Pembrey Circuit June 16th 2013: The car’s first outing since loosing 10 kgs of weight and the suspension re-design. Unfortunately, each session was wet so difficult to really gauge how the improvements have affected the handling and speed but I will say that the car was predictable. I knew how the car was going to react in each of the corners and it pretty much did the same thing lap after lap – either understeered or oversteered. Shame I’m not a good enough driver yet to react to what the car is telling me at the time and only work out how I could have improved after the event.

Race 1 was wet, very wet and was the first time I can remember literally not being able to see a thing for the first lap or two. The spray was immense! I think amplified by the rear wings and diffusers on the cars. I decided to hang back a little until it cleared and then got down to the business of catching the man in front of me to claim a 1st in class. Grip-wise, it was a mixture of understeer and oversteer but again, at least I could predict how the corner would react. Exiting the high speed corners I had understeer, exiting the lower speed corners I had oversteer. Interestingly, I couldn’t change from 3rd to 2nd gear without going to 1st in between.Hmmm, something to watch out for there.

Race 2 was again on wet tyres but there wasn’t as much standing water or spray. You would be forgiven for thinking that  there would have been more grip, but no, the grip levels were shockingly low and the race was more a battle with the car trying to keep it on the circuit than a battle with the person in front of me. My gearbox issue really bit me off the start and I couldn’t engage 2nd gear at all losing me about four places. 2nd in class was the best I could do this time.

So what did I manage to bring back from this weekend… Apart from three trophies.

• First, my wet tyres need replacing.
• Second, the wets don’t work with negative camber. Set it to zero next time.
• Third, I need to look at the synchro between 1st and 2nd and either replace the gearbox oil with a better grade or replace the synchro.

I had an in-car camera malfunction so I didn’t get much footage but this is what I did get: