Another 3rd Place Podium at Knockhill Round 2

Back from Round 2 at Knockhill and had a fantastic weekend although things didnt quite go to plan.

Thanks to everyone that came up and wished me luck and said hi – it is much appreciated even if sometimes I might be busy.

The week started poor with oil pressure issues starting on tuesday and despite and oil change, changing a split oil pick up pipe on saturday in the rain as soon as I went out in warm up I knew there was a serious issue with the car.  The pre event paranoia had been right…..

Paul (ZEN) and I decided to nurse the car through the day and go just for the most points we could safely get.

I was planning to ration the lapping to get set up right and did very few laps in practice at low boost, then 3 hot laps in qualifying (again at lower boost) but still 3 seconds quicker than last year… and enough to get me 30 points for qualifying in 3rd place.  I asked the car for one more lap for the final… just one.

I drove it as hard as I could on that lap (still only at 1.6 bar) but giving all I could through the twisties to claw back time I was losing on the straights from being down on power compared to the 750+ bhp cars I was battling with.  The car was immense. It flew through the corners – literally and up the straight to finish that lap and then just killed itself.  Big ends are gone big style and it is rebuild time.

Still 3rd place is great and I loved it – it puts me into 2nd in the championship.

I dropped the car off at Zen’s tonight on the way back after partying quite hard last night with the Team Zen and decided to get cracking on taking the engine out to see the damage.  It wasn’t looking pretty with lots of metallic bits kicking around in the sump and big end number 4 completely missing

Huge thanks to Team Zen for support up there and in getting the work done on saturday to give it a fighting chance of getting over the line, for Steve for sitting in the car in warm up and steady supply of coffee and laughs, Alyn at ASP for emergency oil supplies (cheers Stew) and Mark at Lateral Performance in anticipation of the new engine internals

It will be ready for Silverstone next week….

Photos to follow…