From the first practice session on Friday I knew I had a great car underneath me for the weekend. Over the last week or two myself and my engineer have worked at a set up for Snetterton and after showing decent pace throughout the day on Friday I was feeling very confident for a great qualifying the next day.

The first qualifying session went very well posting a time that put me 10th overall on the F3 grid and pole for the national class 3 places in front of 2nd championship place Gabriel Dias. There was more potential for a better lap time but due to traffic problems and the tyres overheating quicker than I expected this was not possible, still a great result.

The Sunday started off with a rather grey sky and rain running off the circuit which is always going to make the race more interesting. Because the circuit has been washed overnight it had removed rubber off the track and taking away a decent amount of grip which wasn’t ideal for the current set-up on the car. After walking around the pit lane finding information about how the track has changed some tweaks were made on the car going into the first race which would pay off or could hinder a decent result.

Going into the the race I felt pretty relaxed knowing I had a decent starting position and was confident of the car as all weekend. On the out lap I searched for were the circuits grip may have changed and found a couple minor grip changes around the back half of the circuit that I kept in mind for the race. I made sure that my tyres were up to temperature on the green flag lap allowing a all important first lap. The start of the race seemed to go pretty smoothly for me after getting a very clean get away and moving up 2 places by the first corner which really helped me gain a large gap to 2nd place national man Gabriel. The race proved to be very successful after many little battles with Jay Bridger in the international class and proving the pace that the national car can show at some circuits. The race was fairly uneventful with the odd moment where I ran out of road on the exit and just making sure that I kept out of trouble as I’m not directly competing with the international class. Having a strong pace car paid off giving me a win at Snetterton and a fastest lap which increased my championship lead from 49 points to 55, the most encouraging thing to take away from that race was the fastest lap time I posted which made me the quickest Fortec car and 8th quickest car in the whole race.

Overall great result which I would hope to continue into the 2nd race.

Second qualifying was a lot hotter so getting a time in quickly before the tyres would overheat would be essential. Firstly I had a short run of about 5 laps on my previous set of tyres used in qualifying one in the idea to find any little flaws that there may be as the track had changed due to the heat. After the first run on old tyres a new set were put on the car for a hot lap that would hopefully put me on pole. After many laps of finding space and pushing I could not beat Gabriel’s time until the last couple laps when I started to hook the whole lap up together and to everybody’s surprise I managed to put in a faster lap by 0.05 of a second in which I clinched pole. I qualified 12^th overall and 1^st in class.

 

For the second race I knew it would be more difficult with Gabriel right behind me on the grid so getting a decent gap from him would help greatly. After warming the tyres up and making sure I had plenty of heat in them I rolled up to my grid slot and before any time at all the race was underway, my start this time was nothing more than a average get away in which Gabriel seized his chance and got past me (to later on I found out he had jumped the start slightly). After trying to keep up with him and pass other cars in the way the race I had to try and get fastest lap to get a point back in the likely event that Gabriel would finish in front of me. After following Daisuke Nakajima for most of the race and struggling to pass him I managed to get within 0.05 of a second in lap time but could not get any more out of the already past it tyres. In the end I had to settle for second place which cost me 6 points in my championship lead. Overall the weekend went well with leaving the circuit with as many points as I came with, great pace was shown and will continue to Donnington Park where I feel a great couple races will happen.