Hi all,
Thanks for reading my most recent blog looking back on Oulton Park and on to Croft.
The team went into the weekend with a lot more optimism having both tested at Oulton in the five week break before the race. The regulations have changed so that we can now have the car setup to how we had it during our pre-season. This has made a huge difference to the car for us and straight out the box Carl was back on the good form we have grown used to seeing.
This provides the perfect environment for me to be learning in now. Having Carl’s data is really useful and it allows me to improve in a car that only needs to be changed slightly from a basic setup.
A personal aim of mine at Oulton was to sort my qualifying out. This has been a big issue for me so far this year and I was hoping to lay down a good marker. On my out lap things did not start well with my wiper flying off:
We decided to continue and two laps later this happened:
The car started to brake pretty well. Then I must have hit the puddle flowing down to Old Hall, consequently aquaplaning off into the wall. I was so frustrated as it now meant that the United boys had to work flat out all afternoon to get the car ready.
They did a faultless job though and the car felt and looked great for race 1. I would also like to thank the medical team at Oulton who were absolutely first class and also to Alice Mackenzie of Official Sports Services, who helped me manage my neck for the rest of the weekend.
I was pretty pleased with the way we bounced back in the first race. I had a good start and went from P8 to P6. A few laps later Oliphant made an error at Cascades which allowed me through to P5. By the end of the race I was on the back of Jamie Orton and David Pittard but I did not make a good enough move to consolidate the places.
The second race was a bit of an odd one with all the creeping from a majority of the grid. Again we made a good start but I had quite a lot of heavy contact going into turn one which put me back down to my starting position. I kept my nose clean through the race and I was happy to end up P3, albeit with a larger gap than I would have hoped to P1.
Since the weekend Carl and I have been for a test at Croft. This was my first time at the track and I absolutely loved it. The car continued to perform brilliantly on a day that was very productive. With the help of Rob Bell and Gary Robertshaw, who is chief engineer on one of our BTCC cars, we consistently lapped at a great pace, using last years qualy times as a reference. I look forward to the next round and hopefully we can continue to consistently narrow the gap to the frontrunners.
Cheers,
Luke
