Below I take a more personal, and Zetec focused, perspective on this year's BRSCC Formula Ford Festival. Racing together with the Duratecs in Qualifying, initial heats and Semifinals worked well, although a bit more pace from the Zetecs would make everything even more interesting. This is not about the car itself, since it can reach 48s range laptimes, rather the level of driving. Still room to improve there!
My raceweekend started off with a reasonable Qualifying, where I ended up 4th in my heat (52.267). John Whitbourn beat me by 0.007s, and Mark Edwards with 0.15s. In the other heat Neil Tofts and Julian Hoskins came fast too, so overall I was 6th. It seemed Neil and Sebastian Nummi would be fighting for the title, whereas the last podium place would be an even match between John, Mark, Julian, myself, Lucy Wardrop and James Harris who all came in with 50...51s laps.
Heat 1 brought about a good fight, with Mark Edwards and John Whitbourn taking off ahead of me. John and I managed to beat Mark, and a few laps later I took John at McLaren/Clearways. For the remaining laps I managed to keep John at bay and reached the chequered flag in 2nd position behind Sebastian Nummi, at 2.9s ahead of John. Best laptime for me was now 51.158, so I was improving steadily. In Heat 2 Neil Tofts dominated, followed by Julian Hoskins and Lucy Wardrop.
The Semifinals got off to a messy start, with grids being altered 20mins before heading to the track. I ended up in #2 on the grid, behind Neil Tofts and ahead of Lucy Wardrop and James Harris. Neil and I got off to a good start, and from there on built a solid gap to the others. Neil took an easy win, and I got an easy 2nd. In the other Semifinals it was Sebastian Nummi at the top, followed by John Whitbourn. Not sure what happened to Julian Hoskins, as he seemed to finish quite far behind relative to his speed earlier.
Thus we were ready for the Zetec Finals! Semifinal 2 was the faster one, and thus Neil got the pole, followed by Sebastian and myself. Behind us sat John Whitbourn, James Harris, Mark Edwards, Douglas McLay, Julian Hoskins, Lucy Wardrop and Simon Butler. For me this was perfect - with Julian and Lucy (who had posted fast laps prior) further in the back the situation was very favorable. My mechanic Aleksi and I set up a race tactic built on a good start and some strong laps early on to build a gap to John Whitbourn who was clearly slower in laptimes.
The start got Neil, Sebastian and myself off well, but it was James Harris who really picked up speed. However, he was unable to capitalize on his stellar start, and thus the lead was unaltered. Neil and Sebastian went ahead, battling amongst themselves, and I followed close behind for a few laps. As Neil and Sebastian got further away from me, my focus was on building a gap to cars behind. Knowing that Julian would start to close the gap eventually, I was hoping John would keep his advance in bay. The approach worked well for the first ten laps, as I built a good 100m gap to John and posted good low 51s laps with times within a tenth or few from eachother. By lap 8 my pace was at 51.027s, and it was clear John Whitbourn did not have that pace. Throughout our testing we had not been able to reach these laptimes, so the pace was now higher than before. Our setup had focused on eliminating oversteer, and thus the front was quite stiff. Now with higher pace, the front tires started heating up and by lap 10 I was surprised by huge understeer at Clearways. Making matters worse, I had been pushing for early throttle there to build speed on Brabham Straight (and to build the gap to John), and now to my surprise I found my car pushing towards the outer edge of Clearways - and beyond... The concrete at that side is a bit sandy, and quite slippery, so my car quickly slid all the way to the speed barrier sands and soon I was bouncing up and down alongside the track. It took all the effort (and a steady throttle application) to keep the car moving, and eventually I got back on track - just in time to see John catching up with me. Sand and gravel spraying everywhere I chased John along Brabham Straight to Paddock Hill Bend, with Julian Hoskins rapidly following. For a few laps my main concern was to make sure the engine did not overheat (due to the ton of gravel I had picked up at Clearways...), and at the same time keeping the car on track at Paddock Hill Bend where the gravel from my car had made the track quite dangerous. Julian took advantage of my predicament, and passed me there. With John being slower than both Julian and me, we started pushing him and looking for a way around. Unfortunately John blocked every attempt (there were several close ones at both Paddock Hill Bend, Druids and Clearways), and thus we eventually came to the chequered flag with John, Julian and myself within two tenths of eachother. The race showed that Brands Hatch Indy is a tough track to pass on, if the leading driver chooses a heavy blocking strategy!
To sum up, I was of course disappointed not to have reached the podium finish we had in mind, but on the other hand very pleased that our Finals gave the crowd some good fighting! I learned a lot from this battle, both in terms of setup and race driving, and it was great to see that we managed a clean race without any contact despite driving so close. At the same time my pace picked up race-by-race, which was very positive. We still have to cut away a second or two to get into contention with Neil, but that is what 2010 is for, right? ;-)
