Track and Race Cars Magazine Monoposto Championship Silverstone 1 August 2009 2litre Classes & 1600

A Driver's Personal View (if "view" is the right word)

Wet. That one word would be a thorough and accurate report of the Mono2000 race this weekend. However, I’ll try and expand on that from the view of a driver’s seat, and hopefully convey to those not racing just how bad it was, and perhaps reminding those that were just how awful it was at times.

Qualifying

Although it was obviously wet, there wasn’t much standing water or spray from the tyres, yet it was still soggy enough for “Wets”. But that was as certain as we could be on the setup – the only other time I drove this car in the wet was during our March testing at Snetterton, which was more of a shakedown anyway, and that particular run was plagued with battery and voltage problems. Essentially, this was the first time we’d chased any form of lap time in the wet.

I drove around, but struggled with massive understeer in the slower corners, and erring on oversteer in the fast ones (particularly Woodcote, which is barely a corner!). Coupled with this, the driver lost all presence of mind and managed to move the brake bias towards the front, and it was that incompetence that saw me lock up into Brooklands, run wide into the gravel, and be forced to do a Schumacher style recovery over the grass between gravel and barrier. No harm done, but I certainly felt a numpty.

I couldn’t see my pitboard or my dashboard, so I had no idea of times or positions, and as I got out of the car in scrutineering I was complaining about the setup, and wanting to change all manner of things. But that opinion changed, firstly when we got the results and I was 3rd, just over a second of Neil’s pace (and Neil doesn’t usually hang around in the wet), and secondly when I looked at the datalogging which told me I should have been on pole by a second if I’d managed to string a decent lap together. That meant that the car wasn’t the problem, it was the driver. Having said that, I did make a few minor changes to roll stiffness, damping and wings, but my resolve was to learn to drive the thing, rather than blame it on the car.

Race

Before 16:30 it rained and shone several times, so nobody was sure what to do until quite close to the race (is it ever any different in England?), but by the time we were called it was clearly very wet with a worsening outlook. Great...

The parade laps were fairly uneventful apart from not learning a great deal about the conditions as there was too much spray to see puddles and having Kevin Mason repeatedly overtake me. Not quite sure what his plan was, but it seemed to work in the end. We lined up on the grid, the revs rose, and Jeremy, Nick and I sat there spinning our wheels in return for very little forward motion. Neil did slightly better and actually accelerated, whilst Mr Mason, in 5th, got a flier of a start and was alongside Neil into Copse – I couldn’t see any of this, as the spray above 50mph was opaque. I think Nick got ahead of Jeremy into Copse, and I slotted in behind Jeremy, now back in 5th and oblivious to any cars behind. At Maggotts Jeremy ran wide – before the race he’d fitted ‘High Downforce’ front wing flaps and fitted his front tyres on the wrong side of the car on purpose to “find some grip. They designed the tyres wrong”, but neither seemed to help his cause – so I was back to 4th. On the back straight everyone was spinning their wheels in 3rd and 4th gear, but I think it mostly passed with incident, despite the fact that I couldn’t see very much in the spray from the leading cars. Kevin Mason was one of the ones it caught out though, and he pirouetted into the inside Armco, bending his rear wing and putting him near the back of the pack. In Brooklands for the first time, off the brakes, in the right gear and being smooth, suddenly the rear jumped out of line and around I spun.

I didn’t stall! And I wasn’t beached! But I was sat there with cars coming at me unsure of how much grip there was, so I had to wait until there was a space. This was between Barry Smith and Nick Catanzaro, so that put me down in 13th.

I had thought the spray was bad in 4th, but in 14th it was impossible. For the next couple of laps I waved at the startline to get a red flag, and I seriously considered coming in and doing a Lauda, but gradually the spray started to clear as we flicked it up into the air from whence it came. Somehow I had avoiding the red-mist from overwhelming me, probably because of excess despondency, so I settled myself in the car for a long afternoon, and started to overtake whatever I could. I couldn’t tell who most of the cars were, or whether they were being lapped, and I had no idea whether I was 8th or 18th at this point, so the following details are courtesy of the onboard camera footage.

First down was Jeremy Goodman on lap 2 according to the timing data, but I have no idea where I passed him – was he spinning on the back straight? Kevin Mason’s off into the wall at Maggotts, probably caused by his rear wing at such an angle as to give LIFT (!), and hence aquaplaning as he braked, brought out the yellow flags at the corner for a few laps. On lap 3 I passed Graham Read and discovered way more grip on the so-called ‘Karting Line’ round the outside of the corners. Lap 4 saw me pass Mick Kinghorn, and on the next lap I passed Barry Smith twice; in between he repassed me as I was slowed by Henry Fryer being safe and cautious in tricky conditions. Terry Clark was waiting for me in Brooklands, having spun in the same place I did, but it wasn’t until the start of lap 6 that I slipped ahead. Graham Probyn was driving responsibly and keeping off line (and out of the puddles), allowing me to catch a struggling Jeremy Timms in Brooklands. His struggle was such that in near identical cars I was able to drive around the outside of Luffield and come out ahead. At the end of lap 6 I was up to 7th overall and 2nd in class, but I had little idea of that in the car.

Lap 7 didn’t gain me any places, but Richard Evans and Paul Winterbottom were lapped safely – it’s not easy driving with that amount of water on the track and in the air, let along doing so whilst being lapped safely, so the standard of driving was indeed very high as the Clerk of the Course complimented. But I was still totally blind for a second or two behind them, which isn’t a comforting sensation at near 100mph! Lap 8 saw Henry Fryer – still on the track, which is no mean feat, as I can attest to! [see Cadwell Park 2008] – lapped again, plus Francis Phillips giving way on the back straight. Into Luffield, and Richard Purcell, Jim Blockley and Tony Cotton were all dispatched in one move around the outside to put me 5th at the start of lap 9. I didn’t make up any positions on lap 9, although I did have to pass David Parkinson, Mark Schofield and Geoff Fern (who wasn’t even officially on the track, having taken to the Copse run off tarmac that time around).

Braking for Maggotts, and the yellow flags were out. I could see (just!) that it was the Ans-Tech car of Nick Anstruther who, I later found out, had been leading by some 8 seconds before dropping it and ultimately stalling it as he tried to recover. Clearly he had got the car going again, and pulled on to the circuit a few seconds ahead of me. By the time we crossed the line he was 1.2 seconds ahead of me, but by hugging the pitwall so I could see (sorry to the people on the pitwall who I soaked with this trick, as I did it several times during the race!) I outbraked the Nicks of Anstruther and Catanzaro into Copse, whilst also avoiding the front wing on my racing line put there by, I think, a coming together of Barry Smith and Henry Fryer. Maybe there were yellow flags, but they weren’t visible on the pitwall side of the track, so I apologise if, technically, I passed under yellows. My Dad had heard the crunch of car on car (Smith vs Fryer), and Emma had spotted the wing so waved frantically to warn me, but I couldn’t see her (even though I passed about 6 ft away), and even if I had I wouldn’t have known what the waving meant. Still, it gives her something to do!!!

On the exit of Maggotts I got passed Lenny Coleman, doing a fantastic job in 4th place overall as I passed him (although he had been 3rd for a lap!) though the Bowman would pass him later in the lap too. Russ and I in 2nd and 3rd overall, just a second apart on the backstraight, both passed Graham Read, before I got on the brakes a little later than Russ and slid ahead into Brooklands. Through Luffield I could see a yellow car, but not who it was – could it be Neil Harrison? I had no idea, but as we crossed the line the chequered flag was out; only then did I see it was Tony “The Clutch” Davis.

I trudged round the in-lap, not aware of where I had finished (I think it was on the pitboard, but I couldn’t see that), waving at the marshals who must have enjoyed that that they could see through the spray. In to the pitlane, and suddenly I was directed to stop near race control. According to the regulations, only the winner is requested to stop here, and I was the first one to be asked to stop. So I had either won or was about to get a talking to from the CotC.
Hopping out of the car (I say hopping, but it was more of a clamber as everything was wet through) I tried to find out what had happened, and was told by a happy Magic Motorsport crew that Neil had won, I was 2nd and Russ was 3rd. But how come I’d got back to the pitlane before Neil???

The results later showed the full story – I had dropped back to 13th (14th in reality though) and 36 seconds behind Neil, but clawed my way back to 2nd, 20 seconds behind him. On that basis I feel even more stupid for such a silly spin, although as I can’t see anything on the video or the datalogging that I did especially wrong in that corner I’m at a loss as to why I spun at all. Not that that changes the facts. Neil won’t like me for saying it, but ultimately it was a question of ‘slow and steady wins the race’. He didn’t spin, crash or retire, whilst those around him did, and to finish first, first you have to finish.

But it could have been quite different. We could have been talking about a Classic 2000 outright victory (a very, very real possibility, as the softer cars are much quicker in the wet. The Reynard would have been worth, I think, another couple of seconds per lap), but Nick did a slightly tamer version of what I did last year at Cadwell. Kevin Mason, rarely able to stick with the newer Dallaras, could have romped it as he was genuinely quick in that first corner. Even Lenny Coleman, not someone you’d usually rate for outright victory, had a chance as he was running 3rd overall at one point, and it was only a rampage of youngsters on the last lap that pushed him down the leaderboard. And had I not dropped it in such a silly way maybe I’d have disappeared up the road…

And that, dear reader, is what made this race exciting – it was decided until the nanosecond Neil crossed the line. Not that we knew about it from the cockpit!

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on aquaplaning;
If you can trust your tyres when all men doubt theirs,
But make allowance for their grip too;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute [and twenty seconds]
With eighty seconds' worth of distance driven -
Yours is the Race and everything that comes with it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Mexican my son!”

Paraphrased from Rudyard Kipling’s “If”

Tristan Cliffe

19th century painter JMW Turner would have ennjoyed Silverstone - here is his "Snowstorm at Sea" looking much like Tristan's view (below)

The view from Tristan's on-board camera

We surely chose one of the best days of the year to be in the garages.

Probably David Cox and Russ Giles

It really was very, very wet

Niki Lauda withdrew from the 1976 Fuji race, thus ditching his chance of a championship win due to the monsoon conditions. Some said this was braver than Hunt continuing. This is Watson (Penske) & Schekter (Tyrrell)

Cockpit view from Tristan. We suspect photoshopping, but can assure readers that to a 53 year old asst ed with dodgy vision, in a 1600, it wasn't this clear.