Ready for some testing?
With the new car all kitted out in December it was now time to see what she could do. I had never been on a team day before and I had not yet driven the new car. I had sat in it at PARR’s site so that the team could get my arm and leg positions set up, but I hadn’t even turned the ignition on!
The first time I drove the car was out of the pit lane at the Brands Hatch Circuit on a wet and slippery day. My trainer, Nick came along with the team from PARR and the first thing Nick said to me was ‘are you nervous?’, ‘No’ I replied, ‘I’m looking forward to it’. Nick grimaced and said ‘I’d be well nervous if I were you. That did make me laugh because I knew that that was his way of making sure I didn’t get too cocky or overconfident.
The day was pretty eventful! I lost control on the notorious exit from Druids corner, did a full 360o spin in the wet and managed to recover facing in the right direction luckily and just carried on like it hadn’t happened. This was all because I changed up from 2nd to 3rd gear and let the clutch out too quickly, it’s crazy how sensitive these cars are. But at least I got to test out my skid pan training which I can now confirm worked.
The car got faster and faster as the day went on, each time I went back to the garage the team would show me the cars data from the Vbox cameras and graphs and highlighted where I was making mistakes and where I could skim off a second or two and my times just tumbled so it was a very good start.
