Another great weekends racing started with testing on Thursday last week. With lots still to learn about the new Clio Cup car we made several changes through the two 40 minute sessions and gained some very valuable experience. This left us feeling very confident going into qualifying on Saturday afternoon.
With strong winds a slipstream was going to be the way to set a pole time, however this isn’t something I would normally aim to do in qualifying. I teamed up with another driver on track to see what we could achieve but unfortunately we couldn’t make it work in our favour and after taking the best out of our tyres, I was left to set a time without a tow. This left us a fair way down the starting order, in P8 for race 1 and P7 for race 2, although still within half a second of the quickest car.
Sunday morning saw heavy rain an hour before our first race. There was no chance of it drying in time, so out we headed for the first time on wet tyres in the new car. This was always going to be a challenge with no experience and therefore having to make an educated guess with car set up. A good start saw us head down the Craner Curves in the thick of the action although the spray made it near on impossible to see who was ahead. After lap 1 vision improved and we had a great race although only finished where we started, in 8th. However we showed good pace in the car and gained some valuable knowledge once again.
Race 2 in the afternoon, shown live on ITV4, saw us back on slick tyres and therefore much more confident than in the wet. This was to be such a fun race with a whole group of us racing door handle to door handle for 2nd place for the entire race. After more place changes than I can remember and some very robust racing, we ended up being bundled back down to 5th as the chequered flag came out. Once again though we showed a very very strong pace in the car and don’t forget we have had far less running than any other car on the grid due to our last minute deal.
Overall another great weekend and a great job from everybody at WDE Motorsport. And let’s not forget our great sponsors, Pulsant, Stanford Coachworks, Cube 52, Vortex Exhausts, and Paint-Tec. Thank you everyone. Can’t wait for Thruxton in two weeks time!
