This was our first and likely last race of 2022, however it was a great weekend.
Qualifying was on a damp and greasy track however was easily dry enough for dry tyres. We were on out semi slick tyres whereas some of our competition were on proper full slick tyres giving more performance.
However, we managed to get an 8th overall in class out of 25 with a 57.5s lap and on our first ever proper trip to brands hatch I’ll take that.
This meant we were in group A for the racing, so we had a race Saturday afternoon and Sunday Morning.
Race 1 – Saturday
The track was pretty much dry now, although still a bit greasy in places especially on the entrance into clearways which was the last corner.
We were starting 13th overall on a grid of 31.
We managed to get a good start and gained 2 places on the first lap. Then gained another place on lap 2 putting us into the top 10.
There was then a spinner in front of us on lap 3 moving us up to 9th overall and 4th in class, this however then brought out the safety car for the next 3 laps.
At the restart we had 2 cars of Lewis Clark and Chris Baker both also in class B on our tail which meant we had a fight on our hands to keep 4th place in class B. we managed to hold them both off for 5 laps and then a small mistake into clearways the last corner meant Lewis got along side and through into paddock hill bend, with Chris also trying to get up the inside, we then put our car around the outside of Druids hairpin which meant we could keep Chris behind, unfortunately Lewis locked his brakes down into graham hill bend putting us off line and slow on the exit, Chris then managed to out drag us up to Surtees and after that our front tyres just went away and they both pulled clear.
We therefore ended up 6th in class and 11th overall, with a best lap of 56.2s which meant we had beaten our target time before the event of a 56.5s even with the handling not as we wanted it due to quite severe Understeer on turn in, but nevertheless we were happy with the result.
Saturday night we made a few changes to the car set up to try and help the understeer from race 1, however with the weather turning overnight we weren’t able to truly test it, although it did feel sort of better.
Race 2 Sunday morning was quite wet.
For this one we started 14th out of 32.
Again, we got a good start gaining 2 places on the first lap, but then lost 1 again on the second lap, unfortunately again there was a spinner bringing out the safety car.
After the restart we gained another place back in the next 2 laps before pushing too hard and loosing the back end going into Surtees, we managed to catch it, although this put us offline and over the grass. We opted to re-join in a safe place after the last corner which sadly meant we dropped all the way down to 21st place.
This left us 4 laps to climb back through the field, which we were doing at a good rate of meaning we got back up to 15th overall at the finish, and almost into 14th but not quite as was only 0.297s behind at the finish.
Whilst not the result we were looking for as a podium was on if we had stayed on the track due to holding 3rd place at that point, but it was good experience and the first time we had driven the car in the wet in its current configuration.
Massive thank you to our build partner AJU Motorsport for building the car and supplying all parts,
Squishy Detailing for the cleaning products to keep the car shiny
SuCo Designs for the awesome Stickers/Decals
Alloy Magic Poole for refurbishing our wheels
SH Mobile Tyres for fitting our race tyres.
Bring on 2023 season and hopefully a lot more racing.
If you want to get involved with the team via sponsorship get in touch with adam@underhill-racing.com