Mallory Park September 2009

Qualifying: This is the first time I would be out in the car after getting its third engine of the year so I was just praying it would last out. Spent the first few laps under 3,ooorpm to warm the engine up and then tried to get some fast laps in. With such a short circuit and with so many cars out it was hard to get any kind of fast lap in. Qualified in 21st which was about what I expected, still it leaves me with more cars to overtake!

Race 1: made a poor start and lost several places but managed to get a couple back quite quickly. I was realing in 3 cars just ahead of me until I noticed a plume of steam coming from the front of the car, I started to loose power and then got passed by everyone behind me so decided to pull into the pits. Turned out that a stone had punctured the radiator so that was the end of the race for me. Managed to find a spare radiator in the paddock (thanks Coggy) and got it fitted before the second race.

Race 2: got off to a great start (so I thought), I managed to get past Nina in front of me on the inside very quickly then switched to the outside to get past another car. When I look back at the video footage seems I then went and lost most of the places I made by the start of the second lap. As the race played out I had a good tussle with the light blue car, then Chris Shackle spun off from the front of the pack and rejoined just behind me. He got past me quickly then past the light blue car a couple of laps later. I shortly followed up with my move on the light blue car; I took a slow entry into the hairpin to get a quick exit and managed to get up the inside, we then went down the start finish straight side by side but I was endging ahead and had the outside line going into Gerrards, we had a slight overlap coming out of Gerrards and I was sent slightly sideways but held onto it and came out ahead. I then started to pull away and was surprised to find I was catching Chris. I followed him around for a couple of laps right behind him and noticed he was braking very early into the hairpin so next lap around I had a faster exit from the esses and dived up the inside into the hairpin braking very late. I manged to keep in front of him (but only just) coming out of the hairpin and then started to pull away. At the end of the race I was catching Seb Fisher up ahead and would have been right behind him after another lap but the chequered flag came out.
Not a great day out finishing in 15th but on a positive note I did make several overtaking manouvres which is something I had failed to do previously.