the first sector of the lap through the slightly quicker corners but the rest of circuit is quite tight and twisty and I just could not get my car to turn into the sharper corners well. I was trying left foot braking whilst I was turning to try and keep the weight over the front wheels but nothing appeared to be working.
Because I was defending so hard the 5th placed driver was able to catch onto the back of us, so I was now defending from 2 cars. I tried to use this to my advantage and began backing them up at the apex of the corners to try and get them to fight with each other so I could get away. This wasn't really working and half way through the race one of the cars made a move on me in the last sector of the circuit which pushed me wide and allowed the other car through. I was now down to 5th and knew my only chance of getting 3rd back was making a move straight away. I made a big lunge and passed both cars into the next corner to re-take 3rd position. I had to be very defensive again but felt like I had the situation under control. With only 4 minutes left of the race, the car behind me completely took me by surprise and passed me when I wasn't expecting it. This allowed the other car through as well and I was now back down in 5th. I was kicking myself for letting this happen. It was the end of the corkscrew, where I was really struggling for grip but it's such a tight section that I did not think he would even try to pull a move on me there. I did my best to hold onto the 2 cars on front but there was nothing I could do before the end of the race and I finished in 5th. I was pretty annoyed with myself after race 2 but at the same time we have really been struggling at this circuit and I felt my driving in general had been pretty good all weekend. The results means I still lie 3rd in the Championship with a chance of improving at the next rounds at Brands Hatch. We were competitive last time at Brands and I'm confident that when we return to a circuit we know, with a better engine, we will be fighting for race wins again. Thank you as always to everyone that helped me at the weekend and to all my sponsors. The seasons drawing to a close and we'll be doing everything we can to make sure it finishes on a high! Regards, Rory