Caterham Academy 2004: Academy Event 1

April 26, 2004

Academy Event 1 - Sprint, Aintree

Let me start by saying that my personal aim was for a top 5 position.

That out the way, I drove up to Aintree on the Friday afternoon with the trip taking just over 5 hours. The trailer definitely seemed a more than worthwhile investment after that. A number of us were staying in the Aintree Travel Inn and it wasn't long before the car park was filled with people attaching numbers, timing struts and other bits and pieces!! I'd fitted the red frot ARB that morning so my first time out with it was going to be on the circuit. Perhaps not the best way of going about it, but there you go.

The Aintree sprint course is 1847 metres long and has three corners. One left hander followed by two rights. You can see a map of the sprint course here. We got to the circuit shortly after 06:30 (!!!!) and signed on at 07:00. There was an Academy 'course walk' at around 08:00 which was very useful. The run offs at every corner are grass - which is good in one way, but also means that you go a long way if you do come off, generally ending up on the Grand National course. The first left (Country Corner) is a 90 degree left hander (3rd gear). Best to turn in late to lessen the chance of understeer on the exit and to gain straight line speed in the run up to Village, the second corner and first right hander. Village (3rd) is fairly long and has a very late turn in and appears to tighten slightly on the exit as you move towards the grass! Then it's accelerating up Valentine's Way, into 4th, and braking down to 3rd for the (again late) turn in to Beechers. As soon as you make the first turn, you need to get the power down as the corner is very long but opens - changing into 4th round the corner. Finally, there's the long run down to Railway Straight to see your time and finish line speed on the large display!!

I definitely have two 'modes' of driving (maybe everyone does). The second is my 'confident' mode. You can see this in my times.

So, first practice lap out. Managed to do what everyone says you will and not quite be ready after belting myself into the car and then realising that I'd left my gloves in my tow car!! Anyway, made it to the start line. Took the circuit pretty gently, crossing the line in 61.35 at 103 mph. Didn't seem too bad at the time but it put me in around 20th (out of 26th)! Second practice lap I got a bit more agressive, reducing my time by ~2.7 seconds to 58.62. At this point the fastest lap was 55.41. Some work to do.

So, first timed run. Trying to concentrate, the lines seemed alright but I still felt there was much more speed to come. Crossed the line with a time of 57.67, another 1 second improvement. 17th - not happy.

So, at this point I move into 'confident' mode (although I don't know it in advance!)

Second timed lap - really pleased with corners one and two, turn in far too early on 3 but still cross the line with a top speed of 103 mph in 55.69. Really pleased - much better! This puts me 9th.

Final timed lap - pleased with corner 1, turned in too early on corner 2 and had to back off on the exit, but corner 3 was fine, crossing the line with 104 mph but unfortunately 55.85. Surprised and disappointed that I didn't go faster on this lap. However, I hold onto my 9th place.

So, not bad, but 'could do better'. There was another 0.5s there for me easily.

Full results, lap by lap, can be seen here (PDF)

Congratulations to everyone, especially Paul Jepson (54.11), Adrian (Wag) Wagstaff (54.67) and Henry Fletcher (54.68) from Group 1 and Jeremy Ellis (53.84!!), Guy Harrington (54.17) and Keith Chanter (54.19) in Group 2.

Some pictures from the day.

Caterhams all around....