Silverstone – 18th of August 07
Sunshine and showers were forecast on Saturday and for once the weathermen had it spot on.
At 4am I awoke to the sound of rain drumming on the lorry roof and felt sorry for my poor car left outside, albeit it under a tarp! We had two decent spells of rain and even though it had stopped by the time my alarm went off we were all faced with a very greasy circuit!
This meant qualifying was great fun, synchronised sliding round corners, playing dodge the spinners and find the grippy bit! I seriously do like wet weather – probably because my car is very forgiving and I had a lot of fun. Unfortunately speed not fun was what counted and with a drying track I failed to make the most of the last three laps. This was mainly due to bad luck – yellow flags, spinners and recovering spinners and my mistaken belief that if I just braked later I’d go faster!! This resulted in some fun sideways action but not much forward motion!!
I ended up 29th out of 39 on a mixed up grid. The race itself was dry and I made a good start. For the first few laps I worked hard at keeping station as I battled to overtake those ahead of me and got overtaken by some of the front runners who’d found themselves behind me. This was to be a race of attrition though and the first half of my race was spent dodging accidents and spinners. Finally a big three car accident right in front of me caused a red flag. Luckily everyone was OK if a bit bruised and knocked about.
I’d moved from 29th to 24th by the restart but had a big gap to the cars ahead on the grid. This gave me chance to make another good start (I’m learning!) and was very pleased to have caught the cars in front by the first corner. Unfortunately more accidents were to follow leaving most corners with yellow flags being waved on them. This made a battle with Jason like high speed chess as we both played spot the green flag / overtaking chance! He beat me in the end and we finished 21st and 22nd. Not my best finish but a fun days racing.
Thanks to all the Marshals and Medics who looked after everyone so well.
VIPA Racing 