- Language:
A weekend to forget
We had approached Silverstone with great expectations. Our engineers were convinced that the new update would gain us an extra half second.
Giancarlo and I drove out very relaxed for our first free practice session on the Friday – and were not disappointed. The car handled better from the very first lap, as witnessed by my third place in the second practice session.
The aim for qualifying on the Saturday could only be Q2. We wanted it as a reward for the whole team, as everyone has been pulling out all the stops over the last weeks and months to bring the car on.
And things were looking good in qualifying until I realised on my last lap travelling at 180 mph that the brakes had gone. There are more pleasant experiences in life, I can tell you. It’s a really stupid feeling; you see the bend coming, you want to brake and nothing happens. I then tried to ram the side of the car. Judging by the pictures I saw later, I managed to do this. I lost track of things for a couple of seconds, which is why I remained seated in the car initially. I needed to work out what had just happened. Apart from a decent bruise on my wrist I emerged unscathed. When I later saw the pictures of the impact, I was surprised by the scale of the momentum.
Over night my engineers then built a completely new car, an absolutely stunning achievement. As I therefore had to start from the pit lane, we decided on a single stop strategy which unfortunately didn’t work out in the race.
On the Sunday the car then failed during my outlap with fuel pressure problems. Fortunately they were able to locate the problem and rectify it just before the start.
All in all not a particularly good weekend. The one positive I can take out of it is that the car handled well and Giancarlo had no problems in maintaining 10th place. This gives us hope for the race at the Nürburgring, which I’m really looking forward to.
This week I’m back with the team at Silverstone, on Sunday I’ll be doing a few laps at Hockenheim in a great Porsche for our “Techart” partners. That’ll be a lot of fun.
Hopefully after the Nürburgring I’ll be reporting back with good news.
Till then,
Yours Adrian
We had approached Silverstone with great expectations. Our engineers were convinced that the new update would gain us an extra half second.
Giancarlo and I drove out very relaxed for our first free practice session on the Friday – and were not disappointed. The car handled better from the very first lap, as witnessed by my third place in the second practice session.
The aim for qualifying on the Saturday could only be Q2. We wanted it as a reward for the whole team, as everyone has been pulling out all the stops over the last weeks and months to bring the car on.
And things were looking good in qualifying until I realised on my last lap travelling at 180 mph that the brakes had gone. There are more pleasant experiences in life, I can tell you. It’s a really stupid feeling; you see the bend coming, you want to brake and nothing happens. I then tried to ram the side of the car. Judging by the pictures I saw later, I managed to do this. I lost track of things for a couple of seconds, which is why I remained seated in the car initially. I needed to work out what had just happened. Apart from a decent bruise on my wrist I emerged unscathed. When I later saw the pictures of the impact, I was surprised by the scale of the momentum.
Over night my engineers then built a completely new car, an absolutely stunning achievement. As I therefore had to start from the pit lane, we decided on a single stop strategy which unfortunately didn’t work out in the race.
On the Sunday the car then failed during my outlap with fuel pressure problems. Fortunately they were able to locate the problem and rectify it just before the start.
All in all not a particularly good weekend. The one positive I can take out of it is that the car handled well and Giancarlo had no problems in maintaining 10th place. This gives us hope for the race at the Nürburgring, which I’m really looking forward to.
This week I’m back with the team at Silverstone, on Sunday I’ll be doing a few laps at Hockenheim in a great Porsche for our “Techart” partners. That’ll be a lot of fun.
Hopefully after the Nürburgring I’ll be reporting back with good news.
Till then,
Yours Adrian
