Well we have now reached the halfway point of the Dunlop MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain and if you had told me at the start of the season that I would be at the top of the championship table with a lead of over 30 points I?d have been delighted. Yet I cannot help but feel disappointed after a frustrating weekend. In all of the previous 4 events I?d stood on the podium at least twice. In fact I?d only missed out on a podium finish in one race of the previous ten and that was due to a mechanical problem. But this weekend I only managed 4th and 5th place finishes in the two rounds at Rockingham Motor Speedway and whilst that may not seem a terrible result it just shows the level of expectation that we have now set for ourselves.

If it is any consolation nearly all of the usual front runners seemed to struggle this weekend; many being unable to replicate good performances in recent practice sessions and for that reason we have to think of Rockingham as something of an enigma; not that that should take anything away from two excellent drives from Tio Elinas to achieve his first wins in the championship and of course the hard work of the JTR team who did of course take a win here last year with Josef Newgarden, so maybe we should not be so surprised.

My car just didn?t want to perform at all during the two races and I was something of a sitting duck on the long sweeping straight. This was incredibly puzzling. We had set good times in the first session of Friday practice and looked to be in good shape. But struggled a little in qualifying to be only 5th & 4th on the grids of the two races and whatever our problem was only seemed to get worse through the weekend despite making several big changes to the car between the Saturday and Sunday races. So all things considered it could have been a lot worse and whilst 4th and 5th is not what we want sometimes you have just to dig deep and do the best you can. I know that I worked harder for my two finishes this weekend than I have for any of my podiums.

The team and I will now look and analyze all of the data and work hard to ensure that we are back on the pace for the next championship rounds at Silverstone on the 14th & 15th August.

It?s been a few weeks since my last blog and things have been as busy as ever! We now approach the half way stage of the championship and despite one or two problems things have gone remarkably well to date and the whole team have done a fantastic job.

The next two rounds (11 & 12) take place at Rockingham next weekend and to prepare for this we tested there last Friday. Except for half a dozen shake down laps in a brand new Juno chassis, which the team had literally finished building at the track, last December in the wet I had not previously driven at Rockingham so we were inevitably going to play catch up against all those who had experience of the track and good data to rely on. But the team worked very hard on the day sorting out a couple of issues and I was very pleased that by the 5th and final session of the day, which was also a new tyre run, we were right on the pace so I am very much looking forward to the weekend.

I was back racing in a kart on Monday with my brother Jon and other Project One Karting Team personnel to participate in a fund raising event at Buckmore Park in memory of Henry Surtees who very sadly lost his life a year ago in a tragic accident. It was lovely to see his father John there who I have enormous respect for as one of the legendary greats of motorsport and it was great to be driving at Buckmore Park again. I have very fond memories of racing with Henry in cadets ten years ago at Buckmore when we actually used to have adjacent awning space in the paddock. Lots of famous names took part including Johnny Herbert, Barry McGuigan and Bradley Smith of 125cc Moto GP fame but the emphasis was very much on fun and raising funds for the Henry Surtees Foundation with the main beneficiary being the charity Headway which John and his family and friends have done fantastic work for over the last year. Bill Sisley and Buckmore Park also need to be commended for hosting such a terrific event. I?d love to see it run every year.

So next stop Rockingham! I?ll let you know how it goes!

Bye for now

Scott