Silverstone National 11/12 May 2013 - Ford Fiesta ST and Fiesta Junior
Fiesta ST - Class C:
Finally we made it - our first race in two years, and our first run out in the Fiesta.
We arrived at Silverstone on the Friday morning, a little apprehensive, and planning to run out in the two afternoon test sessions. However, we were persuaded with about 5 minutes to go, to get out in session 2, we had arrived too late for session 1 to be viable. And we are glad we did, the first lap out on track was spent trying to get used to everything, the space, the driving position, the Fiesta and to get some heat into the tyres on a cold morning. Our first entry into Copse was eye-opening, more steering input than needed, wow the Fiesta is a bit pointy. Most of the session was spent getting out of the way of others, but slowly it was coming back. A full 40 minute session was completed with no issues, that in itself was a bonus, and slowly confidence in the car was building up.
Session 2 and now we could take on the Mighty Minis and pass them. Even found one Fiesta ST that didn't seem to be much quicker than us, the Class A and B Fiestas were catchable. We got carried away, should have recognised the signs, almost 35 minues into the session we almost didn't make Luffield. That should have been the sign to come into the pits, but in time honoured fashion, it was a case of "let's give it one more lap". And we were lucky it was Silverstone with acres of run-off - the next lap we didn't make Luffield at all and used most of the run-off gathering up the car. Back into the pits, the tyres were badly overheated, but as we thought about going back out, a red flag ended the session.
Session 3, definitely faster than the Class A and B cars out on track, and there was a Blue ST that we could stay with seemingly, never got the chance to try and pass it to see what its real pace was. But at the end of the session we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves and the Fiesta. At the end of the day came the real beauty of working with a team, Daniels Motorsport will be running both Geri and myself for 2013, in that we just packed up and went home knowing the Fiesta would be checked over and ready to go when we came back in the morning!.
Saturday - practice
AN early start on Saturday with signing on at 7:30am, scrutineering was breezed through with the support from Daniels Motorsport even down to being able to provide a spare transponder while we waited for the timekeepers to arrive. Kevin Shortis provided the GoPro camera mount for the roll cage and we were all ready to head out on track for 20 minutes timed parctice, a feature of the Fiesta race series.
The track was damp from overnight rain and somewhat slippery, we went out circumspectly while others were less go. We were greeted with the sight of spinning cars right in front of us at both Copse and Luffield, the one at Copse was especially interesting as we were not sure where the spinner was going to end up. Disappointingly, we were a long way adrift at the back of the time sheets in Class C even though we started to get quicker as the session went on and confidence in the car built up. Thankfully we were just faster than all the other Fiesta classes. Being a one make series, the Fiesta championship is more competitive than we are used to and we will have to raise our game over the season if we wish to compete.
At the end of the session, a visit to the scrutineering bay showed an all up weight of 1120kgs having started with almost full load of fuel - 10kgs over the weight limit.
Saturday - Qualifying
No such excuses in qualifying - the track had dried out by the lunchtime qualifying session - handily we went out about 10 minutes ahead of schedule. The competitive nature of this series was really rammed home when we saw that the first 21 places on the grid were separated by less than 1 second. We were 3.5 seconds off pole, more than a second closer than we had been in the damp morning session, but with 1.7 seconds to the next car on the grid, it looked like it would be a lonely race at the back.
We had been advised to get in 8 or so laps to get the tyres properly warmed up - we now had two brand new slicks on the front after running yesterday on 4 used tyres - and then to come in for a tyre pressure check. When we came in, all was good, the instruction was to get on it, remove the pickup in the out lap and then nail some decent times. While our times were adrift of what was needed, we did just that with the next three laps being our second, third and then fastest laps of the session. Just at this point and with a couple of laps left to go, the rain started falling lightly. Just enough to ensure no improvement on lap times. Lucky we started 10 minutes early or this might have had more effect. We still qualified last though of 31 cars on what was a busy track despite the expanse of the circuit. We had learned that most time was being lost at Luffield, we seemed to be braking earlier but carrying too much speed in - more practice needed here to get the driving style for a Fiesta right. And more work needed on fuel load as we finished qualifying weighing 1118.5 kgs! We ware thankful we didn't take too much weight out, to get Geri up to weight limit for the Fiesta Juniors we are going to have to put some weight back in.
Sunday - Race 1
What we didn't find out until Sunday morning was that 4 cars had been disqualified during qualifying, 2 for exceeding track limits and two for technical infringements. These would be relegated to the back of the grid, although we did wonder why they seemed to be sitting on the grid a couple of rows further back.
At the start, it became apparent - they also had to serve a 10 second penalty, so that would give us some time to concentrate on the cars in front before worrying about them catching us. We got a decent enough start considering it was our first standing start in years, and only our third one ever. Cars were going off left, right and centre, we managed to avoid the spinners at Copse, and as we came into Luffield there was another spinner sideways across the track. Some cars went outside, we were able to go inside gaining places. As we exited Brooklands we could see carnage - three cars in the wall and one looking very squashed. At the front, Ferguson and Curtis had tangled and speared left into Horrobin, who then rolled the car as the three went off outside the track. We crossed the line in 20th place, 7 places better than our starting place, although 3 of those places gained were already out of the race.
It was obvious that a safety car would be deployed at the very least, and sure enough as we came up the Wellington Straight on lap two, the yellow flags and SC boards were out - we still got overtaken by one car who didn't see the yellow, but we didn't complain and it wasn't picked up by the marshalls. We followed the safety car round for 4 laps, we couldn't see the safety car from where we were in 21st place now, and this caused us to get a poor restart as we could see the SC lights between Luffield and Brooklands and allowed a gap between us and the car in front as everyone took off again. We still crossed the line in 21st place, but 1.7 seconds adrift of 20th - worse was the cars behind us had now caught up under the safety car so we were under attack from behind.
Lee Napolitano got by out of Copse on that lap, but we were still in 22nd at the end of the first lap after safety car conditions, this surely couldn't last much longer although we were holding onto the pack better than expected. Lap 8 and coming into Luffield all got a bit hairy as 4 cars came steaming through on the inside forcing to run outside as they did. Just at the last moment, while having turned through 90 degrees, we caught a flash of red in the mirror as Josh Read came storming through. We just managed to get the car off the track sideways in time - he would have smashed into us side by side if we had not done so - all in all a bit rude when challenging for 24th place. Welcome to Fiesta racing indeed!
Lap 9 and car 0 went by, but two cars pulled out of the race that were in front of us. Going down towards Becketts we came across a slowly car 69 and went past him - overall we remained in 25th position. We were falling back from the car ahead by 2-3 seconds per lap, meanwhile car 69 had recovered to some extent and was now running at a pace not far short of us. Another car fell by the wayside on lap 13 moving us up to 24th where we finished, from 25 finishers and 31 starters. The Fiesta had completed its first race successfully. We do know that it can hold its own with the other cars when cornering exit speed is similar, but we need to up our driving to match the speed these people are carrying.
Sunday - Race 2
All afternoon rain became more and more imminent, in preparation Daniels Motorsport moved the cars they were running into one of the garages once the Eurosaloons had packed up and gone home. Another lucky break for us - the Fiesta was all ready to go out when we were called to assembly, just as the rain started to fall. We stalled while we assessed the rain, first thoughts were to run wets on the back and slicks on the front, but then we made the call (correct for a change) to run wets all round and the rest of the drivers followed suit. Big thanks to Daniels Motorsport for taking the hassle out of a late tyre change, and off we went to assembly.
With track conditions having changed, we had 2 green flag laps so we could assess the circuit. We were unsure of the grip available on wets and mindful of the first lap carnage in the dry race earlier, we were careful on the first lap of this race, holding back rather than being part of any ensuing accident. We finished the first lap over a second adrift of second last, and decided we needed to push harder. Too hard as we spun right round exiting Becketts and everyone else was gone. All we could do was circulate as best as we could, we had hoped to learn from the other drivers but it was not to be. Without any reference we were losing 4 seconds a lap in the early part of the race, so it was no surprise that the leaders caught up. On lap 9 the front 5 cars came up and lapped us, we could try and tag on behind and see where they were taking so much time. That plan failed miserably, the following lap we went off at Luffield realising we would not make the corner, and then parked up on the infield waiting for a gap to rejoin. The gap was a long time coming, only two cars did not lap us while we waited! On lap 15, the last two cars came through, cars 46 and 69. 46 drove off but 69 seemed down on power and we kept tripping up over him unsure whether to unlap or not. With just a lap of the race left and no places to be gained, we just trailed off the throttle and folowed him home for last place.
Two finishes, 7 sessions completed on track, a tribute to the Fiesta and everyone involved in her. A big thanks to Daniels Motorsport for making the weekend run so well, we look forwards to running with them for the rest of the season. Moving forwards, we will not be contesting the next round at Castle Combe. We want to concentrate of being ready for Geri's race debut at Cadwell Park one week later in the Fiesta Junior series and we still have to buy wheels and tyres and a race suit for him!
All packed up after a long weekend's work.
Please see the official race report here.
Fiesta Junior:
All systems go for Geri to join in at round 4 at Cadwell Park. We are trying to book some seat time for him ahead of that race.
Please see the official race report here.
Check out the Fiesta ST points and Fiesta Junior points standing.
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