Mallory Race April 2010

First race of the season! felt good to be back in the hot seat and it looked fantastic to see both Sakari Racing cars in the same colour scheme for the first time.

Qualifying
With 40 cars out on a less than one minute circuit it was fairly busy! Still managed to get a couple of half decent laps in as Chris and I were working together to give each other space to get flying laps in. The session got red flagged because of a spin at the hairpin and most of the cars were sent back into the paddock, we thought that was it but then they opened the circuit again! I had already got myself undressed and so didn't go out agian. Would have been nice to have been directed into the pitlane to go out again but oh well. I qualified well down in 22nd, I had hoped for something just outside of top ten. Chris did better just outside the top ten but still hoped to have been further up the grid.

Race 1
I made a really good start and got past Jason Jesse just in front of me very quickly and made up several other places. Got stuck into a really good battle with several cars in the first few laps and made a few more places up. Unfortunately Chris didn't have such a great start and made a mistake somewhere which meant I was able to get past him on the first lap. He followed closely behind me as I struggled to find a way past Simon Lockey in the Gulf car. Then as I was about to make a move an incident up ahead made Simon slow unexpectedly and as I was unsighted I had to take avoiding action onto the grass. Just managed to keep hold of it but Chris just managed to get past me and thats the way we stayed until the finish line.
Chris finished 13th and I made up 8 places to get up to 14th so it was a pretty good race for me.

Race 2
Chris and I lined up side by side on the grid which looked really good! But that would be the last I saw of him in the race cus I made an awful start and lost a couple of places, this did however give me the oportunity to do some overtaking! Managed to make several manouvres mostly coming out of the hairpin and along the start finish straight, the new engine is working really well. Also made a move on the back straight into the esses and another last minute decision going up the inside into Gerrards from about 2 car lengths back! However this all happened in the first half of the race and I then started to stop catching the guy in front and dropped back into the clutches of 6 cars. I had got my tyre pressures all wrong and really struggled around the corners so it was just one long defense to keep the cars behind me. Very tiring work but I managed to keep my place. Me and the 6 cars behind me all finished within 2 seconds of each other, thats how close it was! Chris had a much better race this time getting up into 6th and making a good move to pull up into 5th breifly down the start finish striaght but pulled out going into Gerrards and Simon Lockey made a daring but very well timed move up the inside to take another place.
Chris finished 7th in the end and I made up 4 places to finish 10th.

Both of us in the top ten on the second race was a good team result particularly as niether of us rate Mallory as one of our better circuits, roll on Snetterton!

Matt Smith, Team Principal / Driver #30