Brands Hatch Race Report - 28/29th April 2001
The Circuit
Brands Hatch is located in Kent, just outside the M25 and off the A20 towards Dover. The circuit used to share the British Grand Prix with Silverstone, but in recent years has been used for club racing and motorcycle GP. The old GP circuit is only used occasionally, the majority of racing being on the so called Indy circuit, which is about 1.2 mile long. This gives good visibility for spectators, but a very short lap for competitors.
Practice
I arrived at the circuit for testing, having got the car back with a new head gasket after the failure at Thruxton. Testing on the day before practice was not particularly productive as the misfire, which I had suffered at Thruxton, remained. This misfire only happened after two or three laps, which was suspected to be due to the failing head gasket remained, and could not be reproduced off the track. Further to that, the tailpipe of the exhaust fell off ! The Friday evening was spent picking up a new exhaust in London and heading to Leeds so that I could borrow some parts from the original Carrera GT to try and solve the misfire. I arrived back at the hotel in Kent just before 3.00am. Later that next morning I arrived at the circuit and only had time to fix the exhaust, so that I would not fail the noise test, and replace the flywheel timing sender unit, before it was time for practice.
Good news, the misfire was cured. Qualification went reasonably well, considering this was the first time I could drive the car for more than 3 laps this year without the misfire, and I started 8th on the grid.
Race
It rained as we went into collection area, this was to be my first time in wet with a rwd turbo car. I managed to get the car off the line without too much wheelspin and kept with the main pack. Everyone was being very cautious and the race was a little bit of a procession - almost like F1. After initially dropping back, I overtook Ian White, but was unable to make further progress as I was suffering from lack of grip as the rear wheels span coming out of corners. I crossed the line in 7th place.Race Engineer back at base - called into action to dismantle the "spare" car
