Just back from my first ever car race meeting, at Oulton Park, in Cheshire. Which to my surprise stayed completely dry, after the awful forecasts leading up to the Easter weekend.
My aim going into the weekend was to have three top 10 finishes, which I exceeded.
I had a hard qualifying session, as when I had found myself a piece of clear track and had warmed up the car, someone?s engine had dumped it?s coolant on the track. Having said that my three fastest laps left me 10th, 10th and 9th on the grid, for the races, right where I needed to be to achieve my goal.
I had a good start on Race 1 from 10th on the grid, leaving me in 7th by the end of the lap. I then spent the majority of the next few laps defending from a hungry pack to keep my place, but by lap 6 I was back on the attack having closed Josh Hill down, son of World Champion Damon Hill, and pulled away from the following pack. I managed to squeeze past around the outside on the brakes into Cascades, only to toe josh down the straight and back past me into Shell. Unfortunately my race was cut short when I kissed the inside tyre wall at Knickerbrook, bending my wishbones, force my early retirement. However in the race I set a lap time a full second quicker than my qualifying time.
Race 2 and again I managed a good start, dragging myself from 10th on the grid up to 6th by the end of the first lap. On the second lap a good exit from Britten?s gave me a chance to attack, second year driver, Philippe Layac over Hilltop and down into Knickerbrook, taking me up to 5th place. However this left me 8 seconds behind the leader. I chassed the lead pack down the whole race setting the 2nd fastest lap of the race, at the end of the 11 laps I had reduced the gap to only 4 seconds, crossing the line in 5th only 5 hundredths of a second off 4th.
In Race 3 I did not manage such a great start only retaining my 9th place grid position. However I kept my head down and kept pushing, slowly picking of cars one at a time to claw my way up to 5th by the end of the race. Showing my exit speed from the corners by being the fastest through all 3 sector speed traps and putting in the 3rd fastest time of the day.
My efforts through the weekend were acknowledged by the head of Ford Motorsport Europe awarding me the Spirit of the Weekend Award, ?We have been very impressed with James this weekend, his positive attitude and great performance on track. I think he has a great future ahead of him and in the championship this year and this award is a reflection of that.?
This has left me 7th in the Dunlop MSA British Formula Ford Championship, higher than if I had achieved my goal of three top 10 finishes, so I am very happy with my performance and really looking forward to the next race at Knockhill, a track where the Van Diemen Chassis is notorious.
I would like to thank the team, Fluid Motorsport in particular my mechanic, Joe Abreu, engineer Sam Owen, and team boss, Lindsay Allen, for all their hard work and help they have put in the last few weeks.
