Saturday Round 3 of Super Lap Scotland - anti-clockwise
Looking at the weather forecast it was showing a hot and dry day but as we all know Knockhill has its own eco system so you just never know. I had decided to take all the aero off the car for warm up too see how the car felt without it so the canards and large rear wing were removed and just the small wing fitted. The warm up session was uneventful but the car just did not feel settled at all and unusually was under steering badly at the hairpin which the car had rarely done before. In the end I done an easy 56.1 sec fastest lap which was good for low boost and first session of the weekend.
For the Practice session I refitted the large rear wing and the canard assembly, I wanted to see if it made any appreciable difference to the main straight speeds. Again still on low boost same setting as warm up obviously so I can get a comparison. Again uneventful session car did feel more planted but track temps were coming up and tyres would obviously still have some heat in the carcass so hard to really make a true judgement beyond my gut feeling, same under steer at the hairpin tho but seemed to be the same for everyone I spoke too so probably more track related. Time was pretty much the same 56.1 wasn't pushing too hard was more concerned at trying to get a good entry onto the straight as before to test the main straight times. In the end the speeds between warm up and practice were within a few 10'ths of each other so the aero is not producing massive drag which then begs the question how effective is it again can only go with gut feeling.
It was a busy day with so many other events also on but eventually qualifying arrived, I kept the wing and cannards on, initially the track was busy and hard to get a clean run but after coming in to get the tyre pressures checked the space opened up. I was still not on full boost due to a slight issue with the car but car still felt quick, I was making to many errors, braking too early for Clark's and not getting entry to the chicane even close to correct but the final few laps felt much quicker than the previous sessions. I came into the paddock at the end of the session to find I had a 55.9 sec quickest lap, I was gutted I was sure it was a low 55 but in the end it was only 0.2 sec quicker than the earlier session laps which felt easy in comparison bizarre anyway in the end it was good enough to qualify first.
The final seemed to come round pretty quickly and I was feeling confident, the car was good but still didn't want to go with the full boost setting so went with 1.9 bar. Out lap was ok decided to push to get some heat back into the tyres, car felt quick down the main straight, still under steer at the hairpin but not as bad as before the back straight just feels so quick but so un-settled, braked too early for Clark's again so back on the power and over the kerb thrown right to the outside markers so got that not too bad, chicane was average but ok was concentrating on getting Duffus correct and into 4th and up the hill over the kerbs and oops too quick and thrown right over onto the gravel, kept the foot in but lost a bit of time there but not massive, over the line and wasn't convinced it was enough it didn't feel as quick as qualifying.
Came back round after the cool down lap to see the commentator walking towards me, always a good sign, so thought ok must have done ok there. So in the end the time of 56.0 secs was enough to take first place on the day. Its fair to say its not the time I had hoped for but given I had some issues with the car as did 2nd place John Stevenson who had a slipping clutch and 3rd place Steven Jeffries a slight misfire non of us were ever likely to set any special times on the day.
Sunday Round 4 - Clockwise
As is the case in Scotland no two days are ever the same, the forecast was for rain most of the day and the drive up pretty much confirmed that with a very overcast start to the day.
The warm up session was pretty much dry but the track temps were low same as Saturday went out on low boost and pretty much felt my way round concentrating on trying to get the entry onto duffus right and a good line through the chicane, again both areas where I lose time and just cant seem to get right. The times for the session were average but wasn't concerned as the sky was definitely blackening and as it later transpired that would be the last time we would see a dry track for round 4. The session was cut short and I only managed 5 laps but Eric Holmes run of bad luck continued with a really bad engine failure sad to see Eric out of the event with such a bad failure hopefully he will manage to get the car up and running again for round 5.
The practice session was properly wet with grip really hard to find and Duffus in particular was interesting. Everone's times were understandably slower and in the end there was only 0.6 of a second between all of us in class A which is probably a result of no one wanting to push too hard in practice given the conditions. I did however have a bit of a moment towards the end of the session, I was starting to get a bit of confidence and decided to go for a bit of a quicker lap, braked late into the hairpin hoping to carry a bit of speed through the corner which went well car stuck so floored it up the straight into 5th half way up and car felt quick, started to brake a little later than before but pretty much misjudged the extra speed and there looked no way the car was going round duffus so pressed a little more on the brakes but was concerned about locking up as the car does not have ABS, in the end that's exactly what happened, brakes locked I did a pit fo spinning around and was spat straight into the gravel at a fairly high speed when the car stopped I thought mmm think I got away with that lol so that was pretty much the end of the session, I drove round off line conscious that the car would have gravel everywhere which was the case. Massive thanks to Robert Watters, David Reid and Steven Bain as it took a fair amount of time to get the gravel out of the splitter, oil cooler ducts, brake ducts, brake calipers etc etc we ended up with a decent amount of gravel that could have been used in someones drive.
There wasn't massive damage to the car, canard outer plates were destroyed splitter bent but Rab sorted that with a wee bit of his aircraft sheet metal skills, the wider wheel were out of the picture with lots of gravel jammed between the rim and the bead on both RH wheels so had to fit the narrower spare wheels but we managed to get it all done just before qualifying was called. Not the ideal prep but at least the car was ok.
So qualifying, track was wet to start the session but the rain had gone off and as the session progressed it looked like a dry ish line was appearing but it was still very slippy and I just didn't feel like there was much grip there at all. I did try to wind the pace up a bit towards the end of the session but just couldn't get a clean lap so ended up 2nd in qualifying just 0.005 sec behind Steven Jeffries in his Evo. John Stevenson suffered a drive shaft failure right at the start of the session so didn't have time to get a decent lap in with the shaft changed just as qualifying finished.
The final was pretty much a non event, the rain was fairly heavy and the mist had rolled in making track conditions poor, the times certainly for our class were more related to keeping the car on track and in one piece as opposed to trying to set any spectacular times. In the end it finished with Steven Jeffries in first place, John Stevenson in 2nd and me in third not ideal in terms of points but to be honest the final was a lottery and all 3 of us came off feeling we could have pushed a lot harder but the track really was not ideal, All in all I have clawed backa few points on John who leads the class.
Have to say a huge well done to Colin Dorwood for his 57 sec lap which won him Pro class a really quick time in very poor track conditions.
Archie Bain
Team Racinglines Driver
Team Racinglines Driver