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Silverstone GP - MSVT SuperCup - 15th August 2021

Silverstone GP - MSVT SuperCup - 15th August 2021

After a dominating performance at Cadwell, which you can read about HERE, we were off to Silverstone in the MSVT SuperCup on the iconic GP Circuit.
This time we were also dusting off the 330d for it's first race, as it has spent all of it's life (with us anyway) as a track day car. We had our fair share of issues with it over the years, including a catastrophic engine failure when we were last at Silverstone:

Hopefully this time it would be less eventful!
A layout of Silverstone is below. We get detailed analysis of sector times and speeds. Sector 1 takes us from the Start / Finish at the Historic / National Pits all the way to end of the Hangar Straight, Sector 2 ends on the Wellington Straight and Sector 3 completes the lap.

SuperCup Qualifying

With Ryan in the 330d, the plan was to do a couple of laps, come in for tyre pressures and temps, then head back out to set a decent time. As they say, every good plan...
As we exited the assembly area, I overtook Ryan and went for it over the line, however on the Hangar Straight, I saw smoke in my rear view mirror, and it was coming from the BMW! I didn't want to let it affect my session, and I had a feeling it was going to be cut short, so I pushed hard. I managed 2 flying laps before the guys asked me to come in and let Ryan jump in the car.


In the end, my first flying lap was the decider, and it put us P6 overall, 1.5s shy of the quickest Class S car in P2. This is where we expected to be, as Silverstone is a Power Circuit, so the Class S Cars, with 35whp/ton more would have the advantage.
Michael did an amazing job in the Ibiza, qualifying 1st in class down in P13, 0.3s ahead of the nearest Class B car!


The extra power is shows in the speed traps, we were 13th in the first two intermediates, then 11th over the finish line, over 12mphs slower in places!


The Sector times told a different story, we were still down in 9th for Sector 1, but 2nd in sector 2 and 6th in sector 3. So we were clearly losing a lot down the Pit straight, and on the Hangar Straight to the Class S and Guest Cars!


The BMW had a weeping rear diff seal, than decided to show itself as Ryan left the assembly area. It was fixed well before the race, but he needed to do his 3 laps to satisfy MSUK rules, luckily they were happy the laps he did in the Golf counted so he was able to start the race!


A comparison of our Fastest Laps is shown below:

SuperCup Race

I was not even going to try to get the full grid on here with Ryan at the back! We were given instructions that as well as starting from the back, Ryan would be held for 10s before being started with the Union Flag. Another driver also missed qualifying so he was not alone at least!


With no less than 5 BMWs behind me, plus a Porsche, I was hoping for a decent launch again. I was side by side with Darren Goes in the Leon Cup Race, so it would be interesting to see how we compared!


You can watch the full video below, or read the race summary further down the page:


My reaction time to the lights was terrible, I think I hesitated as the guys in front didn't move for what seemed like a decade, but in reality was a fraction of a second. I still had a decent launch in comparison to Darren to my left, but in my mirrors I saw some commotion. It turned out that Mark Flower in the white M3 had a great launch, but then came across the front of the Seal BMW too early, causing a concertina of cars to bump into each other and the wall. A simple mistake that cost a lot of drivers dearly. The race was red flagged immediately.
Luckily for Ryan, he was way back out of the way of the commotion so stayed out of trouble.
The restart was behind the safety car to try and avoid the same result again, and it worked, we all got away well and had some good battles. As we headed through Farm towards Village, I noticed a car at the side of the track so backed off. On the safety car restart an MG had seized up. The marshals were at the side of the track trying to move it, a little dangerous on the first lap when you do not expect there to be any hazards. In my opinion, the safety car should have stayed out for another lap.
After a while the safety car came back out while they pulled the MG to safety, which bunched us all back up. Due to the red flag, the race had been shortened and the pit window was immediately open. This meant some of the guys behind, who had seen the safety car board before passing the pits dove in for a cheeky stop. Mathisse told me who was in over the radio, and I knew instantly we had lost the race. A pit stop while we were driving at half speed, for such a long lap would mean the early pitters would come out well before the safety car passed, and be able to catch the back of the pack.
I pitted next lap, but the safety car was coming in as well as the rest of the leaders, so now it was a race for who would have the closest stop to 2:00. There was a bit of jockeying for position on the way out of the pits, with Goes and Jackson side by side, not ideal on the way out of the pits!


It was do or die now, I knew at least a few of the cars that pitted early were well ahead, so I needed to push hard to try to catch up. I was able to keep up with the Class S cars in the twisty bits, but they just had so much more legs on the straights, making a pass would be difficult.
It was a 3 way fight in front of me for what would have been P1 under normal circumstances, but as well as battling each other, we all needed to get on to catch the cars ahead who jumped us in the pits.
Meanwhile Ryan was struggling in the BMW, he pitted early to check the car over, then as he headed down the Hangar Straight, the car stuttered and cut out. He rolled to a stop just after Vale. A disappointing end to his race. It looked like an issue with the battery isolator at first, but something is not right. More investigation necessary!
Back to the Golf, I was hot on the tail of Steve Hewson in the Cayman, again struggling with all the long straights to find an opportunity to pass. By this point I had got back up to 12th overall, not where I wanted to be!
I could see I was quicker through Vale towards the loop, so figured that would be my opportunity. I got too close into Farm was was held up in the fast right left section. I needed to hold back a bit more through there next lap.
Jackson in the Leon dove into the pits to serve his drive through penalty for an unsafe release during the pit stops. This, along with some passes over the previous lap promoted me to 8th overall. Still some way to go!
As we headed into Vale, I could see Steve was pushing hard to get away, but I paced myself, then into Farm had enough of a run to throw it down the inside at Village. Steve defended and I was through, but it was not done there. I had overcooked the brakes and went a bit deep, as well as him having the better line so I had to defend for the left turn and push out wide on the exit. Steve saw what was coming and back out. He had a dummy into Brooklands but I was late enough on the brakes to keep him at bay.
That put me up to 7th, but we caught the Celica of Sarah Hobson before Maggots, so that was 6th overall. More where we expected to be. I made up another place on the last lap, and took the chequered in 5th overall but only 2nd in Class. Roger in the Leon SuperCopa out-strategised us this time!


Whilst being P5 on the road, the Jones / Rogers Leon Super Copa was given a 1 lap penalty for a short pit stop, and Richard Clarke in P1 was a guest, so from a championship points perspective, we were 3rd overall and 2nd in class. It could have been worse!
Michael dropped to 2nd in Class after not pitting under the Safety Car, it was a last minute call and would have probably won him the race overall with his pace against the two drivers who finished at the top of the charts.
We only managed 10 laps in the shortened race, and the times were all over the place, not as consistent as I would have liked for sure! I have beaten the Quali time by a decent chunk so I was happy at that.


The sector times were a little closer to our actual position, with a few drivers improving a lot in Sector 2 where we had been much stronger during qualifying. We had the 6th quickest ideal lap overall.


Speed wise we were still down in 10th or 11th, so definitely had been making it all up in the corners!


With 27 points on the board for that result, we are only 8 behind Nick and Ollie in the NJM Super Copa, and 6 behind Darren in the Leon Cup Racer. If we have a fantastic result at Brands, we could be in with a chance of the overall title! However realistically we will settle for 3rd overall, and 1st in Class A. We still have to keep on our toes as the G&M Integra in Class B could mathematically beat us to 3rd if we have a bad result and they win. Least it will go down to the wire!


Another bit thanks to the team Paul, Toby, Rob, Mathisse and James all worked hard to ensure both cars were on track, as well as supporting Simon and Michael for the weekend.


If you like to torture yourself, we have put together the best (and worst) bits from Ryan's weekend in the 330d as well!


Photos by - Nick @ NE Sports Photography and MSV.

25 08 2021

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