Before we start, a long overdue thanks to Joshua Barrett, Michael Barrett, Phil Lee, Adam Lines, Ashley Bryant, Jon Elsey and many others who all provide some excellent images for us to live through following race events. Your work is very much appreciated.
More thanks to all of the PDC team who travel the length and breadth to support the on track activity. So many things happen at a race weekend and none of it would be possible without the non driving support.
Onto Snett, and sometimes its simply about how much you want it….
Jason Wood has grown by the race and is now rightly regarded as a regular in the top ten. Such is his desire to improve he used Saturdays Road sports session as a test for Sundays classic Stock Hatch races coming away with another 2 x top tens. His car control was notable this weekend saving many a slide as he hounded team mate Martin. Mega Consistency sees him 8th overall from the 34 championship entrants with a top 10 now a guarantee.
Martin Rodgers was back to his aggressive best. He shared the Road sports race with Jason to get his eye in and it paid dividends as he took 2 excellent 8th places to close the gap on Jason to just 4 points in the championship. Martin is 9th from the 34 entrants and is looking forward to the final round at Silverstone this coming weekend.
Pete Osgerby had planned to test to get used to the long Snetterton layout as he continues to pursue the Novice title. Sadly for Pete car trouble killed off his testing so his first outing at Snetterton was qualifying. With times improving all weekend he came 17th and 18th respectively in the two races. I’ll take a monster effort to take the title from Kelsall this weekend at Silverstone but he is up for the fight.
Onto the Porsche….and for this we credit Pip Hammond, Esther Quaintmere and the pit crew.
Gavin made a tough decision following qualifying, it hadn’t gone well on lap times and in the south east rain he was well under the weather. Unwell and not at his best Gavin stepped down with the team in mind and Pip Hammond stepped up for the first solo drive of the season. Read his view of things here……
PIP HAMMOND
2nd in class and 9th overall at Snetterton in changeable conditions tells a successful story but there was more to it than that.
The Boxster is a lot of fun to drive in the wet, even if the reason it is fun is also the reason it isn’t quite ideal for the rain!
From 4th on the grid I got aggressive and took the class lead, holding it for a lap before losing the position but remaining in a top 3 squabble for the opening 15 minutes or so. The more it dried, the less I could match the leaders as power became more prevalent and we gradually dropped back to 4th.
We, like many others started on wet tires and by the mid point in the race this was no longer optimal. We were resigned to running the distance trying to preserve tires when the team (Esther) got on the radio confidently stating they could change tyres in under 3 minutes.
We’ve never changed tires in race before as a team. It doesn’t sound like a big deal but it’s a lot of pressure on a volunteer group! Nevertheless the team was assembled and the guys and girls were ready when a fortuitously timed safety car made it an easy decision.
With the wet running and safety car period we hadn’t used nearly as much fuel as normal. So with an eye on the four tire change and a driver call we pulled the fuel having delivered just SIX litres. This gave more time and freed up refuellers Rich and Paul for fitting MRF Motorsport Tyres but left us no safety margin for fuel, with consumption likely to increase as the track dried. We beat the safety car to the end of the pitlane so it was job done and an amazing effort!
The second half of the race was a little more lonely. Whilst we had gained a position through the pit cycle, we couldn’t see either 2nd or 4th place on track. Esther did a great job on comms, keeping us aware of the gaps forward and back - meaning we could catch the LaMaster Lotus ahead at a pace that wasn’t too harsh on the car, whilst maintaining distance to the cars behind. All this whilst hunting for grip on a rapidly drying track. We made the pass the about 7 laps to go and then had to ramp up fuel saving efforts. Laptimes improved by over 20 seconds over the second stint with a lot more on-throttle time and therefore fuel use. It meant Esther had to keep reminding me to save fuel, even when Cheetham was charging back through the field after a long pitstop!
2nd was a great result, especially against our closest rivals in the championship and gives us the best shot at retaining a top 3 position in the championship with 1 round to go
A top 3 in the championship would be a remarkable recovery after the way our season started and the transition to running our own car - it’s been a bit like going racing with hands tied behind our backs. But we’ve made changes to make the car better to drive - adding aero and introducing in-race tire changes. The team at PDC has really delivered and continuously develop.
A special thanks to #SRElectrical who acquired the parts we needed to make repairs following the Oulton Park event - it made a big difference to the way the car handles!