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We teamed up again with the Bernie's V8 series to max out the grid for the Brands Hatch GP circuit.
The meeting nearly didn't go ahead due to the no. of marshalls needed at Silverstone for the F1 but the clerk of the course managed to make it work with reduced no's and a clear message to drivers to keep it on the black stuff.
Qualifying went very well - with our car setup unchanged from Anglesey. Mike did his mandatory 3 laps and handed over to Garry to try and set a time for the grid postion.
After a banker 1st lap which would have qualified us in approx 20th, the safey car was out for 2 laps for a car in the gravel. It started raining but not quite enough to affect the track - you have to mentally block it out so you don't slow down unnecessarily.
After we went green again, dropping back to find some space worked and we crossed the chequered flag with a 1m46.0 time. This jumped us to 10th overall and 2nd in a bumper class of 15 Boxsters amongst the 46 car grid. A decent time given we only had 3 flying laps.
Race
If qualifying was a great success, our race was the opposite. A band of rain was forecast right about our race time and it started just as we needed to head to the assembly area. We dithered over changing to our wet tyre set banking on the rain being light or at least short. Once we were in the assembly area it was obvious it was neither and a 15min delay to our start time only soaked the track further.
After good start holding position on the first lap , it was evident we couldn't run with the pace of others who either chose the right tyre or at least had tyres which coped better with standing water. We slipped back position by position and resigned ourselves to just keeping the car on track (which was pretty testing at times) and ensuring we finsihed.
Our pit stop was leisurely and although a drying line had appeared in places by then the Nangkang tyres just don't like any sort of damp conditions.
We finished down in 25th place, 2 laps down on the leaders. The silver lining was a final novice driver race signature for Mike which will allow him upgrade his licence to 'Race National' level & is now eligible to race at Spa later in the year.
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In hindsight we knew our tyres were no good in any sort of damp or wet conditions. We had tested them at Snetterton over a whole range of wet conditions., so it should have been a very easy decsion to run with our Michelin tyres. We will learn!
Full Race Onboard Video
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