High hopes … but not quite to plan
After a difficult meeting at Thruxton I headed to Oulton with high hopes of a good result and to get my championship on track. Saturday morning went ok, I had a new engine fitted in my number one dry bike and I instantly liked it. It had so much more power and drive out of the corners than before and I was very optimistic for the weekend. I ended the first session in 10th which I was fairly happy about.
FP2 got underway and straight away i went faster than the morning, I run in the top 8 for the whole session before been shuffled down to 11th in the final minutes. I was reasonably happy with the days work but not estatic. I felt I was lacking about a second in race pace and needed to find that for qualifying.
Q1 was wet, and I was hoping to do well. The times were really close but I only finished 14 which I was annoyed about but I didnt push all that hard as I knew we would go faster in the afternoon. It was a shame I didnt pit for a new rear at the end as I think I could have jumped up a fair few places.
Q2 and the track was dry. I knew it was very important to gain a good starting position and lower my race pace. I bedded myself in during the 35 minute session, and with 12 minutes to go I pulled the pin and was consistantly in the low 41’s before dropping into the 40’s on my last lap. That was good enough for 8th and the 2nd row which I was chuffed about. It was a nice feeling as it was the first time I have shown promise on the Pirellis and I feel im really getting there. I was pleased with myself as I took 0.7 off what I did last season on a Dunlop qualifying tyre in race trim with Pirellis.
Warm up again went well. I wanted to put some more laps on the soft tyres to make sure they would do race distant and we were very fast in race trim. After qualifying I felt we had found a good rhythm. After 20 laps on a soft rear I was still doing mid 41’s and thats in warm up so as you would imagine I was very confident for the race. Those times put me 4th and this was a good boost. Unfortuantly after the session ended I did a practice start and the engine I had been so confident with all weekend failed, leaving me distraught.
My two mechancs and Alan did a fantastic job of building me a race bike out of two bikes, during the morning and I must say a huge thanks to them for there effort. The race got underway under on a drying track with rain still slightly falling and I choose to go with hard wets. I got a good initial run into turn one and settled in around about 8th or 9th. I had a massive highside at Lodge at the end of lap one but I managed to save it but dropped a few places.
As I settled down and started making headway the race was red flagged due to a incident.
For the re run I was slightly nervous about tyre choice and I chose a inter front. I thought this might give me a advantage early on but little was I to know! I got another good start but got boxed in on the way to turn 1, and lost a few positions. I was pretty annoyed how the first part of the race turned out but I got my head down and started making progress. Now it had dried it was obvious the new engine wasnt as strong as the previous one, and I had a few niggling problems with it during the race. I got up to 10th and was catching the pack infront when I run on at the chichane and dropped to 13th. I was
absoluteky gutted as i was riding so well. I lost about 4 seconds just on that lap and it screwed my race. Although I was only 10th I thought I could have got on the back of the 2nd group of riders and gained a position or two. I struggled through the last 6 laps with the front tyre folding everywhere as my inter destroyed itself. I hung on for 11th but this really wasnt the result I was looking for after Qualifying and warm up.
Basically I was really frustrated with myself, firstly for going with a inter front then running on at the chichane. I couldnt help the engine problem but it was annoying as I think if all had been well I could have finished 5th.It was a great opportunity to score good points and climb up the championship leaderboard. I have totally put the day behind me now and its history, I was over that by 6pm monday night! I now look forward to Brands and Donington,
where I am 100% confident in getting the results I believed we should have had at Oulton. The one positive thing is that we were fast, Brands is one of my favourite tracks, and then again so is Donington. In 4 days time we will start to put the job right at Brands and look for a very good result on Sunday afternoon. Im ready!
I would like to say a big thanks to my Dad,Sim and Alan and the rest of the Centurion team, and a big thanks to my friends and family. We will see you all at Brands Hatch later this week.
Cheer, Westy #27
