Round 1 – Time Attack
Free practice 1 was pretty wet for the first time out in Tsuki this year. With the systems checked for the first few laps, it felt great to be back behind the wheel for the first time this season. I managed to go fastest in my class too during FP1 and the car certainly felt good in the wet so I was looking forward to see what it was capable of in the dry.
The track soon cleared up after the sun came out and the drifters had done their thing. We learned pretty quickly that the car was sitting too low and we were scraping our splitter everywhere due to having so much downforce. As you can see from the images of going over the infamous mountain, the car produces an unbelievable amount of downforce now and completely pushes the rear end of the car into the track. I nursed the car round and finished 2nd in our class. We were already just a second of last years time with a 1:33.171.
With qualifying now upon us we’d fitted new springs and raised the ride height and the car was now flying! We smashed last years time but still had a lot of setup changes to carry out. I finished 2nd once again but this time with a 1:32.024.
With everything to play for in the final I managed to go even faster. A 1:30.824 meant I was just 0.4 seconds from finishing 1st, but I was happy enough with a 2nd place, especially as the car has so much more to give.
Round 2 – Time Attack
We were fresh out of the box on the Monday morning after making several other changes and eager to see how much we could push today. We topped the session and went even faster with a 1:30.421.
With even more changes made we once again finished at the top of the rankings in free practice 2, now breaking into the 29’s with a 1:29.614.
For qualifying we made a change to the aerodynamic settings and adjusted the rear wing. Unfortunately, this actually hindered our performance, thus causing too much drag down the back straight and causing understeer. Sadly, we only managed a 1:30.143.
Moving back to the original wing settings before we went out for the final, I managed to go the fastest I’d been all weekend with a 1:29.448. However, an oil temperature issue meant that it called a halt to the session early so I wasn’t able to achieve the true potential that I know the car is capable of. This meant backing out of my fastest lap yet and short shifting my way back to the paddock.
A big thanks goes out to Dave Hudson of Motion Motorsport and Terry Radbourne of BourneHPP for their support throughout the weekend!
We know that there’s plenty more to come from Tsuki between now and Brands Hatch next month. With some plans going forward we’re super excited to get back out there and clinch that number 1 trophy!
