Brands Indy race report 14th June 08

Another very good result for the team, tinged with a spot of avoidable bad luck for we actually won the class 2 race on track, but were demoted to 2nd place as a result of a pit stop, “short time” penalty. Some consolation came from achieving 7th overall as a race finish, but class wins are where the points are.

The Friday test day threw up a few problems for the car seemed to be down on power and there was no obvious reason for it. We plugged away at the problem and eventually found that we were operating on 85% throttle so with a 30 second adjustment, we were back to full power. Throughout the sessions we were also well aware of a rear end grip problem, she just wanted to break away under the slightest of pressure, something we had not experienced before with the car and something of a brain teaser. We tried several adjustments here and there but nothing really helped so in the end we had to settle for a fairly under steering car in order to give us as much rear grip as possible and just hope for the best.

Saturday was race day and qualifying would test our set up solution. Even with new rubber, the car was no better then on the test day, this was disappointing but not a complete surprise. Jan started the session and as agreed did his three laps minimum and handed the car over to Rod who was to do much the same. The idea behind this was to give Jay the most time in the car for if anyone could squeeze a decent lap time out of her, he could. He did his level best and took us down to the low 50’s but that was all the car would yield without a real risk of an “off”. Our competitors in class 2 got down to the mid 49’s, some 5/7 tenths quicker so we knew that the car set up was the problem as opposed to the drivers, for Jay is quite capable of being much quicker and both Jan and Rod have clocked up mid 49’s in the past where as on this occasion low 51’s was as good as it got.

The 3 hour race was started by Jan and as per normal he was soon up with our class 2 competitors and placed us 2nd in class. The race was however plagued by safety car periods so any gains made were soon eaten up, Jan came in for a fuel and driver change after about an hour and Rod took over. One lap into Rod’s stint, and another safety car, and as luck would have it our main competitors had yet to make their first stop, so took full advantage of the time to be saved. The race resumed some time later and towards the end of the stint, the tyres were going off badly having now covered about 2 hours and getting close to useless, Rod could no longer hold off the Virgin 911 car so conceded 1st place, which he had inherited from the no 50, Dom Evens car after his brakes failed and forced an “off” at paddock. Rod continued but it was soon obvious that lap times were dropping and the 911 Virgin car was escaping into the lead, Rod pitted for fuel and new tyres and handed over to Jay Shepherd. Within a few laps, yet another safety car, Jay now had the 911 Virgin car just behind him but in real terms a lap ahead. Once the safety car was called in, Jay set about the task of un lapping himself and what followed was one of the most exciting 50 odd minutes of racing that class 2 had seen in a long time. Lap by lap and second by sec, Jay hunted down the Virgin car and with only 13/14 minutes to go he got it, battled for a couple of laps and then delivered the killer blow, we had done it and we were back in 1st place, not a second too soon as it turned out for with 10 mins to go, out came the red flag and the race was brought to a premature halt. Had we taken first place at least one lap before the red ??? The rules on red flags dictate that the race finish positions will be defined as the position 1 lap before the red flag, but we were clear, just, so with a great cheer for a great drive we started to celebrate the win.

However, rumours of pit stop, time problems started to circulate and our car was under investigation, this turned out to be a bitter pill as we had indeed run short of the mandatory pit stop times and therefore had to accept a penalty that pushed us back into 2nd place and gifted the win back to the Virgin car. This was a fair and correct decision and we have only ourselves to blame, so the timing duties will now be strictly adhered to so that we don’t suffer this type of penalty again.

Silverstone next, we still have the championship and class lead but are only clear by 15 points and there is a real risk that the double points joker card yet to be played by the Virgin 911 car could see us back to 2nd place. We will do our best to pick up the extra quickest laps points in both the race and qualifying sessions during the next few rounds as it really could come down to one or two points in the end, fingers crossed !!!