First of all, so sorry this is 2 months late! August and September have been mares of months for myself. I’ll have to dig in the deep darkest depths of my memory to recount this one! I’ll keep it short but sweet.
I got to Silverstone massively early on Friday 10th August to bed myself in, take in some racing and ensure team TJT had a decent spot in the garages. And I’ve got to say, the garages are top notch – F1 standard and enough space to fit an entire team of Vees in one garage.
Practice
The weather was looking good for the weekend, a touch of rain was forecast for the Sunday but otherwise quite pleasant. The Vees rolled out for practice. With Vaughn in my mirrors heading through Abbey on lap 2, I lost concentration and spun out. Lot’s of run out so not too bad.
After rejoining, low and behold, the bloody engine started dying on me again. Just like at Croft. Stabbing the throttle was all I could do to try and keep her running. I took the decision to go through the pits with each lap in case of a breakdown, I really didn’t want to disrupt the session for the sake of the other drivers.
I did 4 slow laps in total and then decided to come into the garage…phew! That should be enough to barely qualify – a minimum 3 laps are required.
Race 1 position: 29 of 31
Race 2 position: At the very back!
Race 1
The fast sweeping nature of the Silverstone International circuit layout suits the Storm incredibly well! By the end of lap 1 I’d managed to climb 9 places up the order into 20th, things were going swimmingly.
As the race bedded in, lots of tussles ensued between my teammate Vaughn, Ed Lownes, Alex Jones and Neil Aldridge. Ed would eventually get the better of me, and I brought the car home 13 places higher than my starting position. Quite pleased overall.
Result: 16th of 24 finishers.
Race 2
The annual Silverstone BBQ event was marred with rain but that didn’t detract from the deliciousness of the sausages and burgers, huge thanks to the Vee Centre organisers for putting on a delicious spread as always.
We thought we were in for a wet race 2 due to the huge downpour the night before, thankfully the conditions looks ominous but stable. Heading out on the green flag lap we saw specks of rain, but nothing too serious, the track had a surprising amount of grip.
Starting from the back I had it all to do, just one place gained after the start meant things were going in the right direction, perhaps not quite quickly enough!
3 places were gained by the end of lap 1, and I had Peter Cann in the rather classic predator in my sights heading into Farm Curve.
Now….I managed to not spot the yellow flag being waved in the lead up to Village Corner, and by the time I was committed to overtake Peter in the braking zone, double yellows were waved on the apex. It was too late to back out at this point without causing a lockup of the brakes. Drama would ensue as a result of this, but I’ll get onto that later. Back to the race report!
Outbreaking Ian Rea into Stowe followed by a lunge down the inside of Mike Oldknow at Vale saw me climbing up the order.
I eventually caught up with my teammate Vaughn who was suffering from a slipping clutch in 4th gear, his car still had excellent drive out of the corners so he was by no means going at a snail’s pace. This set the stage for an interesting dynamic for 4 laps where I could catch Vaughn on the straights, but fail to make an impact trying to overtake through the corners.
A break from this stalemate came when Vaughn ran slightly wide whilst hunting down Neil Aldridge in the silver AHS Dominator. Myself and Jason Chatten took advantage and slipped past. I managed to pass Jason on the run-down into Vale, but he was filling my mirrors up for quite a while after that. After some dicing I manage to stay ahead and was eyeing up an opportunity to overtake Neil.
My intentions probably didn’t match my talent at that point, and I managed to completely outbrake myself at the crucial overtaking moment! The mistake meant the pack of cars behind me managed to stream past as I rejoined. Nevertheless, I was pleased with the way I drove and also how the car was feeling under me.
Result: 19th of 27 finishers.
Penalty
On the way back to the pits, I was beckoned to the scrutineering area by one of the marshals…Oh s**t I thought! I got out the car and was told to go upstairs and report to the clerk of the course.
On arrival, there was a fair few Formula Vee drivers awaiting to hear their fate aside from me. As I learned later, we were all there for the same reason. Either we were a victim of overtaking under waved yellow flags, or we were one of the perpetrators.
During my inquisition, we were asked to produce our video footage, and from this the clerks were able to ascertain I’d been a naughty boy and had overtaken Peter Cann under yellows. In my defence it did take several reviews of the footage for the clerks to come to this decision, something which a driver only has split seconds to notice at full racing speed.
Due to the infringement of overtaking under yellows I was reprimanded with:
- A disqualification from race 2
- My points from race 2 taken away
- 4 points on my race licence
- The threat of a 4 place grid penalty at the next race
This was by far the heaviest penalty dished out amongst the formula vee drivers, and all because I couldn’t spot this ‘apparently highly visible’ flag at race speed!
Oh well, I still had a cracking weekend, and was itching for more.
I’m really looking forward to coming back to Silverstone next year, hopefully I’ll have a clean run next time and end my bad luck at this circuit. My very first race was at Silverstone, and I managed to get into a DNF tangle with Ian Buxton, and this outing was my second time at the prestigious circuit which ended up in various penalties being sent my way.
But…Donington was just 3 weeks away – time to shut up, get over it, and move on!