Kieran Vernon's blog

After two rounds of Palmer Audi under my belt, a new learning curve was definitely in progress! The difference with the Palmer Audi car against Formula Fords that I have been driving for the past year is the turbo charged engine! Something that I still need to get used to close that small gap to run up at the front. It is however very close, I currently lie 7th in the standings, however only 25 points separates me and 2nd place! A hard shunt out at Snetterton hindered my progress in the table, where the rear suspension gave up, leaving me with little hope of stopping into turn one.

Two top 6 finishes at Brands, and a top 5 in the spare car in the last race at Snetterton though is showing promise, and after a podium finish at Oulton in Formula Ford at the start of the year, I fancied my chances of good top 5 results.

Qualifying went well with setting the fastest time early stages, however yellow flags around the circuit made it difficult to improve without getting penalised. I improved my time slightly after a check on the tyres, however we were bumped down to 6th for both races.

Race one was very tough with the pace so even. I ran most of the race in 5th as i tried to close in on Alonso-Liste in 4th. The penultimate lap saw me make my move, using my last boost to out drag Jose down the straight into Island bend. I managed to reel in Vincent Beltoise very quickly and tried to influence a mistake but Vincent held his ground well. 4th place in the end was a very good result!

We sat in the holding area shortly before race two wondering what tyres to run! With light but constant  showers covering the Oulton Park circuit, it was a last minute call from all drivers to run wets. This was the first wet race I had done in this car, the turbo proving to be tricky to master as it kicked in, lots of sideways action would have been good to watch! My start was not brilliant with a bit too much wheel spin, as i dropped to 7th. However I managed to re-pass Melroy Heemskerk and Vincent Beltiose by the end of lap 2. later in the race Nigel Moore made a mistake forcing him to retire promoting us into 4th again. By the end stages of the race I was 2nd fastest on track, but there was not enough time to catch Alonso-Liste in front.

Two 4th place finishes at Oulton Park was a solid weekend. Progress is being made and the support from Go Fast energy drink and Mary How Trust has been brilliant. The next race is Rockingham at the end of august, be sure to be there. Tv coverage for Oulton Park will be shown on Motors TV starting this Thursday (5th August) with the onboard camera on our machine!

Many thanks everyone for reading, please subscribe to this blog and dont forget to check my profile page!

KV

Having made a great start in the Formula Ford UK championship, it was time to go and have fun in a Ginetta G50!

A G50 with 300hp, six Speed Sequential box, big and heavy was something I wasn’t used to after a whole season in Formula Ford. More power than anything I had ever driven, and more gears! However the car felt great, and I want to have another go!!

Testing went very well, considering it was my first run in the car, I managed 7th fastest. This ended up being my qualifying position on Saturday, after a good qualifying session, however I wasn’t able to get the maximum from the tyres as it was the first new set I had for the weekend.

Race one, a good start saw me 6th into turn one, and then 5th into turn two. I managed to roll up to the back of Benji Heatherington and Chris Dittman by the end of lap 3, andstarted making a challenge shortly before they safety car was brought out. Once back underway I made good use of the restart to pull alongside Chris into turn one, thew move seemed done, but as I went to turn in, I got hit by Matt Bell who had come storming down the inside with all wheels locked up. He took the front and mine, and Dittmans car out, forcing all three of us to retire, which was hugely disappointing!

Because of the DNF in race one, it meant I was to start 18th for race two! The finishing positions of race one determined race two’s grid, much to my disappointment! The race was the first in the morning, and was damp and very slippery. Another mountain for me to climb as i tried to get the hang of driving a G50 and a wet Rockingham for the first time! I made another good start, picking off two places, however the safety car weas deployed twice before racing really got underway. Having climbed to 12th from 18th the safety car helped bunch the pack up, giving me the chance to get on the back of the top 10. This proved very helpful, as I managed to take three cars on one lap, then another three on another! I was now right up there for a top 5 finish, and with the race drawing into a close I found myself in 5thposition with Tom Sharp in front. Going through the turn 1 banking for the final time i managed to outbreak Sharp into turn 2. Now in 4thposition i thought about the podium! however my team mate Adam Morgan was too far up the road with only one lap remaining. However 18th to 4th, was a proud drive from me, earning me the name ‘Vernonator’ from Jonny in the team!

4th position meant my grid position would be drawn for race three, andit turned out I was selected for P2 on the grid! A great chance to get on the podium for the final race of the weekend, which right from the word go in race one, I really felt was possible, even in my first race in a G50. Another good start chasing Julian Draper through turn 1′s banking and into turn two, where I made the mistake of leaving the door only just open enough for my team mate and championship leader Frank Wrathall to sneak down the inside. Ending the lap in 3rd,  Frank and I were hot on Drapers heels, and into Dean, Frank made his move for the lead, in which I followed through to move up to 2nd position on lap two. Frank and I then set about pulling a gap to 3rd, and were running strong at the front. I was pleasantly surprisedto find myself in a very comfortable position in P2 keeping Frank honest, that was until lap 4 when the bottom of the hub failed forcing me into retirement. This seemed a result of the incident in race one, weakened by the collision. A very disappointing end to the weekend, as a podium was almost certain.

However performing this well, on such a great package withthe British Touring cars, has really filled me with confidence, andI hope has gone down noticed of what I can do, even with limited testing. Team DynojetUK were a fantastic team to work withall weekend long, and I must thank the whole team especially Mark and Charlotte who worked very hard to get my car back out for Sunday! A big thanks also to Lawrence Tomlinson of Ginetta Cars for giving me the opportunity to be out there! I had a great time, learnt a huge amount, and I vow to sort my unfinished business one day!

Next round of the MSA Formula Ford Championship at Knockhill in Scottland, be sure not to miss it!

KV

With much publicity and promise from articles over the winter, and the opportunity to drive for Fluid Motorsport in the works Van Diemen was huge for me this weekend. I was kean to deliver, even with limited testing, with a big winter break !

Testing was all wet in preparation for the weekend, however the team and I worked well finding a good setup, and we ended the test very fast and confident of our pace in the wet. It was looking good for a weekend, predicted by all the weather forecasts to be a wash out!

However this was not the case! And for the first qualifying session of the season it was dry. I had mixed feelings about this, i was confident in the car i had and in myself, however it was my first proper dry run on the new Dunlop slicks for this season. It proved to be a difficult session, learning how the tyres performed during qualifying wasn’t ideal, and we ended up 9th on the grid.

It seemed it was going to stay dry for race one. My aim was to get to the top 5! I got a great start off the line, passing two cars into turn 1. I then managed to pass Anti Burri by the end of lap 2, leaving myself in 6th position. A spin by Josh Hill promoted me to 5th position. I could see the spectrum of Daniel Cammish in front, however i could not make any attack  on closing the gap, the car had a lot of understeer, and i was still finding my feet with the new dunlop tyres. However 5th is where i finished which was a great result for the first race of the season.

Race two was a hard chase. I got another great start, passing two cars again before turn 1, then promoted to 4thwhen Josh Hill made contact with Scott Pye, out of turn 1 missing the incident, I found myself with a huge gap where the top 3 had got away from the incident. We had made a very big change to the car for this race, to try and get rid of the understeer from race one. The car was hugely different and required me to re think how I was driving the car. By half distance I had really got my head around it and was closing down on the top 3, which were all battling for the lead. It wasnt until the last lap until I managed to reach them, and coming out of druids I managed to overtake Daniel Cammish taking 3rd spot and my first podium in Formula Ford!

Race three was a huge battle between my two team mates Jesse Antilla, James Tucker and Anti Burri in the Enigma Mygale. A race long battle of swapping places lap after lap allowed the top 2 to get away, however I was determined to make the podium once again! However on the last lap, a nudge at the end of the straight from my team mate James Tucker into Island send me wide and onto the grass, resulting in a huge off, however luckily only propping up against the tyre barrier. It could have been a big one! The car was beached on the wet grass and mud, resulting in a DNF, which was hugely disappointing.

Overall however the first round of this years championship was very promising, with the limited testing done before the season I did not expect a podium, and the aim was to get through the first round with good results to work on gaining the budget of the whole season. I feel we have achieved a huge amount and I am very hopeful that we will be able to gain the funding to compete for the full season. A big thanks to everyone supporting me and everyone who has helped to get me this far. Sitting on the grid in a TKM 5 years ago, I never would have imagined being a podium finisher in UK Formula Ford!

I headed into the Formula Ford festival with a lot of hope after arranging a drive with the works Van Diemen outfit Fluid Motorsport.

This is the best opportunity I have had all year to show what i can do. It has been tough to have the status of a Rising Star and not being able to deliver the results. However we have shown this year in a car not so competitive we can still move forward and up the grid. Working with Fluid will be the best opportunity to end the season on a high and to learn a huge amount leading into 2010.

With promising speed in testing and a growing improvement heading into qualifying, I was optimistic of a good qualifying session. However a very competitive heat sae me qualify 0.3 of a second off pole position, however in 11th spot. Last year I made my debut in Formula Ford at the festival, I qualified 0.9 of a second off and I was 9th! That is how competitive it is this year.

Heat one saw me move up into 9th position. A difficult start in a new car saw me drop to 12th, however I quickly took 11th spot back. Further moving up the grid I made a move up the inside of Benson for 9th, however we made contact causing Josh to spin off into the gravel and a bent wishbone on my car, hindering any more progress up the field.

After the contact is was very difficult to hold onto the position, however it looked tough to make any further progress anyhow, as the top 8 cars where all sitting in a train. I made the move up the inside, as Josh took his line I ran out of room, just one of those incidents that are unfrotunate.

The Semi final was a very good race, with a good start making two positions, cars up the front making mistakes, with some good overtaking manouvers to end up in 5th position. This would land me 9th on the grid for the final.

We had done well to make progress in that race, I lost the lead pack when I was behind Jake Green, however once I was past I was on my own and actually catcing the leaders as they battled between them. We have put ourselves in a good position to make progress in the final.

The final a 25 lap race would be a long one. I again made good progress from the start and sat most of the race in 7th position behind Sepp Koster. I worked together with Sepp to catch the lead pack. Having caught up the lead train, I was able to make progress from the battles in front, and as Koster tried to make a move on Gary Findlay, I managed to take advantage by taking Koster through druids. The rest of the race was hindered by heavy defending from Findlay, and with Koster right behind as well, it was difficult to really focus on getting past. A slight moment on the exit of paddock saw Koster drive over the back wheel of my car, however no damage was done.

The final lap saw Finlay and I drag race to the line, with Findlay just pipping me to the line by 0.05 of a second.

I am really happy with the result in the end, a 6th place finish at the festival with such a huge and competitive entry is fantastic, and is exactly what i needed to round off te season. I have to thank Fluid Motorsport for all their hard work this weekend and the amount i have learnt from them. They have been fantastic as a team and i really enjoyed working with them. It was a shame not to beat Findlay at the end however it was tough with the pressure from behind, and i think i did the best i could have done in that situation. I am really looking forward to next year now as i have proved to myself now that i can content in this division.

The aim of the weekend now we draw to the end of the season is to ensure we finish and score points to hold second in the championship. With a non finish in the last round, it meant Fabio Gamberini has closed on us in the points, however we just need to finish behind him to stay safe. I have never really liked racing for points, however we had some incredibly close racing in both races.

Race one I had a clutch problem at the start, where the car started moving on its own as the clutch disengaged itself, the only thing i could do was stop the car, which caused the engine to stall. I moved off the grid eventually in last place, however there was a first lap shunt at Druids which brought out the safety car. I got a good restart however i got held up by the Ray infront, and was lagging a bit behind, however i managed to catch the back of the pack and started to pick them off. I managed to work my way through the Scholarship runners up to Third place, however on the way i had managed to find myself in P12 overall which is a fair result from the back. In the closing stages we caught Fabio Gamberini however there was not enough time to try and make a pass, so settling for the points behind him was good enough as that was all we needed to do.

Race two was very exciting, the whole race was a battle between the Scholarship class. Without the start issue this time, i was able to battle Gamberini and Benson for the lead of the class, however Benson and Gamberini were going hard at it and at one stage it looked as though it was going to end in tears, so i took a step back and watched it upfold, whilst holding off De Zille behind. Eventually Benson got through, and this let me challenge Gamberini, however this was very difficult whislt being attacked from De Zille also. Gamberini was defending very aggresiveley knowing he had to beat me to stand any chance of taking our postion in the championship, so i decided to sit there and let him make the mistake, which he did however he rectified it by putting me on the grass! so i decided third was good enough rather than a non finish, and a good weekend of points is all we need to ensure we stay second in the standings.

Next race is at Castle Combe on the 3rd – 4th of October.

After a promising test at Brands a few weeks before the event, we were quite confident we would be able to challenge for strong results. We were hoping to show well for the biggest crowd of the year at the DTM event, which is one I have been looking forward to all year, Brands Hatch is where I achieved my first car win in Junior Ginetta’s in 2007!

Qualifying was our usual performance, just under a second away from the pace, and P16.

Race one was a disappointment, a good start saw us leading our class at the end of lap one, however there seemed to be an electrical problem, with the car holding back momentarily out of the corners. I was slow down the straight, but was able to maintain my position for a few laps, however the problem got worse as the race went on, and I quickly started losing positions as I got driven by as if I was in my Junior Ginetta again!

To add insult to injury, Mark Harper missed his braking point going into Druids, and hit the rear of our car, damaging the rear wishbone and right Driveshaft, making the car very difficult to drive even at our slow speed! We ended up last of the runners, in 20th position.

Race two was the highlight of the year, a hard race with good pace but not quite enough to challenge for the lead of the class, made it very frustrating to watch, however I bided my time and watched Jake Green and Josh Benson battle it out. I was safe in 3rd as I was slowly dropping Dan Cammish behind.

On the Penultimate lap, I managed to get behind them, and as Josh made a move on Green into Druids, I pounced, and as Benson took Jake wide with him, I took the inside line and passed both of them, and nailed the lap of my life to pull away whilst they sorted themselves out, the last lap was the slowest ever, as we took the flag for the first time this year in the Scholarship class! It was great to stand on the podium again, especially in front of the DTM crowd!

Race three unfortunately we were cut short of making a repeat of race two. After a safety car period, I took advantage of the closed field to overtake Dan Cammish into Surtees, and then immediately after overtake Dan De Zille into Clearways, we had moved up the field well and were looking for another great result. However starting the next lap, Dan De Zille missed his braking and hit our car directly from the back, lifting the back wheels off the floor and putting me into a spin down Paddock, into the gravel and out of the race, thus bringing out another safety car. It was a disappointing way to end a weekend that had such a high point with such a low.

However we are very proud to become the first winners with a Spirit in the British Championship, and it is testimate to all of Wrensports hard work on the car, and much work to get the car out on track ever race, with our limited budget. It was great to be back on the Podium, and I hope we can make it back there next round, at Brands Hatch this time on the GP circuit.

Please check back soon on our progress!

KV

After an engine blow in the workshop and a missed test, the only track time available was Friday, running in the engine in session one, then getting to grips with the track and car is session two. Then it was straight into qualifying on Saturday.

For Qualifying, 17th on the grid was the best we could do. Race one however went well, work on the cars setup improved the car dramatically with traction out of the slow corners, and gained a lot of time respectively to the leaders, picking off the field and avoiding a first lap pile up into the abbey hairpin, 11th place was the result.

Race two was an average race, getting held up at the start, and problems with severe tyre drop off meant only 14th position, however our pace was good to run with the top 10 battle mid way through, and we had set a good time to move us up the grid for race three.

Race three started with a small incident, as Josh Benson got flicked up into the air, Jordi Cunill slowed which saw me hit him and destroy the nose cone, however the car was still ok, and we kept going. As we moved up the field taking advantages of others battles I found myself in 10th position, challenging for 9th.

However, the stewards had deemed the front of my car dangerous, as they thought the rest of the nose may fall off, and the crash structure has been damaged, they pulled me in with three quarter distance covered. It was deemed the car was safe after a check and they let me back out, however the damage had been done, I kept pushing but with such a huge gap to make up, 19th was the result.

It was a difficult weekend, a huge dent in the budget with the engine blowing up in the workshop, due to a stone caught in the Cambelt, however we made good progress with the car during the weekend, and made a good impression in race one, and race three looked even more promising until the Flag came out.

A big thanks to Wrensport for all their hard work once again!

Next Race, Brands Hatch with the DTM! Check back soon!

KV

Donington was a mixed reaction as far as the weekend went, qualifying was our best of the season in p14, with the field being so close this year even being 0.8s off the pace at Knockhill, I still lined up 17th! so 14th was good, but we thought we should have had a bit more pace in the car.

However in race one it seemed our race pace was better, with many battles throughout the race I managed to claw my way up to the top 10 and the battle for 9th, a last 3 laps dash and I managed to pass liroy Stuart out of redgate, and then Rogier De Wit into the chicane, and I took the flag in 9th position, a great result for us to be in the top 10 again.

Race two was looking even more promising, running around p10 once again, working with Fabio Gamberini to work our way up to the next pack, which also had Dan Cammish battling, so it looked like for the first time this season that the Scholarship win was within reach!

With around 3 laps to go, Patrick McKenna spun at starkys, and it caused a lot of trouble for the cars behind, Cammish, De wit and myself had to take the grass, and caused us to spin because it was wet, this in turn damaged our rear suspension as the spin was so violent at around 120mph+!

It was a real shame as from what could have been P8 and a win turned into dead last, but I just focussed on the next race to try and get another strong result, we had put a good lap time in and had qualified just outside the top 10 for race three.

Race three however it rained, and we also had a problem with repairing the suspension, with the lack of our budget meaning we can’t carry many spares, and for an odd component to bent, we had to make do with re aligning it, it made the car tricky to drive in wet conditions im not very familiar in a Formula Ford, however it was good experience to get some wet running, and we still managed to finish in 4th in our class.

The next race at Silverstone should be good, we hope to do some testing before and Silverstone is one of my favourite Venues.

After a best result of 7th at Knockhill the previous round, things were looking to be moving forward with the car and at Snetterton we were hoping for more top 10 results.

Qualifying was a struggle as we lacked a towing partner, all the teams used each other to pull a lap time out, and made it very difficult for us one car teams to get high up the grid, a result of P16 was the best we could do at 1.2 off the fastest time.

In race 1 I made a good start and made some places down the straight, but at the end of lap one I got the smallest of taps from behind in turn one which put me onto the marbles then off the road, I rejoined at the back, but luckily for me the safety car came out.

At the restart I tried to make as many positions as I could on the first green lap, by the end of the race I managed to claw my way back up to 15th, which was a good recovery however I was catching a pack of five cars in front all battling, so it seemed p10 is what could have been..

Race two I started well and had very good pace throughout the race, lapping only 0.5s of the leaders pace, which put me 11th on the grid for race three. I finished 14th however pace was looking good for race three.

Race three was a good result, we couldn’t run the big teams up front however a race long battle with Josh Hill, Gavin Halls and Fabio Gamberini made it very exciting. All of us where nose to tail for the duration of the race. I sat in p13 for most of the race, but on the last lap I managed to take advantage of Hills move on Halls, and I managed to take both of them, coming out of the esses and into the Bombhole, which gave me P11 for the finish.

The next round at Donnington Park is sure to be another strong weekends showing!