After our first round success in the MSV Trackday Championship and misery in the MSV Trackday Trophy, which you can read about HERE, we were back to Donington Park for the MSVT SuperCup.

The SuperCup is very similar to the TDC and TDT in regards to classes, using the Power to Weight ratio which is a very good way of keeping different cars on a level playing field, but with 2 higher classes, to allow much faster machines, such as the BMW M3s and TCR Cars to enter. It also works well for 2 driver teams, as it is a 45 minute race with a mandatory 2 minute pit stop, which allows for a driver change.

More info about the SuperCup can be found on their website - https://www.msvtsupercup.com/about-supercup/

Classes:
Class S 206 - 240 bhp/tonne
Class A 176 - 205 bhp/tonne
Class B: 151 - 175 bhp/tonne
Class C: Up to 150 bhp/tonne

Cars must:
• Meet the basic Motorsport UK standards for safety (check out our Guide to Motorsport UK Scrutineering Requirements)
• No more than 240 bhp per tonne
• Minimum weight of 600kg (post-race and with driver)
• Tyres must be Yokohama A052 (or A048 for cars with 13 inch wheels)
• Forced Induction cars must strictly conform to the championship regulations regarding ballast
• 4WD vehicles are not permitted

Aerodynamic devices are permitted, providing that they comply with the provisions set out in Appendix J of the Motorsport UK Yearbook (J5.20.10 & J5.20.11) in terms of fixed rear wings/diffusers and front splitters only. It is implicit that these devices must be approved by the scrutineers. Active aero/DRS systems are not permitted.

Below is the layout of the Donington Park National Circuit:

Since we don't like the easy life, I decided to do the Focus Cup which had testing on Friday, and the Quali + 2 Races on Saturday. To complicate things even further, myself and Ryan would be driving in the EnduroKAs with Adam, Ollie and Mark from IP Racing. Our friend Pete, who we have raced with before in our KA last year (We got a win at Oulton after IP Racing were a few Kg underweight!), was also joining us so we had 2 cars and 6 drivers.
As you can see below, it was going to be a very busy day, with a compact schedule in the morning to allow for the 5hrs of KAs in the afternoon!

Focus Cup Qualifying

Testing went pretty well on the Friday, so I was confident for a good position in Qualifying, but you never know if the other guys (and gals) are sandbagging you with the times they are doing (or tell you!) so you have to wait and see at the end of the session!
With no radios in the car, it is hard to judge what is enough and where you are whilst out on track. I had estimated a 1:25.5 would be Pole so when I did a 1:25.270 after 6 laps, and could not improve on the 7th, I came into the pits to check where I was and with a couple of tenths between me and Simon Rudd in 2nd, I decided to save my tyres and leave it at that. My first Pole of 2021 in the Focus!

With less that a second separating the top 7, the championship looks set to be much harder than last year!
Starting on the front row is obviously the best place to be, but the only way is back! I needed to get a good launch for the long drag into Redgate!
I was straight out of the Focus into the KA for Quali, but to keep things simple I will carry on with the Focus for now.

Focus Cup Race 1

I made a great start relative to the others behind me, managing to pull a 1.6s lead after lap one, while they all battled for the podium places. Gary Mitchell in the 44 car was behind and kept me honest so I could not cruise as much as I would have liked. He managed to drag back some time in the later stages but I had it covered.
I was disappointed to not get the fastest lap to complete the hat trick, but no one wants to be the guy binning it into the gravel while in the lead (eh Ryan?)

Focus Cup Race 2

To spice things up in race 2, all the grid is reversed in batches of 6, so with me finishing P1, I was back in P6. I would need to get back past all the guys who finished just behind me if I were to get another P1. It was going to be a tall order as everyone was on the pace!

I had another good start, managing to get it up to P4 by lap one and P2 by lap two, chasing Spencer Fortag in the No 4 car. The gap was 0.253s on lap 4 and I was ready to make my move when disaster struck!
The cars have a protection mode for coolant temperatures. When it gets to 110c the engine loses a lot of power until it cools back down. Gary Mitchell in the 44 car was able to sneak through, then through Craners a lap later I was swamped, dropping down to P5.
I was then in a temperature management mode to try and prevent the issue costing me more places, so I was only able to get back up to P4.
I had seen that Spencer had a 10s penalty, so I hoped that Gary would not defend too much in front so we could keep within that window and all steal a place.

It worked out that I was 2.9s off the lead after 11 laps, which with the penalty meant I had finished P3, so another podium! However Spencer was adamant he had not jumped the start (the reason for the penalty) so he was on the way to the Clark of the Course with his Race Footage to fight his case. Later that evening I checked TSL and the penalty had been rescinded, dropping me back to 4th!

Whilst disappointing not to be on the podium for a 2nd time, it still meant that I was in the lead of the championship after both races, with a narrow lead. Those fastest lap points would have come in handy! Roll on Silverstone!

You can check out the video produced for Amazon Prime, that was shared on the Focus Cup Racing Facebook Page. They are going to be following us for each round, so hopefully if I get more podiums, there will be more screen time for me!

EnduroKA Qualifying

For the first time in a while, myself and Ryan were in different cars, with me in no 36 and Ryan in 63. I was not around for the start of the KA qualifying as I had just finished in the Focus quali, so Adam was going first in our car. We had a few issues with fuel surge while he was out, so he came in to add a bit more fuel. Traffic was a major issue, so he came back in to let me do a few laps (MSUK rules require each driver to do at least 3 laps each). My time was enough to get us P5 (a 1:35.809 - We expected pole to be in the 1:34s so I was miles off), then I came in to let Ollie have his turn. He did 5 laps, finished up with a 1:36.577 , then we then let Adam go back out, as the most experienced KA racer of us, to try to get a better time on the board. Right at the very end Adam pulled out a 1:33.617, a blistering time to get us to P1 out of 51 cars!
Car 63 was doing pretty well also, with Ryan, Pete and Mark struggling in traffic at first, then Pete putting a monster 1:34.206 lap, to put them P3. This meant the JTR car, with Nick Tandy and a host of Porsche Cup drivers in an IP Racing Sandwich!

The race was VERY eventful, and I think we could write a book on it. Our strategy worked out pretty well, despite a few hickups along the way, and by 3 hours in we were 2nd and 3rd on track with Club Racing UK just in front and Octane Junkies 18 seconds behind.

13 minutes later, a major crash at the chicane caused a red flag, which is quite uncommon on this type of race. At that stage we were now P1 and P2! At this point I was in our car and Pete was in 63.

Pete had just pitted as the red flag was shown, so there was a lot of confusion over what could be done. Eventually it was decided that Pete needed to get back in the car, and no work could be done. I think he would have rather not looked at the state of his front left tyre. It was blebbed, missing chunks of tread and wouldn't pass an MOT for sure!
As this situation does not happen too often, no one seemed to be quite sure on how the restart would work, how soon we could pit after the restart etc. We were told that the drivers who were in the cars at the red flat were to restart, we could not touch the cars at all and we were not able to pit until the race had started.
As we were all on the grid, the restart changed from a 2x2 Safety Car Start to a Single File Safety Car Start for 2 laps. The significance of this would be clear 1 lap later!
In an ideal world we would pit under safety car every time, to lose as little time as possible to those who stay out. Despite us asking if we could come in after 1 lap behind the safety car and being told no, Octane Junkies in the 111 car did and were able to jump us by a lap. So frustrating! It transpired that they had asked the same question as us, were told no then were informed they could. Information that would have been good for everyone else!
Pete struggled on with the dead tyre until he pitted for a fresh front left, some more fuel and hand the car over the Ryan for the last stint.
I handed over to Adam a few laps later, and hoped he could keep us on the podium!

It all worked out in the end, with Adam in our 36 car jumping Ryan by around 5s, but we were still 25 seconds behind the 111 Octane Junkies. So close yet so far!

So 3 races down, we have 3 trophies between us. Not a bad weekend so far. With a late finish Saturday, the late start on Sunday would be welcome for everyone involved!

Supercup Qualifying

Sunday was much cooler than the previous 2 days, a welcome change for my pink face (and white arms!). With Donington on the doorstep, we made our way down in the morning, arriving with around 1 hour to Quali.
I went first as Ryan hates waiting in the assembly area. My goal was to put a decent time on the board in the first few laps then let Ryan get settled into the track at a pace faster than a KA. It didn't work out like that as the Newman / Smith Leon headed into the gravel at Old Hairpin, meaning there were double waved yellows there for a few laps.
I found some space after 5 laps and pushed, eventually doing a 1:17.547 before coming in for Ryan to take over. This would have been enough for P1 in class and P6 overall, but I knew there was around 1s left in the car once the pressures were good.

Ryan went out and more or less straight away knocked another 0.5s off that time, jumping us to P4. He had a couple of slightly slower laps before pitting again.
The guys adjusted the pressures again and Ryan had time to do one more flying lap. He saved his best till last with a stonking 1:16.625. Enough for P3 overall and 1st in class by over 2s.

The times were improving constantly, and I think with a bit more time in the car, Ryan would have improved even more, but that was enough to get us where we wanted to be.

A video comparison of our laps is below:

Supercup Race

With four Class S Cars behind us, all RWD, the start was always going to be a fight for survival!

Sat on the grid behind the SuperCopa of Nick Jackson / Ollie Pidgley and the Leon Cup Racer of Darren Goes, I was unsure which way to go. If they got a good launch, there was no way I would out drag them to turn 1. I was more concerned about where to go if they fluffed the start.
My concerns were right, as both of them hesitated before launching. With nowhere to go, I had to put the clutch back in for a split second and this meant I was mugged by everyone, with Steve Hewson in the Porsche Cayman getting a perfect launch.
Callum Noble in the Pink E46 M3 got in front at Craners but I jumped ahead at the Old Hairpin and was able to keep him behind until he got me at Craners a lap later.
While he was hunting down the Porsche I kept on their bumpers looking for an opportunity which was difficult to find with the Class S cars being a fair bit quicker on the straights.
Eventually Callum passed the Porsche, and I spent the next 5 laps frustrated behind Steve. Its a new car for him so he was carrying much less speed into the corners than I was, but then it's speed on the straights made it difficult to keep close enough into the next braking zone. I figured my best opportunity would be at the Old Hairpin. I just needed to wait for the correct moment!
7 laps down, Steve hesitated at the left kink of Craners, so I jumped to the outside, which was the inside of the next corner, just managing to slow the car down enough to make the corner.
I quickly pulled a 2s gap, and with clear air in front, could start to realise the potential of the car. I radio'd back to the guys that I would stay out until Ryan wanted me to come in.
With 15 laps down I had managed to reel Callum in, so I was back on the radio to say that now would be a good time to come in, as not to lose any time behind him attacking.

Mathisse had forgotten that the Pit Stop Times were back to 2:00, and with some radio gremlins, Ryan would not have a timer to count him down to the line at the far end of the pits. When he saw the clock was already over 1:50, and it was a 20s crawl to the line, he needed to set off immediately.
We ended up 15s over the minimum time, and bit of a disaster, but luckily we had enough of a gap to the cars behind to make up for it.
You can see that quite a few of the cars did a short stop. Last year that would have been a Stop / Go penalty for the duration of the missing time. This year, for some strange reason, the penalty is a straight 1 lap, regardless of how close you were. That means a 1:59.9 stop would get a 1 lap penalty. Crazy. Sam Gay and Colin Tester in the Integra did an almost perfect stop. They have a lot of trust in their timer!

Ryan took over and had a great drive, just beating my race lap time by 0.02s, putting in some decent laps through the traffic and reeling Callum back in by lap 24.
They had a great battle, with Callum almost losing it out of the chicane, he had a proper tank slapper on. Luckily there was no contact and they both carried on, clearly with Callum rattled and spending a lot of the race looking in his mirrors!
On lap 32 there were 2 cars in the gravel at Redgate. Ryan was concerned there may be a red flag, so needed to be in front for the next lap in case of any countbacks. He went for a lunge from a long way back into the Chicane and made it stick, pulling 1.1s on Callum over the line.
There was no red flag, but we had made another place. Unbeknown to Ryan, who though he was battling for 5th overall, three of the Class S Cars in front had short pit stops applied, which meant he had actually finished 2nd as well as 1st in class. What a result!

We have done a VLOG on the weekend for those with less of an attention span! It has the full race in there, not many boring bits this time!

Thanks again to all the teams, it was chaos jumping between the cars so I had to be confident the guys were on top of all the cars, and they were, which allowed me to do the easy bit, drive round in circles as fast as possible! Roll on Silverstone!
All the guys at IP were great, it was like we had all raced together before and their new team got into a great groove. We will be back again for Cadwell in around a month's time!

Focus Cup Photos by - Sarah Hall Motorsport. Others courtesy of MSV.

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