Brands Hatch June 22nd Telemetry Analysis

So a little post race weekend reflection and analysis by reviewing the telemetry from the DL1.

In summary, I have managed to improved my best sectors through paddock and clearways at Brands during the qualify session. In the first race I managed to improve on my best sector for druids. The Graham hill and Surtees sectors however were quite a bit slower than pre-season testing back in April.

Through Graham hill for example, my best this weekend was during Race 1 with a 8.21 seconds, some .2slower than fastest which was set in April testing.

Its a similar but worse picture for Surtees, my best in race 1 was 9.83, in fact I did a few at that pace over the weekend but that does not compare too well to pre season testing for that sector at 9:45 - almost half a second there.

The telemetry trace image here shows Surtees, the black trace is from pre-season testing, green for the qualify pole lap and then purple for my fastest sector in the first race in June. In both of my June sessions I was slower on the entry of Surtees although by the second race I had learnt to drive around some of the understeer and reduce the reduction in speed at turn in almost by half

On reflection I think I ran the rake of the car rather too conservatively at Brands this time around. The reduced weight over the front and reduced aero effect meaning I had to get off the throttle for longer in order to get the nose into the left hander of Surtees. From the telemetry, I am about 4 to 5mph slower than before through the initial left hand part although I am back on pace for the apex and right hander.

Even if I compare my race pace this weekend to the previous time we came to race at Brands, therefore going with a more conservative approach than you might see in testing, its still those two sectors that were slower this time around albeit by a smaller margin. If I could have driven those two sectors as quickly as back in April, I would have reduced my race pace lap time down by a couple of tenths and therefore lower the lap record a little more.

I am however quite pleased with having achieved three new best sector times and the car feels better and more consistent through the entry and exit to clearways and although a touch slower through the apex of Paddock Hill bend, it feel more stable on entry and I was able to push more on the exit, giving me a better run up to the hairpin.

Our next outing is back to Cadwell for two races next weekend. I think I will put the car back to a slightly steeper rake so that we don't suffer from understeer through the two technical and fast corners that lead onto the all important back straight. I will be compromising a little for the very fast turn one but this was fine earlier in the year, and of course I will have to be careful through the entry to the mountain section where I had my 'moment' in qualifying last month! It will be interesting to see if the new 7" rear rims help at all through the long high speed corners at Cadwell.

Brands Hatch June 22nd - Snetterton Replacement Race

The replacement race for Snetterton was held at the end of the day on our return visit to Brands. The entry list was determined by the list of entrance to the Snetterton round and the grid was determined by the qualify times used earlier in the day for the Brands round.

As I rolled up to the pole position grid slot, the marshal told me to be careful on the start due to the oil on the track, right where I would be setting off from - great!

Whether entirely due to the oil or whether partly due to my lack of skill, I had a rather poor start, with both Steve and a rather impressive Doug, getting in front of me for the first lap. The entire field managed a very neat and uneventful first corner which is not easy with Paddock Hill on cold tyres. I might have been able to take a chance into the hairpin but though better of it and just followed Doug and Steve down to Graham Hill bend.

Just as I turned into the hairpin I saw Paul flying up behind me with dust and tyre smoke following as he locked up and span off into the gravel trap! Opps. Al has a great video on youtube of this entry to the hairpin on the first corner, with Paul flying across the track in front of him. Al managed to retain his position and can be seen here on the run down to Graham Hill bend, defending from Tim in the Fulcrum.

Doug missed the apex for the left hander of Graham Hill bend and both Steve and I had a great exit, I kept really close to Steve as he slipped up the inside on the entry to Surtees. A short dab on the brakes to compensate for the cold front tyres and both Steve and I were up in front of Doug by the time we were at the apex of Surtees.

I then latched onto the back of Steve and followed him out of Clearways and down the start finish straight. Down the straight, I managed to get a bit of a tow from Steve, it would seem that Steve's engine has a little more poke than mine but my exit through clearways was more decisive than Steves and I was able to keep very close to his tail. Here you can see my poking my nose out from behind Steve as we pass the line.

Past the start finish line, I moved to the right and placed my car on the inside at the turn in point to Paddock Hill. Steve did not try to defend and I took the lead on the apex of that corner and held to from that point onwards.

The rest of the race was quite uneventful for me, I was able to steadily pull out a lead on Steve and Doug, who had a great race long battle, to end some 22 seconds ahead. Steve came in 2nd place, just 2 tenths of a second ahead of Doug in 3rd, with Tim leading the Class C battle, ahead of a close run battle of John and Al for 2nd and 3rd in Class C. The top Class B finisher was Josh in 11th overall, to give him his first ever race win. Excellent job Josh, whilst Stephen Dean came in 2nd and Adrian finished 3rd in class B

So another very successful race weekend and although I would have preferred to compete this round at my home circuit of Snetterton, it all helps with the championship points position. Again the car was faultless during the weekend adventures, although there was still a little too much understeer for my liking but it did provide a nice stable platform for the race, minimizing chances of my making mistakes

Brands Hatch June 22nd

Brands Hatch on June 22nd was our latest round in the RGB 2008 season as well as hosting the replacement round for the weather aborted round at Snetterton.

It very nice to have a number of friends, and friends of friend to come down for the Sunday. John was down as usually to help with all things mechanical, Dad was down to do some photography. Tony came down with the boys for support, also joined by one of his new work colleagues and her family. Finally Neil an old friend who I used to race against online before I took up real racing was also along for the race day.

Qualify Session
The Qualify session went very well, I had to bed in some new front brake pads as well as scrub in a new near side front tyre which meant I needed some space on track for some abnormal braking applications and also to run at a decent pace from the outset so I had a fun first lap, passing quite a few cars! In the end I did not quite manage a time to equal our earlier visit to Brands in April, let alone the pre-season testing times but a 50.83 was good enough to give me pole by 1.25seconds back to Doug, who put in a good performance all weekend. Martin punched in a very impressive lap time in the class C car of 52.47 to get third overall on the grid, a time that is 8 hundredths of a second under the current lap record. Paul qualified 6th overall on the grid, a couple of tenths off his own lap record, 2 places and a tenths or so ahead of Colin, the second placed class B car. Here is some in car action from my pole position lap.


Here is some in car action from the first few laps of qualify as I passed through traffic and got the brakes working correctly.


Race 1
Here you can see the pack as we all head down through Paddock Hill bend for the first time. I had a reasonable start, managing to keep in front of Steve and Doug. I was probably a little conservative into the hairpin, where Steve tried to come around the outside but he could not convert that into a pass on the run down to Graham Hill bend so I kept the lead. John managed a good start to jump ahead of Martin, who was followed closely by Tim Gray and Paul. As you can see from these two pictures, the entire pack managed a very neat run for the first few corners, with no incidents at all! It does look as though Richard and Tim might have had a slightly nervous experience of paddock hill however, being that far out to the outside!

Martin kept the inside line for the hairpin and regained 4th overall which left us with a nice picture on the run down to Graham Hill bend.
You can see the start of a battle here for Mat and Al, just behind Paul that would run for the rest of the lap as Al struggled with under inflated tyres due to a faulty pressure gauge.
By the time we came around to the end of the first lap, I was able to pull out a slight lead, enabling me to rejoin the normal racing line and set about building a gap back to the rest of the pack. By lap3 I had a 3 second lead to Steve who then retired due to a hole in his water radiator which left Martin in the class C car as second on the road and by the end of the race I had a 27 second lead. I was not quite able to put in the same pace as I did in qualifying but I did record a 51.01 second lap, a couple of tenths from my lap record set back in April.

The car performed very well, with just a touch more understeer than I would have liked which may have been the reason for the slightly slower times compared to April. The new brake pads were great once they had settled in and I still love driving this circuit. The blast down to Graham Hill bend and the slides through Clearways especially.

Anglesey Lap Record video

Here is an in car video of my fastest lap from the Saturday race at Anglesey. As its the first time we have been to the circuit, this will be the new lap record for a class A car!
(you can go to Youtube to see a higher quality version)

Rounds 6 and 7 - Anglesey

The two weeks leading up to the Anglesey round were very much focused on family activities rather than preparing or even thinking about racing and in fact I had planned to skip racing for a bit to be with the family due to my Mums serious condition.

As it turned out the Anglesey race weekend turned out to be a good opportunity to get away from everything, helping the grief process for both Dad and I by doing something very different with some great support from friends and family. We had canceled testing so we turned up, after the very long haul across the country, on the Friday night and walked the circuit, trying to glean as much information as possible from those who had testing on the Friday. Thanks Paul, Neil, Tim and John.

The qualify session on the Saturday morning was my one opportunity to learn the circuit and set two times that would determine the starting grid for the two races. I then would have the opportunity to refine my knowledge of the circuit through the 30min race on the Saturday afternoon and the 20min race on the Sunday afternoon.

We hatched a plan to follow Paul out for qualifying and follow for a few laps to get a head start on the circuit twists and turns. It worked well and it was very helpful of Paul to oblige. Let me say now that they have improved on the already fun circuit at Anglesey and created a fantastic circuit, I loved driving around it and pushing the car to find the time improvements. I also had the palm working for the first time and Tim had placed his sector timing track file onto my DL1 memory stick so I had lap and sector times to look at, helping me learn where to make improvements. Very useful, thanks for you help and development on this Tim. By lap 6 I had a 1:14 time that would have put me on pole and by the end of the session I had completed 2 laps in the 1:13’s to give me a good margin back to 2^nd on the grid.

Here is some in car footage of those first few laps behind paul.

On the telemetry traces attached, the black trace is 1min 14 lap number 6, the Orange is my first 1:13 lap and then the Purple my second 1:13 lap. As you can see from the variance, I was still learning and experimenting throughout the session. The marker point on the telemetry trace is for example at the kink on the back straight before braking into the Rocket complex. On the first two highlighted laps I was lifting before the kink and then braking. By the end of the session I was confident enough to keep on the throttle until past the kink and then do one assertive brake application, slowing from nearly 130 to 40mph for the switchback.

Here is some in car footage of the pole lap.

The 30min race on the Saturday was great fun, hot and hard work but great fun! I had a bad start, partly due to being on the dirty side of the track despite being on pole and partly due to my incompetence. I started with the wrong revs, changed up too early, Steve got in front and I even used the wrong gears through the first handful of corners!

By the second lap I got my head in order and caught Steve, the third lap Steve ran a little wide on the exit of the banked turn 2 and I got a go run and then tow down the back straight and overtook under braking into the Rocket complex. I then put my foot down, still having to correct quite a bit of rear end movement from the still cold tyres and reduced my lap times into the 1:14s, by lap 4 I was into the 1:13’s, low 1:13’s by lap 6 and then cracked into the 1:12’s by lap 9. By then I had also caught up quite a few of the class C cars so the lap times fluctuate a little as I make my way through traffic but I did manage to lower the lap time down to a 1:12.28 by lap 18 and set what is now the RGB Class A lap record.

The telemetry image here is comparing the pole time from qualify in black to my fastest lap in the race and it clearly shows I had been able to make some decent improvements after 30 or so minutes around the new Anglesey circuit. Did I mention I like this new layout?

This race win and new lap record, I dedicate to my Mum.

Between races, the spanner check highlighted a stiffness in the suspension on the off side front which we at the time thought was due to a problem with the damper but as we did not have any spares, we just took the suspension components apart and reassembled. This seemed to fix the problem and after resetting the right height we fueled up and prepared for the second race of the weekend.

The race on the Sunday was a 20 min version and this time I got a much better start, maintaining my lead position and ran quite a conservative race to ensure I collected the points. The track did not seemed to give quite the same grip levels as Saturday although Al did manage a very impressive time in his Class C car, quite a bit quicker than anybody else managed in that class the day before.

You can see from this telemetry trace, taking that of the one above and just adding in the purple trace to show my fastest lap (1:12.7) from the Sunday race that I could not carry the same speed through the fast church corner. It seemed to be a knifes edge between understeer and oversteer for this corner on the Sunday and as this is a 90mph + corner it gets quite interesting! Although the lap time was not quite enough to lower the lap record from Saturday, I did manage to improve my first and last sectors so there room for improvement next time we return.

The second race win of the weekend I dedicate to my Dad on his birthday.

Championship Points

Here are the current championship points standings. Its really close up top, with just two points between Paul and myself, oh how those missed fastest laps have made a difference Paul! Its still going to be hard to keep the leading class C drivers back if we don't return to getting more than 6 drivers each race in Class A. Hopefully Buzz will be back with us and Bob has been bitten by the racing bug after his very impressive debut at Anglesey. Great to see Neil up high in the standings as well. This coming weekend we have round 7 at Brands as well as the replacement race for the aborted round 1 at Snetterton at the beginning of the season. Its a shame we are not racing at Snetterton this year, I was would like to have the lap record at my home circuit. By the looks of the entries, Class A will get full points in the first race this weekend but not the second as this is based on the entries for the first round at Snet.