Pippa Mann – Oulton Park
Before turning up at Oulton Park this weekend, I completed a full day at Donington Park in the Porsche 911 Carrera Cup car I would be racing. The test was a success with everything going well – we ran through some changes on the car, and I was feeling pretty bullish about turning up at Oulton Park to be competitive.
However after the first test session everyone just kind of grinned, and told me that apparently while Donington is one of the easiest circuits in the country to drive a sportscar on, Oulton Park is one of the more difficult ones. By this time however, I had kind of worked this one out for myself! Driving a Porsche quickly around the undulating, narrow, and bumpy Oulton Park along with 30 kilos of lead strapped in was a very different proposition from driving the car around the billiard smooth, wide track at Donington!
Unfortunately Friday didn’t get a lot better. In the afternoon we put some new brake discs in the car, and I went out and duly “bedded them in” (warmed them up gently, and then cooled them down again so they are ready for use). In a single-seater car when you do this not much changes, however in the Porsche it can change the brake bias – whether you have more brakes at the front or the rear – quite dramatically. I unfortunately found this out the hard way. On my second flying lap of the afternoon session I was already up on my fastest time from the morning when I stood on the brakes at the last corner, locked up the rear tyres, ended up at a 90 degree angle, and scraped my bumper heavily along the outside armco. This damaged the radiator and put an end to my session – and Friday’s practice. As I said at the time, oops!
Saturday morning and qualifying rolled around, and the only target I could really set myself after loosing the entire second session of the previous day was self improvement. Thankfully, this I managed in spades and although the positions weren’t great, 15th and 16th wasn’t too far off the main pack.
Post qualifying scrutineering revealed the car to be a fraction too low on one rear corner – the block they use to measure this with went under the car, but it touched. This was a genuine mistake caused by not taking into account tyre variance (the difference from one set of tyres to another). We agreed the car was out, and expected to be thrown to the back of the grid, but no one was expecting the officials to hand out a penalty that would see me start both races ten seconds after everyone else.
10 seconds in a motor race is a long time – if you think back to when Lewis Hamilton last had a 10 second lead in a Grand Prix, you can imagine how big it is. It basically meant both my races had been negated, and I wouldn’t be racing, just having another extended test run in the car. Myself and the boys were bitterly disappointed, and the other driver who was penalized for the same infringement ended up going home in protest! As someone still so new to the car and desperate for track time at such a tricky circuit which would obviously teach me enormous amounts, I didn’t have the luxury of being able to make a similar protest. But I felt like it!
In the end the races were actually quite good fun. I especially enjoyed the first race as I was able to catch and pass a couple of cars, despite the penalty. Due to the fact the races are only 25 minutes compared to the usual 45 minutes in World Series, I was kicking myself for damaging the car halfway through the race, and it was only afterwards I realised how little running there had been left to do!
Luckily I am getting another couple of opportunities in the Porsche series – the next one being at Knockhill. It should be interesting as I’m going to be jumping out of the World Series car the day before from a test, and getting straight back into the Porsche again… Oh well, never mind – apparently fortune favours the brave, and some good fortune is something I could do with this season, so brave is just something I’ll have to be!
Yours Pippa