The weekend for me started on the Monday before the race meeting. I decided to book a track day beforehand as I’d never driven at Donington Park before. It turned out that the day would be a full on wet one. It didn’t stop raining all day. However, I took this as an opportunity to really learn and improve my wet weather driving. This I did. My confidence grew throughout the day, with lap times tumbling down. This was partly down to me getting more confident with the conditions, but also because Ali Bray from AB Motorsport was improving the setup each time I came back in, providing me with more grip and leading to more speed.
However, for the race weekend, I knew the weather would be dry with no rain at all. So, on the Friday test day, I was getting to know a completely different Donington to the one I’d experienced on a rainy Monday. Still, my times came down as I became used to a much faster Donington, with speeds down Craner Curves reaching over 105mph. In the last session I came in and made a change. I only got an out lap from the pits as it was so late but I could feel the change and knew it would be better for qualifying in the morning.
Qualifying… goes well
I was in the first group of qualifying in the morning, so I got there nice and early to prepare. The session started with my being stuck in traffic and trying to find a gap in the field for a solid lap. Once I’d found the space, my first free lap put me in 8th in the group of 30. I was happy but knew I could do better if I nailed each sector. I came around again and I was in 6th, the rest of the session was spent swapping with the driver 7th, I did however finish the session in 6th fastest.
