Hello again! A quick update ahead of the Donington weekend…
On the Monday after Thruxton, I flew out to Majorca for a bit of a ‘training camp’. It was a cycling holiday with a few mates, but it was good to get away for a few days.
It was just a few days though, and it seems to have been non-stop since then.
Different directions
Juggling life as a racing driver and as a dad can be difficult at times. As I’m getting ready to go to Donington this weekend, Deborah and the boys are packing their stuff to go to north Wales where Ricky is racing his kart.
The first two meetings of the season at Brands Hatch and Thruxton have been fabulous because I’ve had all of them, and my dad actually, at the races. But now we’re heading off in different directions.
I have been away karting with Ricky and Jordan the last couple of weekends though. Last weekend it was Shenington for Super One where Ricky was racing in the Cadets. The weekend before he was in the ‘O’ Plate at Forest Edge.
If you saw Motorsport News last week you might have seen that Ricky has been selected to go and race in the USA. He had to go through a selection process where they looked at his results in the Stars championship and he wrote a six page essay about why he should go – I was very proud of him! He was interviewed on Channel Five last weekend, too.
There’s a bit of competition between us actually as we were both third in the championship after our first races. I slipped to fourth in the BTCC after Thruxton, so I need to try and get it back again this weekend!
Donington difficulties?
We’re doing a shakedown at MIRA tomorrow [Thursday] before heading to Donington for the weekend. I’ve got a new seat coming for this weekend, which I’ll be trying for the first time tomorrow, so hopefully that will be OK.
I think it’s going to be a difficult weekend for the BMWs. They’re not normally that strong at Donington because it’s such a low grip circuit. It’s a front-wheel drive circuit. Really our aim has to be to score some good points again. But you never know, because the BM looks after its tyres well over a race distance. I don’t think we’ll have the ultimate pace in qualifying, but if we can get a top six finish in race one, then it’s anyone’s game after that.
I think the Chevrolets are going to be the cars to beat at Donington. Along with the Vauxhalls, I think they will be strong. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the SEATs up there as well.
It’s only a matter of time before Arena get the Focus sorted, too. I’m sure that Chilton will be in the mix before long. That car will get there – but obviously, from our side, we hope it’s not too soon!
Digger distractions
It will be interesting to see what the track’s like this weekend after all the hype there has been about it. I hope there aren’t any diggers around as it might be a bit of a distraction for me looking at the diggers and the engineering work!
We normally get a good crowd at Donington, so I just hope that doesn’t suffer because of all the uncertainty there has been. For me, it’s a fantastic circuit for touring cars – I’m just not sure about it as a Grand Prix track.
We’ll go there and we’ll do our best. I’ve been told it’s likely to be wet, which is OK. We just need it to be one way or the other. If it’s in between then it won’t help us at all. That would play into the hands of the front-wheel drive cars. If it’s going to be wet, then we want it to be wet all weekend.
Fingers crossed!
