Anglesey 19/20 August 2006

Angelsey circuit, which is located in North Wales, known to many as the television 5th Gear test track, is in the process of a major track extension which will transform the place from a short narrow circuit with little overtaking chances, to what could well be the best circuit layout in the UK. It is planed to have very fast sweeping corners following the coastline as well as major elevation changes and we are all looking forward to racing on the new layout when completed in 2007. At the moment the track is a bit of a building site with large earth mounds in the place of run off areas and mud and dust lying everywhere off the racing line.

The weekend weather forecast had been grim, downpours of biblical proportions were expected and my car wasn’t built by Noah. Fortunately the rain held off for the morning practise session on Friday and we managed to do a lot of meaningful testing on wing settings. After the lunch the rain did arrive and whilst on a fast run I had to go offline to overtake a slower car which resulted in my tyres being covered in mud from the earth moving trucks. The inevitable happened and the test session ended with my car sliding backwards into the pit wall in a 70mph parking manoeuvre which smashed the carbon fibre rear wing.

The boys worked hard to repair the car and we were ready for Saturdays qualifying and race despite the delay due to bad weather which reduced Qualifying to 4 laps. In any case we were very happy to qualify in P2 and wait for a decision on when or if the delayed race would start. Finally the clouds parted and the sun came out for a dry race.

At the start both Jeremy Timms and Geoff Fern jumped the start and overtook me into the very fast downhill turn 1. As we all charged back up the hill towards the blind entry chicane at Radar Geoff (on rain tyres) spun in front of my car. The only avoiding action I could take was through an earth mound which fortunately with all the rain was like driving through soft topsoil. I managed to keep the car running and emerged through the dirt in last but one place only to spin at the next corner as all the dirt poured out of my side pods under braking for the hairpin. This resulted in a 360 degree spin and I was very happy to see the red flags out as I recovered to the circuit. The red flags were deployed whilst the marshals cleared Geoff’s car from radar and we all returned to the start finish line for a restart in original grid positions.

My re-start was much better and I held an aggressive line into turn 1 to make sure neither the recovered Geoff Fern nor Jeremy Timms could overtake me. Mark Harrison, the championship leader and pole position man was in the lead followed by my car, Timms, and then Fern as we made a break from the rest of the field. I spend the duration of the race all over Marks car trying to force an error and almost got past him a couple of times. Unfortunately for me Mark showed why he is the current champion and made his Dallara F3 as wide as possible. We eventually crossed the line side by side at the finish with Marks car ahead by a nose with Jeremy Timms in third.

On Sunday we were looking forward to a good qualifying and another strong race but when I left the pits for Qualifying I could instantly feel there was something wrong with the car. Where on Saturday the car felt very balanced the car now felt as if it had no grip at all. A red flag incident stopped the qualifying session and I was surprised to learn that I was in P2 just 0.3 seconds behind Jeremy Timms provisional pole time. On the re-start Timms spun at turn two and the yellow flags came out. Given the need to slow for the incident I was very surprised to learn that many other competitors had set faster lap times when my own time was 2 seconds slower due to the safety incident.

I lined up in P4 for the race and was unable to gain any places on the start. Mark Harrison who had been on pole had a bad start and was in third behind Timms and Fern. For the first few laps I was able to keep up the pace with the lead three cars but very soon high speed oversteer and a general lack of grip (as felt in qualifying) left me struggling in 4th for the rest of the race.

Marks win consolidates his place at the top of the championship and with 5 races left in the championship I need to beat Jeremy Timms twice to guarantee second.