Brands Hatch GP - 12th April 2013 - PBMW Rounds 3 &4

Reflecting on the weekend a couple of days after and I think the only positive thing I say take away is that a few worthwhile lessons were learned.

Firstly even though Friday testing was restricted to indy circuit we should have done it just to check all was well with the car. Unfortunately jury service had meant that I couldn't do the test day on the GP circuit the week before so qualifying was always going to be compromised.

Secondly don't change / upgrade major suspension components or settings and just assume it will be better, I cannot believe how differently the car drove.

Unfortunately the car sustained a little damage to the rear quarter on the Saturday when being driven by Ben Woodcock in the P8RS race, a some what unnecessary and desperate dive up the inside by another driver has left us with a reasonable bill for fixing the car, annoyingly no attempt to wander over and apologize was made which in my opinion was more annoying than the move itself.

Come Sunday that was all put behind me as I was looking forward to my first chance to drive the Grand Prix circuit at Brands Hatch, The first few laps of qualifying was just about learning the circuit by about the 5th lap I was just about starting to get to grips with the GP loop and was looking like getting a more reasonable time when coming across Steve Murphy stranded upside down in a gravel trap on the GP loop, quite rightly the red flags were out seconds later but this meant what I'm sure would have been a better lap wasn't finished.

Speaking to people about suspension settings before the first race we set the shocks to 12 rear and 9 front which seams to be a reasonable place to be, however come the race it was quickly apparent that the shocks, in particular the rears were far to hard, we struggled with a little understeer followed by pretty bad oversteer, ending in a spin at Paddock Hill.

Ended up finishing 2nd to last which was my worse result to date.

Before race 2 we softened the suspension taking it down to 5 on the rear and 6 on the front, results were slightly better and had a couple of fun battles at the back of the field. Still went away slightly disappointed but I guess that's just the way it goes some days.

A little research is needed in order to look into the suspension settings and at least 1 trackday and testday prior to the next round at Oulton Park, fingers crossed that we can start to improve.