After a mixed bag at the Birkett, which you can read about HERE, we had a couple of weeks to regroup before the long journey to Brands Hatch for the MSV End of Season event, in which we would be competing in the Trackday Championship, SuperCup and Trackday Trophy on the Saturday, as well as qualifying for the EnduroKA, ready for the 500 minute race on Sunday, another busy weekend!
I would be driving solo in the Golf for the TDC, with the Championship all but sealed up. For the SuperCup I would be in the Golf racing against Ryan in the TT, then we were going to share the drive in the Trackday Trophy in either the Golf or TT, depending which was still alive! Ryan was sitting out the KAs, as was Pete, so we just had one car and 4 drivers, Myself, Adam, Mark and Ollie.
As you would expect, the timetable was jam packed, with very little downtime between each race to get the car turned around, refuelled and tyres changed, so it was going to be a real team effort to get us sorted!

Below is the layout of the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit.

Saturday

TDC Qualifying

Being the first out on track on a dry but cold November morning, it was going to be a case of taking it easy for a few laps to make sure the tyres were up to temperature and pressure, as well as feel where the grip is. Whilst it was dry, the track looked a little moist from the overnight dew and the R888Rs are not exactly the best in such conditions
Whilst I was first in the queue to get out, the combination of a short lap and 32 cars all trying to get a clear lap meant that by the time I was round for my first flying lap, I was already hitting traffic, with competitors still piling out of the pit lane!
This meant it took me a few more laps than normal to get up to pace, but by lap 5 I was in the 54s, which I figured would put me pretty close to the top spot. What I didn't count on was Chris Payne in the Caterham getting into a good rhythm and pipping me by 0.015s a few laps later, with a 54.567. As I pushed hard to improve, so did Chris by a fraction, to put in a 54.540. I had a laptime deleted for track limits, but it was not an improvement anyway, before finally getting a 54.419 to put it on Pole Position! I had to try a lot harder than normal this time for sure!

Classification

You can see below, it was not an easy Pole this time, but it spiced things up a bit anyway.
P3 was taken by the Class C Civic of Justin Roberts (who has pummelled me at the last two wet races!) with Phil Keen guest driving with him. A great result for a car with much less power than the Class B cars, in dry conditions.

Lap Analysis

Pole Position was changing hands quite frequently throughout the 25 minute session, but we were on top when it mattered!

Lap History

A video of Quali is below:

SuperCup Qualifying

Scott - Golf TDI - A quick turnaround was required, with the ECU and all 4 tyres changed, I was back to the assembly area ready for another 25 minute session. This time the smaller grid of 17 cars should mean some clear laps and good times. The extra power of the Class A ECU was also welcome, bringing the car alive!
I was into the 53s by lap 3, then got used to the extra grip from the Yokohama A052s and managed to punch in a 52.989. I was happy to break into the 52s as I have always known the car had it in it!
A quick pit stop to drop the pressures, I spent a few laps finding some space and improved to a 52.807, which was enough for P4 on the grid, well ahead of some of the Class S cars that seemed to be struggling for pace.

Ryan - TT TFSI - My day started a little steadier than Scott's but as usual I'm the last to get in the car and to assembly. As soon as they released us I noticed how stiff the rear felt, this was the first time I'd been on a track as bumpy as Brands since we installed the Verkline parts and stiffer rear springs. The initial test at Donington was a disaster so I never realised how much the car would bounce around. Being super cautious and knowing how close the gravel is in many places I never really got my lines perfect which hurt the corner exits which are crucial here. This was also the first time I'd driven the car with the new power figure, it was only 40hp or so more than the Golf but felt a lot faster, especially when braking into Paddock! I knew I needed to be into the 52's really to be up there but the nervous rear and tight lines kept me in the 53's no matter how hard I tried. I had a couple of pit stops to soften the rear and left myself only a few minutes to the end, Mathisse thought I should go straight to Parc Ferme for the end of qualifying but I wanted to go out for another lap or two to see if the softer dampers helped. Luckily I did as my outlap seemed fine right until I went for my last flier and the car jumped out of gear so I dove into the pits. My best lap being a 53:236, almost 1s slower than P1 and at least 0.5s slower than I should have been!

Michael also did great in the Ibiza, putting himself in P2, which was 2nd in Class B, just behind the Integra of Sam and Colin, with Colin being an instructor at Brands that was a good result.

Classification

We all did our best times quite near the end as the track evolved.

Lap Analysis

A video of the Golf Quali is below:

Trackday Trophy Qualifying

With the ECU swapped back to the Class B one and the tank filled back up, we were back out for the TDT qualifying session. As I'd been out in the Golf all morning, and Ryan had only been in the TT for the SuperCup, so he needed more seat time ready for the race start later in the day.
Traffic was an issue again with the 32 other cars on the track at the same time, I did four laps but only two of them were clear enough, but I still managed a 53.795 which at the time was over 2s quicker than everyone else on track. I then came in to let Ryan get some seat time.
His first clear lap was straight into the 54s, so he was right on pace. Even though he did not improve on my time, he was close enough that we should be in line for a good result during the race.
Chris Kirby in the Caterham (in the Guest Class) was the only car to get close, with a gap of just 0.068s. If he got a good launch from the front row, it would be hard for Ryan to keep him behind.

Classification

The times were all over the place due to the traffic, with seconds lost easily depending where you got caught behind someone, and whether you were confident they had seen you in their mirrors before going for an overtake! It took the Caterham a while to dip into the 53s.

Lap Analysis

By the time I had my first flying lap, we were on Pole and were unchallenged by the other cars.

Lap History

A video of Quali is below:

TDC Race

With all 3 Quali sessions out of the way, and zero time to prepare the car, it was time to get into race mode. The guys did a great job changing all 4 tyres and refuelling the car in record time and I was in the assembly area with no trouble.
I lined up on the front row with the Caterham to my left. Pole at Brands is on a slope, so it is difficult to get a good launch without wheel spinning sideways! If Chris got a good launch, would need to push hard early on to get back in front while his tyres were still cold.

Grid

I had a terrible launch off the line, struggling to get 2nd gear and wheel spinning all over the place. Luckily Chris had a bad launch as well, but this allowed Phil Keen to jump ahead in the Civic. I knew he would be lacking on the straights so did not get too worried as it is a long race.
As Keen was defensive into Graham Hill, I took the normal line and managed to get round him on the Cooper Straight (later he said he was happy to have led for a few corners and let me past! He has a great excuse book!). From there it was a pretty straight forward race, the Caterham had dropped really far back as he could only get it into 5th gear at the start, so was way down in 10th by the end of lap 1. John Lyne of Tylah Motorsport was up into 2nd after a great launch and first lap, but as he battled with the Civic I was able to pull a decent lead.
Despite being almost impossible to see in your mirrors, making carving through the pack very difficult, the Caterham was doing a great job hunting me down, getting back to 4th by lap five and 3rd by lap ten and 2nd by lap eleven, whilst also setting the fastest lap of the race.
I managed to keep the gap to just less than 4s before a safety car on lap 21 meant we all dove into the pits to take advantage of the slow track speeds.

Pit Analysis

Our stop wasn't great, with me being too cautious on the drive to the line, so I lost almost 2s to the Caterham in the pits.
However, the bunching of the pack meant that Chris was back to needing to make a few overtakes to get close to me, and I extended the lead back between 3 and 4 seconds for the rest of the race.
So that was it, converting Pole Position into another race win!

Classification

The times were not as consistent as I would like for such a short lap, but we were quickly into lapping cars and you could lose anything from a few tenths to a few seconds depending where you caught up with them.

Lap Analysis

So I held the fastest lap of the race for 7 laps before Chris got some clear air and punched in a great time, much faster than my best in the race and even beating both our qualifying times. This shows that Brands is all about carrying the speed than outright horsepower!

Fastest Lap History

A video of the full race is below:

So another 36 points put me on 178, with my dropped score of 1 from Castle Combe taken off, I was 52 points ahead of my nearest Championship competitor, the Class C Civic of Justin Roberts, that did a fantastic job at the end of the season after a poor start.

SuperCup Race

A 50 minute lunch break gave the guys a decent amount of time to get the car turned round and checked over. We needed to change the ECU, refit the Yokohama tyres and refuel, as well as give it a full check over. We could also remove 30Kg of Ballast, since we only need 20Kg for the SuperCup, as opposed to 30kg for the TDC, plus the 20Kg success ballast we had been carrying since Castle Combe. It didn't help the guys actually get a nice relaxing lunch, they ended up stuffing burgers down whilst working hard. Thanks guys!
Ryan was already sorted and in the assembly area with plenty of time to spare.

Grid

Scott - Golf TDI - I had a pretty poor launch, with too much wheelspin, but the Bradley's in the E36 were super slow off the line, and when they got going, had a load of wheel spin and drifted into my path. I couldn't avoid them and we had a bit of contact that knocked in my right wing mirror. Great, I could not see anything down the drivers side of the car! This meant I had to be super careful around Druids in case anyone sent it down the inside, whilst also trying to keep the rear end in the same direction as the front!
As expected the Leon was quick from the 3rd row after a poor qualifying, so I was still in 4th. A position I knew I would not be in for long with 40whp/ton less than the Class S cars. I stayed with the pack for a while as they battled with each other, but I could see the guys behind catching as well. By lap 6, Dylan (the same guy who normally races in the Ibiza TDI we built) in the second NJM SuperCopa was right on my tail, and into Paddock he made his move and I didn't defend too hard. Into Druids I was back on him, but by Graham Hill the move was done and I was down to 5th!
Traffic at Clearways lost me a lot of time to the £36 and he was able to breeze past into Paddock, then I had a TT in my mirrors! I was cautious into Paddock as I had no mirror, and then left plenty of space at Druids for Ryan to get by, with sparks from under the TT as he rode the kerb at Graham Hill. Callum in the E46 also pushed by. Ryan's victory was short lived as into Clearways he had an issue and dove into the pitlane.
I carried on doing quali laps, slowly catching Callum back up before we both dove into the pits on Lap 30.

Ryan - TT TFSI - With the TT only doing this one race things were little less stressful getting the TT ready but we never really found anything that 100% caused the gear issue, we knew it was CAN related so everything we had done recently in that respect was un-done and we rolled the dice thinking we were to blame for the issue. The greenflag lap is a good time to make a test launch, I tried and basically just did a burnout to 3rd gear, The start was going to be fun! After a short lap warming the tyres and lining up into our grid slots, the lights went out and I got away better but not well! Michael shot straight past me, as did the Caterham of Chris Payne and the Clio of Kevin Sterling but I knew I had the legs on them later so did not do anything silly. I navigated my way through the cars that jumped me fairly quickly but still felt the car was not able to put the power to the ground out of the corners. A mistake from Callum in the purple BMW allowed me past him and Chris. I was happy as finishing the first lap at Brands is an achievement in itself. The next few laps were battling a little with the two E46 BMW's but I didn't really give myself a proper overtaking opportunity, my main aim was to at least get around Scott which would hurt him points wise but I'd said at the start I wouldn't let him stay ahead! I just managed to reel Scott in and overtake by lap 10, I didn't realise Scott's mirror was folded in so he gave me a wide berth making the overtake easier than I wanted, then disaster, the car jumped out of gear at the same spot as before! Knowing it would not do anything without a hard reset I just had to dive into the pits and hope Paul had some ideas, the only thing he could think of was to disconnect the Dash entirely but this meant I didn't know what RPM I'm at or what gear I was in. I drove down the pits carefully as I had no idea how fast I was going and ventured out to see if we had at least solved the issue. So many times we only find issues when at full race pace so I pushed despite being nowhere close in the race rankings, 6 laps later the car dropped out of gear again at Druids so I had gravity to assist me to safety, I knew there was a gate to exit the track so I would not create a safety car situation, as much as something like that might have helped Scott! Overall it was disappointing to retire so soon into the race but what racing I did was clean and fair so I was happy to have brought the car home in one piece. After the race we stripped the shifter out of the car and found lots of swarf and moisture in the plug and electrical portion so hopefully a new one of those will fix this issue!!

Pit Analysis

There was no pit times for some strange reason, but I checked on the footage and I was around 2:02 in the Golf. Ryan had already done a pit stop before the pit window opened due to the gearbox issue, so it is irrelevant.

I seemed to catch Callum off guard, or he was sure I was going to do a short stop, so jumped him in the pits.
My second lap round after the stop, I hit the kerb at Graham Hill, not particularly hard, and heard a knock that was not good. I was convinced something was broken on the car, and this was confirmed when braking into Mclaren the car tried to swap ends, then would not turn into Clearways. I was on the radio to Mathisse to let him know something was not right, but his suggestion of retiring so we could get ready for the TDT was not an option in my eyes. I could see the front runners were battling hard, and with the Championship still to be decided in Class S, it could all end in tears, and gift us the overall win.
I carried on pushing, but avoided the kerbs and was extra cautious into Paddock Hill Bend, just in case anything went big time. I was still able to keep within a second of my best time so I started to think the camber adjustable top mount had slipped, especially since I could hear the wheel rubbing on the arch.
A little sprinkle of rain around lap 38 also added to the excitement, but learning from previous damp races, these A052s are still great as long as they have temperature in them, so I carried on pushing.

Michael brought his Ibiza home 1st in class, almost 9s ahead of his closest rival. Another great result for the Ibiza, still going strong 2 years after it's TDC Championship victory!

Classification

More or less every lap before the pit stops was in the 53s, then after all but one (they only one with no damage!) was in the 54s.

Lap Analysis

For some reason, despite doing 27 laps, only the first 15 of Ryan's were showing on the results sheet.

Golf Supercup Full Race (Mine):

TT Supercup Full Race (Ryan's):

6th position gives us 21 points, which made this our worst points result of the year. With the dropped score, we ended on 140 points in 3rd overall, only 12 and 18 behind 2nd and 1st place. Not bad for an old tractor!
Michael also managed to secure 3rd in the Class B Championship. It is a shame he missed the first round at Donington then had a stinker of a penalty for a short pit stop at Cadwell, where he was on track for a massive points haul. But this is racing, for all the highs there are as many (or more!) lows!

Trackday Trophy Race

I had pulled straight into the pits after the race, skipping Parc Ferme (since I had been in 5 times already, so knew the car was over its minimum weight!) to give the guys the most amount of time to diagnose and fix the issue, whatever that was.
As soon as the guys lifted it on the air jacks, it was obvious what the problem was, since the whole front left leg basically fell off!

It was an absolute miracle that the wheel did not come off, as the only thing holding it in place was the weight of the car pressing down on the shock. What is also crazy is that every lap I did after the shock snapped was in the 54s, less than 1s slower than my quickest laptime of the day. Most of that was through Paddock where I was slowing more than usual as I was expecting the car to not turn at some point.
So we were supposed to be on Pole Position, but it was not looking good. Mark had jumped on his bike and rode like the wind to the outer paddock to grab the spare suspension while Paul and Owen attacked the old damper, which was pretty much seized in, since the kit has been on the car for over 2 years without any issues.
In the meantime, James and Mathisse set about preparing the rest of the car, filling it up, changing the ECU to Class B again and putting the 10Kg of ballast in (since the TDT required 30Kg). The front tyres were also changed, since the dynamic geometry can't have done them any favours!

Grid

Since Ryan was starting the race, I headed to the Podium for the SuperCup presentation. What I didn't want to see what a full grid of cars with us missing from the front row!

We were expecting to have to do a Pit Lane start, so the guys did not give up when they saw the cars gridding up, but all the hard work looked in vain as the lights went out and the race started. However, it did not go to plan:

Luckily no drivers were hurt, but there was a lot of damage to cars, which is unfortunate. Since there was a red flag before the end of the first lap, the race was not deemed to have started. This worked out for us as we were able get back onto the grid and start from Pole.

Ryan - Not knowing what was going on with the race we expected to miss, I pushed for the guys to add the ballast and refuel while Paul was hitting the strut with a hammer to try and remove it from the hot hub. I had my kit on, strapped myself in ready and watched as the race began whilst still up on the air jacks! Mark had just arrived with the spare struts as Paul managed to free the damaged one. A small amount of swearing later due to a lack of tools and the top mounts needing swapping, things were going back together. While the mechanics stressed, I was talking to one of the marshals through the window who asked how long we will be, as the race had been stopped after the first corner! Since there was a red flag before the end of the first lap, the race was not deemed to have started. He said if we were quick, we were able get back onto the grid and start from Pole, what a result! 5 minutes later I was driving down the pitlane.

So now I had to get my head into the game, we had a race to win!! The clear-up took a lot longer than expected, so we actually had to wait a good 20 minutes anyway, it was lonely sat at the front for so long.
Anyway, dramas hopefully over, the lights went out and I bogged badly so had to dip the clutch a little and then it wheel span badly. The camber at Brands pulls you sideways so my attempt at not spinning really hurt me.
The Caterham got a good start and the BMW of John Lyne had a monster start pulling around the outside of me into paddock, I'd spent 20 minutes looking at the sign saying oil dressing at paddock hill so I was overly cautious tipping over the hill, much to the surprise of the Caterham who gave me a little nudge. I managed to get back past the BMW at Druids and pull a reasonable gap before the end of the first lap. These Yokohama A052s are super grippy when cold which helps massively when there are no Green flag laps.
The car suspension felt amazing to say Paul's eye was the tracking gauge, but it was clear right away the engine wasn't happy revving past 4000rpm for some reason. Mathisse had forgotten to let me know Scott had complained that there were strange things going on during the SuperCup race at upper RPM's, but he just drove around it, the benefit of a torquey TDI engine!

The rest of the race was quite undramatic, the Golf is so easy to drive reasonably quickly its a joy, but my initial laptimes were quite slow and it was a long time before I dipped into the 54's and I knew I could go quicker. Eventually the Caterham's tyres must have come alive and he started to reel me in, but I could see how aggressive he was with the back markers that at some point he would end up with contact or a big off. After 28 minutes, and very close to the end of the pit window I shot in and handed the baton over to Scott.
The Caterham also came into the pits with heavy damage, it looked like it has been off roading and sustained an injury, so it was out of the race, and it was now ours to lose!

Pit Analysis

Scott - On Lap 29, which was ~28 minutes into the race, Ryan pitted. This time Ryan did his usual of not pressing the timer, so I was reliant on the timer the guys started from outside the pits, but we still manage to mess it up and go 5s over the time. However so did everyone close to us, which meant it was not a complete disaster.
I was quickly into the 55s then the 54s negotiating the traffic. I just did qualifying laps every lap, before eventually doing a 54.046, so close to the 53s which would have been a great time for the power of the car in Class B trim, it shows how good these Yokohama Tyres are, even deep into a long race! This snatched the fastest lap of the race from the Caterham!
Eventually the fun had to stop, and the chequered flag was waved with us 50s ahead of P2, and we had lapped all the way to P4, only 4s off lapping the entire field.

Classification

Ryan's lap times were pretty consistent considering the traffic and the fact that the front left shock was a KW and the rest were Bilstein, and that he had only done Quali laps before.

Lap Analysis

It took me a lot longer that I would have liked to get the Fastest lap back from Chris Kirby, and by a very narrow margin as well, only 0.042s, a slimmer margin than I would like!

Fastest Lap History

A video of the full race is below:

TDC / SuperCup / TDT Conclusion

An (almost) perfect end to the season with the Golf, only denied a full triple hattrick of Pole, Fastest Lap and Race win by the pesky Caterham in the TDC race. We won't be running the Golf in the TDC or TDT next year, so that frees us up for some different categories of racing for 2022, including the new MSVR series, Turismo X. More details of that will follow.
The TT still needs a lot of creases ironing out, but we expected this so 2021 was just a tester to get ready for hopefully a fault free 2022 season!

Photos courtesy of MSV and Peter H.

Watch our full vlog here:

EnduroKA Qualifying

With no rest for the wicked, I was straight into the KA for qualifying ready for the 500 minute (8:20 for those doing the maths!) race on Sunday. With rain in the air and fading light, Adam jumped in to set a banker lap in case the lap times slowed down later. He managed a 1:03.456 despite terrible traffic throughout the lap. This put us on Pole, but he was convinced we were going to lose it.
Ollie and Mark jumped in for a handful of laps each, some under the safety car, then it was my turn as the light faded some more. I was struggling the same as Adam with traffic, but managed a 1:04.2, which was miles off the front running pace, but I knew I could build on that for the race, so pitted for Adam to go out and push again.
Immediately he knocked 2 tenths off, but by this point we were down in 4th with still more to go. Another 0.03s off, then on what was going to be the final lap, with 9s to go in the session, he put in a 1:02.845, enough for Pole by 0.261s ahead of everyone else. A massive margin considering the short lap, equal cars and the level of drivers in the field !

Classification

Talk about leaving it to the last minute! He waited while the final flying lap to shave 0.430s off his previous best!

Lap Analysis

With a few things for the guys to prepare, it was time for the MSV End of Season Party and the chance to grab those Championship Trophies we had been working all season for!

Sunday

EnduroKA Race

A bulletin was sent out in the week leading up to the race advising that the max driving stint was 2:10, which for races of over 6 hours should be 3:00. This did not work out too bad for us, as there is a minimum of three stops, and with four drivers, that meant we just needed to push as close to 2:10 as possible, then we had 20 minutes to play with. Adam was determined to do the last stint of the race, and Ollie and Mark didn't sound super keen to start, so I drew the short straw.
Normally I love doing the race starts, but from Pole Position, the only way is backwards! And I had done a total of 5 laps in the car all weekend. I guess the 200+ laps I did in the Golf on Saturday would come in handy!
By 9:40 we were being called to the assembly area and then we were making our way on to the grid. As with all KA races, it would be started behind the safety car, so hopefully there would be less chance of any carnage at the start!
I got a great start, but defended too hard into Druids for the first time, so was jumped by the 134 Ferguson Motorsport Car, who had made a great start from 8th and took us all on the outside! It took me 3 laps to get back in front where I then led until lap 19 when the 18 Hoonikan car got me. I knew it was a long race so did not defend too hard, and thought it would be better if we just stretched a lead on the rest of the pack. This worked well, with a gap of almost 8 seconds to the car behind before the first safety car on lap 26 bunched us back up. All that hard work for nothing!
With more safety cars to follow, I knew the best way was to just stick to their back bumper and rebuild that gap again. This race was going to be won with strategy and pit stops, not pure pace. Still, I had the fastest lap of the race so far, a 1:02.859 vs 1:02.868 from the 18 car.

1hr in

I continued to push, and made a few attempts to pass when the car in front made mistakes at Graham Hill, but both times they defended so aggressively (full on contact) that I decided to hang back and leave them to it. Whilst being in the lead for your stint looks good, if the car gets smashed to bits in the process, it is not worth it.
During my stint, every flying lap was in 1:03s or 1:02s including traffic, and there were 6 safety car periods. I eventually managed a 1:02.573 lap time, the fastest of anyone so far.
Eventually ~1:45 into my stint there was another safety car, so we decided to jump in and swap to Ollie, in case there was not another as we approached the 2:10 limit.

2hrs in

The pit stop was not great, the fuel did not want to drain out of the Tuff Jugs (which are painfully slow on a good day!), and the safety car had peeled back in before we were finished, so we lost at least another lap because of that. This dropped us right down, way past 20th place. However as we neared the 3hr mark, Ollie had put in a solid stint and everyone had made at least their first stop, so we were back up to 10th. My 1:02.573 lap time was still the quickest of the day.

3hrs in

During one of the MANY safety car restarts, Ollie had inadvertently overtaken a back marker before the Start/Finish line, this got us a Stop/Go Penalty, which cost us ~40s. We couldn't make that mistake again!
It was Mark's turn to take over, with Ollie doing almost 2:10 in the car. Not that him going over this would be an issue, after our first stop, the Mitchell Brothers (not from EastEnders) in the 81 G&M Performance Car had queried why some drivers had stayed out well past the 2:10 mark. It turns out the Bulletin was incorrect and the full 3:00 stint time was correct. The guys who had stayed out clearly had not read the Bulletin. This was a blow to us as my stint was cut short to prevent us exceeding the limit, and with basically free air and half a tank of fuel, we would have pushed right up to 3:00 limit for sure.
We were still climbing back up, and by 4hrs in, we were only two laps down in 8th position.

4hrs in

Mark was straight onto the pace of the other front runners, although he was not happy with his times. It seemed that everyone was struggling to improve on the earlier pace, probably because the temperature had dropped a fair bit, plus the pack was constantly bunched up due to all the safety cars. My 1:02.573 lap time had not been beaten.

5hrs in

Another hour down and we had dropped back to 10th and were 5 laps down. The Bulletin at 5hrs must have come out just as we were doing our stop as we were still lapping with the same pace as the guys at the front, just not catching them at the rate we needed.

6hrs in

Just after the 6hr mark, it was time to get Adam in the car to hopefully beat my lap time, and carve his way through the pack. It was going to be a tall order, but 2hrs is a long time, and anything can happen to the guys in front so you just need to keep plugging away and making sure you are in the best position to take advantage of any situation.
What didn't help was fitting a tyre destined for the rear on the front left of the car. It had a significant amount of pressure that it should have, so by the time Adam will have done a few laps and warmed them up, it would have been in stratospheric levels. We decided not to tell him on the radio!
At the 7 hour mark we had climbed back to 5th, only 1 lap down from the leaders, who were having their own battle and slowing each other down. We just needed to keep the faith!

7hrs in

Adam was doing a great job, knocking chunks out of the leaders, eventually getting into the podium places, and catching the 72 Misty Racing car every lap. They were in the garage next door and said the driver could not get the Spotlights to work so was struggling for pace.
With only 20 minutes to go, we were on the edge of our seats. We were less than 9s behind 2nd place, but lapping 2 - 3s quicker. We were also less than 40s behind the leader, but as he was at the front of the pack, and we had more or less the full field to get through, the lap difference was not big enough. We needed them to get stuck in some traffic and us be lucky.

8hrs in

However it was not meant to be. We had jumped into 2nd place but were running out of full pace laps to catch the leader, as the safety car was out for a long time which meant we had no chance close the gap. It also bunched the pack up making it harder to picked through the pack.
Then with 9 minutes left on the clock, disaster! Adam pulled from behind a back marker before Paddock Hill and the car just turned into him, sending the car in the air and almost causing a massive accident. Unfortunately it had damaged the front left side of the car and popped the driveshaft out, meaning the car would not drive. We were so close to securing that P2 and had driven 491 minutes with only minor issues. What a disappointment!
The only real consolation was we still held the fastest lap, but that was not really enough for all the guys, considering the hard work and effort that had gone into the weekend. We did still finish 15th in the classification as we were a few laps ahead of everyone else.

Classification

As you can see below, the safety car was out for over 3 hours of the race, and a total of 19 times. Some of them were caused by the same cars getting stuck in the gravel multiple times.

Flag Analysis

After we found out that we could go beyond the 2:10, we factored that into our strategy and made sure that Adam was in the car for a full stint the car could do on a full tank, which without the safety cars would be close to 2:30.

Stint Analysis