Formula Ford: Anglesey Review

Filed under: Formula Ford, Race Reports on April 7, 2009

After a long weekend at Anglesey I feel we have a reasonably clear idea on how we move forward this year. Rounds one and two of the National Formula Ford 1600 championship were by no means a fairy tale story but they did serve their purpose. And with two top ten finishes, it is not a bad result.

Saturday and round one was held of the Coastal circuit – the shorter of the two layouts for the meeting. I was surprised at how slow the Coastal layout is and with an average lap speed amongst the slowest in the country, a significant proportion of the lap is spent in second and third gears.

I think it is fair to say we were struggled to get the car balanced and handling well. I was having difficulty with corner entry oversteer which manifested itself at both high speed corners (Turn 1 and Turn 3) and also through the slower complex (including the infamous Corkscrew). Interestingly, this was not so much of a problem at Snetterton and I suspect that the unusually high grip surface at Anglesey was exacerbating the situation.

We qualified 12th for the first race on Saturday and after a decent start finished 10th. Again, not exactly the result I would have wanted but considering we were still experiencing cooling (the water temperature reached 100c during the race), braking and handling problems it certainly could have been worse. None the less, after a debrief on Saturday night we made a fundamental suspension change on Sunday morning ahead of qualification for round two.

The second day was held on the longer (2.1 mile) International circuit. Our changes did indeed improve the handling of the car and I lined up 9th on the grid for race two.

After another decent start, I was quickly up to 5th position and felt faster than the cars ahead of me. I didn’t take an opportunity to make a move on Benji Hetherington for 4th position and as I struggled with my tyres going off (we have a better idea of what tyre pressures to start on now), I lost ground and finally finished 6th.

So we made a step forward on Sunday with the car and with the 4th fastest race lap, it was a shame not to have finished 4th on the road. However, ultimately it is more important that we continued to make progress with the car throughout the weekend and I have to admit that after finishing two races (my first since winning Formula Vee in 2007!), I feel more bullish about my performance next time out.

Upon reflection, turning up to a circuit you have never seen before, running the car out of a trailer with your father and a friend and with no real experience of the formula is not an easy task. Transforming a car with no previous pedigree into a race winner is an evolutionary process which will take time to achieve. And whilst I am eager to get to the front, impatience is unlikely to yield results.

I would like to thank everybody involved for their super hard work this weekend (my Dad and Paxo!).

Earlier today I submitted a late entry into round one of the Midland South Formula Ford 1600 championship at Silverstone for this weekend (12/04/09). Ironically, despite being a Silverstone ARDS instructor, I have never been on the International circuit. I cannot afford to test this Friday before the race and so I will consider it an extension to the Anglesey weekend and continue to learn from the experience. In the meantime we will try to resolve as many of the problems from Anglesey (cooling and brakes) before Sunday and ahead of the next National championship meeting at Snetterton.

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