Time Attack - Round 5- August 10th 2008 - Brands Hatch

Overview

My favorite track!

The adrenalin was flowing for me as this is the track I spent most of my childhood at.
So I was buzzing and really looking forward to seeing the Time Attack cars hitting this track nice and hard.

We arrived on Saturday evening to make sure the pit was set up and ready for the early start Sunday morning.
After an evening of chat and laughs we got up bright and early ready for a good day.

After handing Bob his cup of coffee we had a usual chat about how he was feeling...
Bob replied nervous.

Interview

Lisa: Why were you nervous Bob?

Bob: I have heard a lot about Brands over the years, but its one track I have never driven. So I Figured it would be an interesting day.

L: So being as it is all important what was the weather like?

B: Cold, Sunny and Dry

L: what set up did you go for?

B: The set up we used for the dry session at Oulton worked well, so we thought we would carry this through and use the same again at Brands.

L: After the first Practice session did you find this worked well for this track?

B: NOOOOoo!
Basically when we repaired the front bumper/splitter we made some fundamental changes, by reducing its overall height by 40mm to achieve more ground clearance at the front so it did not get wiped out again on the rumble strips. This upset the whole aero dynamic balance of the splitter, the flat floor and the rear diffuser. Causing horrendous over steer during turn in.
Back to the pits, have a cup of coffee and ponder our next move.

L: What did you do to correct the problems?

B: F*cking all sorts... Berty Basset has nothing on us!
We adjusted the rear spoiler to increase down force at the back, we adjusted the roll bars and the stiffness of the dampers. These changes were made individually during second practice and qualifying, but to no avail!

L: So basically the car was still crap then for the superbattle?

B: We had one last trick up our sleeve... and that was to lower the rear end of the car by 10mm, this would put some more weight over the rear end, hopefully enhancing grip.

L: Did it?

B: Oh yeah baby!
Back to the car we had at Oulton.

L: So you were game on for the Super Battle... How did it go?

B: The car was running fantastic. First lap out took 2 seconds straight off the previous lap time without trying, The car felt so good I thought I would go for it on the next lap, managed to get the car flat out in fifth on the start/finish straight.. got a great line and carried lots of speed through Paddock Hill Bend, flat out up Hallwood Hill, chucked it into Druids in third with a great exit... only on nailing the throttle I only had three cylinders!
Limped back to the pits to see if it was a quick fix only to find one of the butterfly screws had worked its way into number four cylinder.
Game over!

Umm its broke :(

The rear spoiler gets adjusted for some much needed rear end down force