While I was in Indianapolis last time I did the tourist thing and got the bus around the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and although I was really excited by it I wasn’t so sure what all the fuss about the ovals would be. To me, it just looked like a really big flat out road course with four left turns, and a little bit of banking. I had a fair idea that getting the car flat would be pretty tough, but it just looked like another version of a “normal” race circuit.

When I arrived in Homestead and got out of the car, I stood and looked up at the banking I started swearing. No literally! Apparently while being very difficult in it’s own right, IMS is pretty individual in that it doesn’t have much banking. Apparently most of the other ovals out here look a lot more like Homestead. That means when you stand at the bottom the catch fencing is starting about thirty feet higher up than you on the outside of the track. No one else was at Homestead, so I was allowed out to do a few gentle laps in a hire car. This actually felt okay, and for the rest of that day and that evening, the one before the test, I actually stopped swearing and cursing and started to feel quite positive.

I must have made the track much flatter in my memory though, cecause as soon as we turned up the next morning I started with the cursing and name calling again. Not towards anyone in particular you understand, just in general about having to get out there and drive the damn thing! I went for a few laps in another hire car with ex-Indycar driver Pancho Carter who will also be my spotter this year, and now my swearing had an actual direction – him! Pancho then told me I would be going over twice as fast in my Indy Lights car. That of course made me feel much better…

The other important thing to note at this point is an oval car is set up to turn left, so on the straights you end up having to steer the car to the right. To a European racer, this feels like a car after you’ve had a big crash with someone and bent your steering – severely. All that and going at an average of 180mph…

My first ten-lap run can only be described as scary! Thankfully these feeling started to fade in the second run, and by lunchtime I had the whole “flat out” thing down. Roger Bailey (from the Indy Racing League) told me I had already passed my rookie test, and things were starting to look up.

Next thing, after getting “flat”, was to work on was my line, and getting myself and the car right down onto the white line on the inside of the track in the corners. On an oval, the white line is the shortest way around. It has less banking to help the car -making it harder to run and the car more unsettled – but as long as you’re still flat out it’s the faster way around. We worked a little on the car and then all of a sudden one of the changes hit the spot, and I was down there! We got the front of the car nailed right into the corner and the back just floating along gently behind. Everyone keeps telling me this is a car which will wreck me at some point next year, probably in quite a dramatic way, but it’s also a car which is seriously fast. Oddly enough it was also the car handling which I liked the best… But then drivers are fickle and it may have something to do with the lap times! On new tyres we actually ran faster than the pole time for either of the two previous years – not bad for a rookie on her first day!

So that was my first day running on an oval. I stuck to the plan (go fast, turn left, please don’t wreck!), and as per the plan I’m still in the group of drivers who have yet to hit the wall. However you may have noticed I said yet… However much I enjoyed my first oval test and however well it went, out here everyone knows we’ll all hit the wall at some point. Apparently how fast you truly are on an oval is how fast you can go after you’ve hit the wall for the first time. I’m sure it’ll come at some point – it does for everyone. But while I’m running this fast I’m just going to try and put that lesson off for as long as possible!

Yours Pippa

My team mate for the 2008 season Geido Van der Garde was in China for most the of the weekend for the first round of the GP2 Asia series, only flying back on Sunday to try and run in Sunday’s race. This meant that for most of the weekend I was flying solo as the only entry from P1 Motorsport. In racing terms this can be quite difficult, as it means over the course of the race weekend, there is no comparable data from the other car, and no one else’s opinion on the set-up of the car. Now as Giedo and I have both been running different set-ups in the second part of this year, that wasn’t so much of an issue. The more pressing issue was that my car would be the sole chance for P1 to score points in the team championship, as we were desperately trying to finish the year still in the top three – having actually headed it for most of the season.

During the Friday testing, it looked like things were pointing in the right sort of direction – the car was handling pretty well and the times were good enough to keep me between 10th and 15th place on the timing sheets. We also had a good set of data for Barcelona from the pre-season test there at the start of the year, and everyone went to bed on Friday night feeling positive.

However qualifying had other ideas – as has happened so many times this year! Or rather I should say that the Spanish weather had other ideas, because on Saturday morning it poured down over the Circuit de Catalunya, spreading a greasy film over the circuit. As I was going to be out in the second group on circuit, the chances were even higher the track would be drying by the time I took to the track. This meant instead of putting a full wet set-up on the car, the decision was taken to largely leave it alone and just make a few minor tweaks.

In principle this was obviously a very good idea, and a very good strategy. In reality however, about one lap into qualifying I knew we had gone the wrong way. The track may not have looked very wet, there may not have been much spray, but to drive it was like driving on ice. The lap times were 20 seconds off dry times, which is what we would normally expect in very wet conditions, not damp conditions. And with the set-up direction we had chosen, this meant I was unable to generate the required heat in my tyres. No heat equals no grip, and no grip equals a slow lap time.

In Race One, I went for the sensible option – trying to pick up places a bit later in the race and stay out of trouble at the beginning. Luckily, it was the right choice, and over the first two or three laps about four or five cars ran into each other and had spins on the slippery surface. By the time the first safety car came out on lap four, I was already up into about 14th position, having started 23rd. Slowly I made my way up into 12th place, and I was on the back of the cars in 10th and 11th place the whole second half of the race, but as is so often the case in aero-dependant cars I just couldn’t quite get close enough to really make a serious move on either of them. Trying to catch the two ahead and them defending themselves only makes the whole group of cars slower, and we were caught by Alcaraz. On the very last lap of the race, Alcaraz out-braked himself, diving up the inside of me going into the second last corner, and ran completely over the tarmac area on the other side of the chicane. He cut the corner and as he was going through it so fast he overtook the slower car who had been in front me as well – gaining the positions.

As those of you who watched the F1 race from Spa this year will know, this isn’t allowed. I was unconcerned as I just assumed the place would be given back to me post race, and Alcaraz would be penalised. Three hours later, I was finally called back into the stewards office and told that Alacaraz would be given a grid drop of four places for tomorrow’s race, but would be allowed to keep the places he had gained today. This means I was classified as finishing 13th rather than 12th.

For Sundays race the track was dry, and the weather was sunny and warm again, just as it had been in testing. Giedo arrived fresh off a plane from China, and would also start the race – but unfortunately from last on the grid.

The team decided to get both me and Giedo through the field, we should opt to change all four tyres in the mandatory pitstop, which might lose us time in the pitlane but would ultimately give us more pace on the circuit. For the first half of the race, it looked as though the strategy wouldn’t quite work. The times were not bad, but not quite good enough to be really making enough of an impact to gain the gap needed to change the extra tyres. As other people made their pitstops, and I stayed out on the same tyres, the times started to look less and less good. In hindsight we could have come in a few laps sooner, but as everyone else around me stopped, I did actually get to lead a lap of a World Series race for the first time!

The P1 boys did a great four tyre pit-stop, and I re-joined the track in 15th place, four car lengths behind the car in 14th. The new tyres were so good I was able to overtake him on my first flying lap, around the outside into the first corner. That was one of the overtaking moves I’m proud of from this year – it was a good one! I was also able to drive around the next car like he was standing still, and he immediately spun off trying to keep up with my new tyres. The lap time across the line was three tenths off the fastest lap of the race, and the handling of the car on the new tyres was fantastic.

Although the position was disappointing, (I finished 13th, no more ground made up) and I was disappointed not to score any points on my final WS weekend, it was hard to be disappointed with the way I drove. In this game, you’re only as good as your last race, so at least in my last race in WS, people might say – “well, maybe she didn’t get the result because of what happened to her in qualifying, but my god she was fast!”

As Ricky Bobby would say in the film Tallegdaga Nights, “I just wanna go fast!”

Yours Pippa

Yours Pippa

The previous week, my schedule had finally allowed me to do a test day at Brands Hatch prior to the race weekend. As it turned out the “test day” constituted four sessions of running time amounting to just under two hours in the car. We were also testing with other cars on track, many of which were a lot slower than the Porsches. When the speeds between cars testing are very different it makes hard work for all the drivers, both of the slower cars and the faster cars, and it means the rate at which you close on some cars can be scarily fast. For everyone it means that lap times don’t really count, because you never have a clear lap and it can make it more difficult to judge where you are. However, it did enable us to try some things on the car, and come into the weekend knowing that we had the car in roughly the right place.

The first official test session of the weekend started a little slowly, but by the end of the second session, and with a little more work on the car – things were starting to look quite good. 20 cars had turned up for the final race of the year, and out of that 20 I was the 12th fastest overall but still about half a second down on really breaking into that top group. The car felt good, the tyres were coming in nice and early in the run (when the new rubber is still at it’s best) and the goal was to try and go one better than Knockhill, despite the bigger field, and put the car 10th on the grid for both races.

The following day qualifying wasn’t until 2pm in the afternoon, so there was lots of the time to hang around and get a bit twitchy and nervous! I used the time to find some data, which I was then able to look at with the Eurotech engineer who has been looking after me and Porsche. There were a couple of corners where I was braking a bit too early, and one where I just wasn’t quite going fast enough, but other than that the data didn’t look too far out. Getting a clear two laps (one for each race) around the twisty and short Brands Hatch Indy circuit would be the key to a good qualifying.

At 2pm we rolled the car out and were one of the first people out on track while some of the bigger names stayed in the pitlane. The idea was that there would be less cars on track, which would make it easier to find a space. The plan worked, and I set a time which would hold at 10th fastest after everybody including all the quick drivers who had been hanging back, had done their first run.

I found yet more space on the second tyre run – the car was good, the plan worked, and I improved my time just enough to move me up ninth for the first race and eighth for the second. This should have been a cause for some black-slapping and serious smiling before the first race later in the afternoon, as we had not only achieved our goal, but bettered it! However, qualifying came with a sting in the tail. Immediately after setting the two fast laps I felt something wrong with the gearbox and there was the horrible sound of metal rattling where it shouldn’t be… The punishment the gearbox had taken at Knockhill, especially in the second race where the clutch was failing by the end, had come back to take it’s toll, and there was a race against time to get the spare Porsche UK gearbox into the back of my car to replace my broken one before the start of the race.

At this point I have to say a huge thank you to Porsche UK – due to Eurotech also being involved in the BTCC, we run a very lean operation, and with one mechanic, there is no way we would have been ready in time. However Porsche UK sent one of their mechanics down immediately to help my mechanic, and then two more came and joined as soon as their other duties were done. Once the touring car qualifying finished, the Eurotech BTCC boys also came down to our tent and descended on the car. We rolled into the holding area before the start of the race with under five minutes to spare… It doesn’t get much closer than that!

The races were not so good for us, with two DNF’s, however we had the speed, we qualified well and that’s something I have to be very happy about. Our performance was competitive at Brands Hatch, and this was only our third weekend!

Next week I’m back out in the World Series Car at Estoril, and I now need to change the focus and become a single-seater driver again. I like Estoril, and I’m hoping that when we put the car down there it’ll be the same car I had in Nürburgring and Monza, and that I can do something interesting with it. However, looking back on this weekend as I leave it behind, I think what sums it up is actually a quote my World Series team mate Geido (van der Garde) uses whenever anything goes wrong:

“Yeah. But I was still quick!”

Yours Pippa

On Thursday morning, we put the car down and instantly we were running in the top 15. It began to rain so we went out on the wet tyres and had a look, but after a few laps, the rain had stopped and the track started to dry again! This trend continued for most of the session, and by sheer bad timing we managed to be sitting in the garage during most of the dry intervals. Inclement weather aside, things were looking positive.

In the afternoon however, the first drama struck – I made a mistake at the final corner, found a damp patch, spun around, and my left rear corner gently touched the pit wall. The only damage was a wishbone, but the time it takes for this change meant sitting out the rest of the two hour session. When racing drivers are pushing hard it means we’re quite near the limit, so these things happen sometimes. You just shrug it off, and get on with it.

Friday morning greeted us with rain, and not just any rain – this was a torrential downpour! We worked on the wet set-up during the sessions, and with the forecast changeable for the following morning and qualifying we weren’t sure whether the track would be wet or dry. Loosing the running time on Thursday was starting to look a little more important, and a little more like a drama, but I wasn’t worried. The car I had on Thursday would give me a good shot at making my first ever Super Pole session – as long as it was dry.

My engineer studied the data from Le Mans on the Thursday and also from Nürburgring the weekend before, and with my new set-up there was a trend where I was loosing time in the slower corners. We decided on a change to the car, which we thought would make very little difference, but might help in those areas.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the expression ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’? Well on Saturday morning, the time just wouldn’t come and we all really wished we hadn’t tried to fix it! The time was slower than I had been able to run on Thursday on old tyres and the damp track. Cue one very disappointed driver, team boss, set of mechanics, and driver’s father. It would have been easy to start pointing fingers in this situation and for everyone to blame each other, but instead we all stuck together and took the sensible rout – we put the car back!

In the first three laps of the race I went from my 22nd starting slot to 15th. The car was great again, and I was able to find ways past the other cars. I had some great side by side running, and was confident of being able to go further forwards. Unfortunately on lap three, one of the cars I passed ran into the back of me, and spun me out of the race. The stewards later gave him a four place grid drop for the next race, which while at least was something, it didn’t give me back my track position, or starting position for the following day. As the first retirement of the race – I would now be starting last in the second race…

Last place on the grid at Le Mans is actually before the final corner, and starting there in any car is never going to be fun. I came in for an early pitstop to get me out of traffic, but we never got to find out whether we would have gone anywhere or not because one lap later the brakes failed and I went off the circuit.

Motor-racing is all about risks and maybes… I guess that’s all part of the show, and it’s why we go racing in the first place. If it was always predictable, then no one would be interested. However I’m hoping we can have some better maybes… Maybe we will put the car down and it’ll be fast again. Maybe we’ll avoid any big dramas. Maybe we’ll get into Super Pole. One thing I do know for sure, is that Estoril is one of my favourite circuits on the calendar, so maybe things will look up for us after all…

Yours Pippa

From the moment we unloaded the car on Thursday afternoon with the new set-up on I was running around 12th quickest and knocking on the door of the top ten. On Thursday afternoon when I ran on tyres, much like qualifying in Monza, a red flag came out seconds before I crossed the line, and my time was disallowed despite the incident having been somewhere completely different to where I was. Without that lap, I was still 13th quickest. Had the lap counted I was 8th quickest. But Thursday afternoons don’t matter, all that mattered is that we knew we were quick.

Friday was a day of red flags, and a gearbox braking for me. I still ended the sessions with good times, and things were looking good for Saturday morning. The boys stayed late to rebuild the gearbox, and come qualifying we were ready to roll, and I was chomping at the bit to get out there and get the job done. However my car obviously decided now was an appropriate time to pay me back for some of the abuse I’ve hurled at it this year – the alternator failed. This means the battery volts drop very quickly, the engine loses power, and then when the electrics stop the engine does as well. It was like trying to push a three-legged pony up a hill on the one fast lap I did complete. Then it did stop completely, out came the red flag and back of the grid for me. At this point I was not a cheerful racing driver!

About five minutes before I needed to be getting my helmet on for Saturday’s race, I was still sitting in the hospitality area showing about as much enthusiasm as someone off to the gallows! Starting last at Nürburgring – where passing is notoriously difficult – not great by anyone’s standards. I also knew from history that there was likely to be an almighty smash at the first corner, and wondered whether there would still be a gap big enough for a racing car to squeeze through by the time I got there.

Well – there was an almighty smash at the first corner, and on the inside on the line I had picked, there was just enough room for a “little one” to squeeze through unscathed. Everyone who had tried the outside thing was in trouble, and in one easy move I was in 13th! Pretty hard to believe even for me!

After that I went round and round, clocked off the laps, and did my best not to make any mistakes. On the parts of the track where I wasn’t very fast I made sure I had the door firmly closed, defending my line, and on the parts of the track where I was fast I just kept my head-down. This, coupled with some reasonable luck meant no one came past, and 13th gradually improved as the race went on, coming across the line in ninth position. When one of the cars in front was found to be illegal, and one of the other drivers had also done something which came to the attention of the stewards I was promoted after the event to seventh, which mean four points. All very nice indeed, and despite the fact on the new set-up we hadn’t actually got the car right in the race yet, I was feeling pretty cheerful.
On Sunday, with the new qualifying system of super pole top eight, and then finishers from the race, I lined up on the grid 11th. Unfortunately I then committed a crime racing drivers are never supposed to commit – I stalled. I’m not sure whether it was really me, or whether the engine got too hot and simply quit, but whichever it was the first time in my career I stalled on a grid – not an experience I would ever want to repeat! Being missed by millimetres by cars coming from a long way back, whom are doing about 100mph while you sit there, probably unsighted to them like a sitting duck is not fun. Plus, you feel (quite deservedly) like a right plank!

Anyway, once I finally coaxed the old engine back into life, it was still important to go out there and test our newest small variation to the race set-up in race trim. And you know what – it worked. I was running lap times comparable to the guys at the front, and at one point in the first four or five laps of the race I only missed setting fastest lap by a couple of tenths. Then when the front runners started having their pit stops, due to the stall, they were filtering in back around me, and I was actually running in-between the guys who finished fifth and sixth in the race, and pulling away from the guy who finished sixth. The boys left me out until the very end of the pit stop window, also enjoying the fact I was finally running in good company again, but eventually we had to pull me in for my stop, and of course I dropped back down to the tail again, finally paying the proper price for my stall.

Yet, I’m still cheerful. Despite feeling like an idiot because of the start, I drove the rest of the race with no mistakes. Now it seems for the first time this year I finally have a proper handle on the new car. I couldn’t have done it without the help of my engineer, and I’m so grateful to him for helping me explore this new set-up avenue. It’s difficult when one car is winning and the other isn’t – but all drivers are different and due to our particular driving styles, we need very different set-ups sometimes.

Next week we go to Le Mans, and for the first time all year I’m going to race track not hoping I’m going to be fast, but already knowing I’m going to be fast. It’s a weight off my shoulders and makes a big difference to the whole cheerfulness factor.

PS –Next time I promise not to bl**dy stall!!! (And if I do I will make sure you have the correct email address by which to send me abusive emails!)

Yours Pippa

The first of the two 45 minute tests was always going to be important this weekend, as Knockhill is a circuit I barely know at all. Also two days previously I had been back in the WSR 3.5 car at Snetterton doing some set-up work, and as I’m sure I described in my previous column the two cars are more than a little different! Everyone else had already had a day’s running at Knockhill earlier in the week while I had been at Snetterton doing my day-job, however the weather as described to you above, decided to come and play… About ten laps into the session it rained! To be honest, as far as Knockhill goes, it was actually very kind to me because then the rain stopped, and before the end of the 45 minutes it dried again and I was able to complete my first 25 laps around the track in a Porsche.

The afternoon session was dry and fast. I ran some new tyres at the same time as everyone else, and being 12th fastest things were starting to look pretty good. For qualifying the next day I set myself the target of trying to jump one more car and take 11th place on the grid, just outside the top ten.

Saturday morning qualifying loomed and the heavens opened – the famous Knockhill rain had arrived. Thankfully the touring cars were sent out first for their test session, and then there was another qualifying session enabling the track time to dry. For us it would definitely be slicks. However, avoiding the puddles just off line, and not picking one of those corners to run a little wide in when pushing would be key to having a good session! This had an effect on the lap times and the top cars were all a little slower. I however decided to go for the World Series style qualifying commitment, and it paid off with 11th for the races. I was also one of the few cars to better their time from the previous day by a few tenths despite the track conditions. However on closer inspection of the times I was gutted to have missed out on 10th place by just 0.2 seconds for the first race, and 0.02 for the second. The Eurotech boys all thought it was great, but I’m a racing driver, and if you’ve ever met one of us, you’ll know we’re rarely happy when we know we were so close to getting another position. I went to bed Saturday night determined to rectify things in the races!

The following morning the track was actually about as dry and grippy as it had been all weekend for the start of our first race, and due to the amount of inclement weather being suffered by the other categories, I was beginning to think that someone at Porsche UK who wanted nice dry weather for their motorcars had a hand in with the big man upstairs! However as I lined up on the uphill grid I was suddenly hit by two things. This would be the first time I had actually gone into a start with everyone else and been able to join in the mayhem of a first corner. I wondered how rough it would get, and would my radiators mounted in the front bumper survive or were they really as fragile as single-seater front wings (as everyone kept telling me). Secondly, the Grid at Knockhill is on an incline – I’ve never started a Porsche on a hill and I have three pedals to play with…

I actually got a cracker of a start in both races, but in the first race I was a little too cautious into the first corner and got passed by someone. However during the race I was really pleased with the pace of the car in between the long safety car periods, and tenth place seemed a pretty good reward for just about being able to hang onto the group in front of me. I have to remember that this is all new to me and a top ten is a good result.

For the second race we decided to make a change to the set-up to see if I could pedal even faster. Unfortunately mine and the team’s inexperience with the car showed, and we just didn’t get it right. This meant that instead of running in a nice big gap of my own air, not quite as quick as the ones in front, but happily ahead of the next group, I was instead being hunted and hounded by that second group, and having to use every trick of racecraft in the book to hang onto tenth place.

Halfway through the race the Knockhill the weather decided to grace us with a shower, which again with my inexperience in this type of car made me even more vulnerable. However I quickly worked out the reason why door handles were invented, and despite rubbing them several times, at several different corners with the driver who wanted my position, I somehow held onto it!

So two top tens in my second outing in the Carrera Cup – the next step to get properly embedded into that quicker group could be the tough one, but at least for the next race at Brands Hatch I will be present at the test day. It’s also a circuit which I know from my Formula Renault 2.0 days, so I’m hoping that I can untie my hands from behind my back a little for that one! As the last race of the year for the Carrera Cup Championship I’m sure the field will be the strongest it has been all year but hey, it’s been a fantastic experience for me joining this field and I will give it my best shot…

Yours Pippa

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

Testing on Thursday started out tough, but as we completed more and more laps around the Hungaroring, the times got better and better. On Friday I finally broke into the top ten – which is the only time this has happened this year since Monza. In the afternoon session traffic problems meant we were only god enough for 16th – things were starting to look positive.

However, on Saturday morning there was a slight change in circuit conditions and unfortunately, with the narrow window our car has been operating in this year, and in the qualifying session where it all counts, we slipped back to about the 20th slot again. It was disappointing but as always, once the session was over there was nothing we could have done about it.

On Saturday afternoon the circuit conditions changed again, and after a great first lap I had my hands full with a luridly oversteering car. Pushing hard I made my first unforced error of the year in a race, infact since the pouring rain of Magny Cours last year. I spun, and dropped right to the back, losing all the places I had gained. Although I managed to come back to 15th place, the guys I had been racing earlier ended up inside the top ten… That was really hard for me to take as I am not someone who makes mistakes like that in races, and it lead to a very long meeting with my engineer about whether we could do something to make my car handle better for the following day. While there was no debating it was fast, I felt that the huge oversteer which compliments my team-mate’s driving style, was not complimenting mine. We agreed to make big changes for the next day, and I was looking forward to getting back out there for the second race, determined to bring myself home in the points.

Unfortunately, having made a great start I got myself caught up in a first lap shunt at the second corner. I had an even better launch off the line than the previous day, found a nice big hole in the traffic infront of me going into the first corner, and felt really confident I was going to come out of the first lap right the way up the order.

Unfortunately for me though, on the exit of the first corner I was pushed out onto the grass. This is kind of normal for a slow first corner on the first lap for a car going round the outside, and is a risk you take as a racing driver when you choose the outside line. This meant I had to lift off the throttle pedal coming out of the first corner, and immediately meant I was being swamped by the drivers I had just passed. I had cars inside of me, cars outside of me, and by that point it was an accident waiting to happen. I was hit hard by a car behind, which then pushed me hard into the car on the outside of me, ending both of our races. As we both got out, we looked at each other, and shrugged. Unfortunately in motor-racing these things sometimes happen, and it’s nobody’s fault. But it doesn’t take away the disappointment, and the frustration.

Now we have a big break in the summer, and P1 Motorsport is going to book a circuit in the break and go testing to try and dial my car better into my driving style. The times in the testing in Hungary showed that when we get in right, I can be just as fast at the others and regularly in the top ten. The testing will hopefully give us a chance to really work on this, and take the good parts away from the weekend, and hopefully turn up at Nurburgring at the end of the break, better, stronger, faster and more consistent.

Also the reason this entry is a little later than usual going on line is that on coming back to the UK from Hungary I went almost directly to Snetterton circuit in Norfolk for my first every run in a GT type racing car – a Porsche Carrera Cup car to be specific. The weather really restricted my time in the car and I only got about 30 laps in. I really liked the car and it was great fun – the team also thought I did a great job as a driver who had never done anything other than karting and single seaters before. I’m going to be racing for them in Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Oulton Park, Knockhill and Brands Hatch. It’ll be a completely new experience for me, and I absolutely can’t wait for the Oulton Park weekend to get here! Hopefully I’ll see some of you guys again there!

Yours Pippa

Testing on Friday seemed to go fairly well and I was pretty confident going into qualifying on Saturday morning. Then in qualifying the tyres just didn’t seem to work properly which meant I dropped right back down the order. Not a good start to the weekend, but then I saw something which cheered me up, something which I had never seen before. Waiting outside the back of the garage were three people wearing t-shirts with my helmet and my name on, and with a huge St Georges flag with ‘GO PIPPA’ written across it! Carried by three of the first people to join my fan club, I came face to face for the first time in my life with a flag cheering me on! It was the most amazing surprise to find them with their own t-shirts and flag!

Next we had the pit walk-about. P1 Motorsport is the current top team and are therefore based at the far end of the pitlane. When people first filtered in we were all joking about whether anyone would ever actually find us down at that end, but slowly however the crowds did drift down to our end of the garages, along with the huge flag, and our pit garage suddenly got busy. I even got into trouble with the marshals for still trying to sign things for people while they were trying to end the pit-walkabout. I just didn’t have enough time to get one for everyone, so if you are of the people who missed out I apologise!

After the race on Saturday, despite the fact it was a difficult race where I didn’t feel much progress had been made, people who had been standing at the first corner of the circuit where I made my sole overtaking move of the race kept coming to find me, asking me sign things and shaking my hand. As a racing driver I set such high standards for myself it’s sometimes strange to remember that to other people watching on, even when I feel disappointed, to them I’ve still done a good job.

Saturday evening was spent with my PR girl preparing the hospitality awning off the side of the P1 Motorsport truck, getting it ready for the 60 odd guests who were coming the next day. Television screens were put up for them to watch the races on, pictures of myself and Giedo were blown up and put on the awning walls, tables were table-clothed and set with chairs and flower arrangements. It all looked amazing, and like anyone hosting a party, you look at it and hope everything will go well, and everyone will turn up!

Sunday morning the first people to arrive were my sister and her family. My brother-in-law and my niece were the first people on Sunday morning seen to be wandering round in the ‘pippamann.com’ t-shirts and caps! However as more people arrived, everyone I turned I could see people wearing them. The sponsors arrived, and I was able to spend some time with them as well, before finally getting changed into my race suit, and getting ready for the pit-walkabout and race on Sunday.

Again if you were one of the people who missed me on Sunday I have to apologise. The pit-walk was at a difficult time, right as we are getting in the cars for the race, and although I spent the first 15 minutes signing autographs, I then had to start getting ready for the race. I do normally try and make myself as available as possible, but this was one of the few times where it was just impossible. I always feel bad when people ask me to sign things and I’m unable, but obviously the reason I am there for the weekend is to drive the car, so that has to be the part I focus on!

The race was another hard, long race with what felt like very little reward at the end of it. Nothing really went wrong, but when you start a long way down the order it’s always hard to make progress.

Luckily my sponsors also saw the World Series by Renault 3.5 live for the first time and were impressed with the speed and power of the cars, and told me they had a great time. Friends and family who had never seen me race live before also thought it was fantastic. As a racing driver you want to be winning, on the podium and scoring points all the time, and when you’re not you don’t sometimes realise that maybe you’re still actually not doing a bad job. Everyone who supported me at Silverstone made me realise that.

So thank you to everyone who came to meet me at Silverstone, and sat in the stands cheering me on, and also if you’re reading this, thank you for joining the fan club! Every single one of you is great, and I truly appreciated your enthusiasm and encouragement! Thank you so much, and I look forward to seeing you at another race sometime soon…

Yours Pippa