Anglesey - TimeAttack - 20th - 21st April 2024

On the same weekend of the opening round of the 750MC RoadSports and Club Enduro Championship races at Croft, it was the first 2 rounds of the TimeAttack all the way West at Anglesey.
As mentioned in the Croft Blog, the ones that clash, we plan to send our friend Adam Blair, to get some points on the board. He would be supported by Rob, Tom B and Tom G while they get to grips with the format and see how the car performs.
To be competitive, the RS3 needs a bit more power, so the TFSI we pulled from the TT kindly donated it's Garrett Powermax to get us to ~440bhp.
Either my TT or the Manual one might make an appearance this season as well, we will see how it goes!
Videos of both builds are below:

All the details and dates for future races we are entering can be found on the Darkside Motorsport Page.

Round 1 on the Saturday is on the Coastal layout, last time we were here was September 2022 for ClubEnduro! Sunday will be on the GP / International Layout, where we had a mixed bag in May 2023 for Roadsports and ClubEnduro.
Below is the layout of the Anglesey Coastal Circuit.

TimeAttack uses TSL for timing.

Full Weekend Vlog

Unfortunately the GoPro decided to mess up all the audio from this weekend, so footage is limited, sorry!

Testing

Friday testing was available, but with 2 sessions on the day before it counted, we decided to just go straight into the Warm-up on Saturday.

Round 1 - Saturday

The various classes are split up into 15 minute sessions. We were in the Club 2WD class so would be out as follows:

Warm-up: 11:00 - 11:15
Practice: 13:00 - 13:15
Qualifying: 14:55 - 15:10
Final: 16:30 - 16:45

Warm-up

Despite Adam having only done a handful of laps in the car at Donington (before it was booted off for being too loud!) he didn't waste much time getting into the groove and was easily into the 1:13s, easily eclipsing the 1:14.32 we'd done in the TT TFSI last time we were here.
With everyone in a similar position, it was hard to gauge if we would continue to top the timings as the day progressed.

As expected, most people were gradually improving over the session as they got their eye in.

The sector analysis showed Adam, along with quite a few other competitors, needed to stitch a good lap together to improve.

The speed analysis shows the RS3 was only the 3rd fastest through the speed traps.

The lead swapped a few times through the session.

Practice

Figuring out the best way to get the tyres into the right temperature window meant it was right at the end of the session when the best times came in.
There was no Classification for Practice for some reason, but the rest of the data was available.

Adam was on top in the sectors again, this time doing both his best sectors on the same lap, all his time made up in the tighter sector 2.

3rd again for the RS3 in the first speed trap, and 8th in the second!

Adam was on top most of the session, with the GTR snatching it temporarily.

Qualifying

This was now where it mattered, no more messing about, and Adam didn't disappoint, his first flying lap a 1:12.012 putting him firmly at the top where he would stay for the rest of the session.

Despite the track killing the tyres after just 1 lap, he managed a 1:12.147 on the next lap as well, showing that they can be pretty consistent if managed correctly.

Another sector lead!

This time Adam was on top for the speeds in sector 1, but still 8th for sector 2.

The lead was Adam's throughout, making it look too easy!

Final

The day had built up to this, the final. We only had to do 1 good time, and unfortunately Adam went slower than his qualifying lap, doing a 1:12.014 vs 1:12.012, he left 0.02s on the table! His first lap was enough to get the top spot, and everyone else was over 1s slower.

This time Adam did 1 lap and then tried to find a bit of space to go for another lap if anyone got close, but it was not needed.

He was up 0.5s in each sector.

Back to 3rd in sector 1 and still way down in 8th over the finish. This shows that you don't need all the power and speed to get a good lap in!

Again, Adam locked it out during the full session.

Laps

All the fastest laps from Round 1 are below:

The lap records for the circuit were released after the event as well:

Round 2 - Sunday

A new day and a new circuit layout! Just like a lot of track days, we were able to do both layouts across the weekend, this time the GP / International Circuit. Yesterday we were on the Coastal Circuit which includes the Corkscrew. The GP layout misses this and adds a hairpin and 2 long straights. This might help with the tyres overheating and bring us closer to the lightweight cars, but increases the advantage of those with lots of power, the new straights allowing a nice bit of drag racing to go on!

For Sunday we were moved into the Club Pro Class, as a result of this rule

The issue was in Club 2WD, Adam achieved a 1:12.014 in the final and a 1:12.012 in the Qualifying session. At the same time, the Club Pro guys were slower than this, Josh Barrett in the Caterham 620R did a 1:12.218 and Ben Robinson in the Noble M12 only managed a 1:14.356. So it was close with the Caterham, but the tight twisty nature of sector 2 clearly not suiting the Noble.
So these two guys would now be our main competition!
With the change of class, our sessions were pushed back 15 minutes, so we had this timetable:

Warm-up: 10:20 - 10:35
Practice: 12:20 - 12:35
Qualifying: 14:20 - 14:35
Final: 16:15 - 16:30

Warm-up

As expected, the long straights meant the more powerful cars were much quicker, Adam over 2s from the lead in the first session.

Adam was on the money immediately, everyone else took a bit more time to get into it, before eventually pushing much further ahead.

In sector 1 the Noble was ahead but the Caterham behind, but sector 2, Adam as way down the order and behind both.

It was the same for the speeds as well.

After Lap 2, it was a fight between the Caterham and Noble.

Practice

Adam found almost a second in the next session, edging closer to the Caterham, but still a way off the Noble.

Most of the Club Pro laps were done early in the session.

The order in the sectors still hadn't changed.

Neither had the speeds.

Adam's first lap was good, but not good enough!

Qualifying

He found some more time in the Quali session, but so had the Caterham, finding 1.1s and the Noble lost 0.4s.

Adam did one good lap and couldn't improve.

The sector order was still the same again.

Same again for the speed.

Again, Adam's first lap was great, but eventually it was beaten by the Caterham.

Final

The Caterham found ANOTHER 0.9s in the final, beating the Noble by less than 0.1s. The Noble had also found another 0.7s from it's Practice time, so Adam was over 1.3s adrift.

The top 3 did their best sectors on the same lap.

This time Adam went all out in Sector 1, the quickest of the Club Pro cars, all the time lost in Sector 2!

The speed analysis still highlighting the lower top speed of the RS3 against it's competitors.

The Caterham and Noble battled constantly throughout the session, and Adam never got a look in!

Laps

All the fastest laps from Round 2 are below:

The lap records for the circuit were released after the event as well:

The Championship does not look that great at the moment, our points being split between the Club Pro and Club 2WD classes, which goes against what we had agreed with Mark and Andy from TimeAttack on the weekend. Hopefully we can get this sorted otherwise we will need to reconsider our options for the rest of the season.

The next round is at Cadwell Park on Bank Holiday Monday 6th May. Due to all the messing around with the classes, we have a different plan for this round, keep an eye on Social Media!

Photos courtesy of RTS Photography and Time Attack

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All the details and dates for future races we are entering can be found on the Darkside Motorsport Page.

29 05 2024