Snetterton Qualify Session

Practice for the double header at Snetterton was run in good weather conditions on the Friday morning of the Easter weekend. I had the car all ready the night before so it was just a matter of driving a sum total of 10 miles down the road, parking, unloading and chatting with the other drivers. Feels strange not having to do any last minute alterations and to be honest it felt good as well. Scrutineering went fine if a little slow and just resulting in me needing to put some cable ties around the fire extinguisher straps. Simple.
Aim for Qualify was to run at a steady pace, concentrating on Turns 1 and 2 and then build up, using the new DD2 lap times to help me improve. I knew I could do very low 1:20's so was looking for a mid to low 1:19 to put me near the front.

Well I started by clocking in some banker laps and found some clear track which I have not found too hard so far. There are some other drivers who have stated this to be a problem.
The weather was really quite good, cool which is good for the engines, sunny and with a tail wind down the back straight. The tail wind meant that I was on the rev-limiter @ the end before hitting the brakes for the Esses.
First session with the DD2 showing lap times (thanks for Alistair for the new sensor) and more importantly showing sectors times as well. I was very surprised to see a 1min 18 lap show up on the display and it crossed my mind that I might have something still wrong with the configuration. I had expected to get into the 1min 19's but not the 18's!
I did a slightly cooler lap to help the oil temp go down a little and then went for another fast lap. Bam, another 1min 18 :) Time for one final lap before the end of the session but I got held up with a backmarkers and was not decisive enough with my pass and lost some time. That lap had started with some improved sector times before I aborted so there is definitely more speed to come there.

anyway that meant 2 laps in the 1:18's which was fantastic and resulting in pole for class for both races and more surprisingly by almost 1 second over the other competitors. Only thing between me and a good position then will be my starts which I need to work on. I have only done 1 race start before and it was only just OK.

Hopefully class A cars will all clear off and leave a nice clean track in front. Unfortunately Paul has a gear linkage cable problem and only had his banker laps recorded so he is going to have some fun climbing up through the pack during the races, the second one on Saturday in particular.