Well, 2008 certainly turned out to be different, and after breaking down on our
way to the Silverstone test the ‘writing was on the wall’! From here things got
more and more difficult. At our only test session prior to the first race our
newly collected Seat Leon was plagued with an oil leak, which meant we completed
no more than a dozen test laps.
O.K. so this meant not only was this my first venture into saloon cars (now to
be without any testing) it was the first time out for DRM with front wheel
drive. We were advised that the grid
for the series was to be 20+ cars – the reality was at best 15 cars (fewer cars
means more work) couple that with the fact that the teams/drivers we were to
compete with were professional and really knew their stuff!
The Toca package has a hectic schedule mostly with only 2 weeks between races
and the guys at DRM were really struggling to find time to learn about the car.
The test ban meant that we were using races to experiment with car setup and
quite often compromising its performance. Qualifying was a nightmare and I did
not qualify well at any of the races, race pace however proved to be good but if
you start at the back it’s a long way to the front! Having said all of that the
racing was good and through consistency we managed to finish 6th in
the championship.
The season finished on a sour note- it was announced just before the last race
at Brands Hatch that Seat Sport would be pulling out of UK motorsport – very
frustrating! ld have liked the opportunity to compete the series again
(after some serious testing for the guys at DRM to get the car sorted) with a car
that was competitive. Now we will never
know and this will have to remain “unfinished business”
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