The Practice – 1st Race of the Season

Donington Park Circuit 10 May 2021. Finally, we were close to reaching our first race day. There were only 24 hours to go and it was the Final Practice which would turn out to be a bit tricky.

The Practice

The day before a Championship round the Practice consists of four 30-minute sessions with cars of a similar type and power in separate groups. Our group consisted of McLarens, Ferraris and Porsche race cars, so we were in good and fast company. 

Lots of Red Flags!

Every session was littered with Red Flags due to breakdowns and cars flying off of the track which although exciting to see for spectators, meant the session had to be stopped left, right and centre!

Although we had a very stop-start day we managed to ‘scrub in’ a set of dry and a set of wet tyres ready for race day… we needed to do both because of the unpredictability of the wonderful British weather. To ‘scrub in’ tyres means taking the outer film of the tyre off to leave the grippier rubber underneath. 

This is done by doing one flying lap only, then coming back into the pits to have the wheels removed, with me still in the car jacked up in the air like you see in an F1 Pit Stop. The only difference is our team takes 2 minutes compared to 2 seconds!! 

Personal Best Time

My biggest achievement of the day however was another Personal Best (PB) Time which is becoming a Test Day theme for me as I seem to be able to get a new one on every test day… long may it continue.

So, after a successful practice day at Donington Park Circuit, it was an early dinner and hopefully a good night’s sleep in preparation for the big day!