Winton August 27/29 Victorian Car Club Formula Ford Championship
On 20th August we assembled at Winton to test in preparation for this meeting, so did practically every other competitor worth his salt. I ran new tyres and working with the team's number one engineer/ trainer we went through a painstaking analysis and set up procedure. The end result was encouraging. I was 0.3 to 0.5 sec per lap quicker then anybody else. As I was leading this particular championship all looked very exciting.
Dad and I arrived on Thursday 26 got our rental car and drove to the team workshop from where we followed the truck for 3 hours to Winton.
Friday testing.
We tested on very warn tyres in mixed weather conditions. Cars had had fitted with a new "in house" component and reset.. We were off the pace by a sizable margin which was put down to poor tyres and uncertain weather. I became worried as the day progressed and we ended the day, despite continual adjustments, well off the pace.
Saturday
Rain had cleared and we were promised 2 fine days. We had a single test session in the morning so we purchased a set of new tyres to more accurately judge our performance. I managed to trim off time but we were still no where near the front which was hugely disappointing.
Conclusion
I will skip to the conclusion. A big disappointment for me personally and also for the team which had expected great things.
The car remained out of balance for all 3 races that counted despite the removal of the "component" after race 2. The final no points race could have produced a better result but I stuffed up the start, unfortunate because all starts to that point had been great with me making up 1 or 2 places.
I qualified 5th and finished 5th in all races. In saying that it was uneventful we at least didn't damage the car, that would have added insult to injury.
Following on from my round win here previously and a very promising test day the week prior I was left rather speechless.
Final Oz round will be at Phillip Island on 25th Sept and I have a test day prior.
My NZ car for next season nears completion. As always, what at first seemed simple, wasn't and Motorsport Solutions have been working furiously to make deadlines.
Regards
Andre
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