The City Car Cup visited Cadwell park for the 5th round of the championship. I had never turned a wheel of the circuit prior to the event, and with the track notorious for being extremely narrow with the daring ‘mountain’ section, carving through the trees of the edges of the valley in which the track sits, it was always going to be a tough feat to learn the track in a short period of time.
Once again missing out on Friday testing meant that my first session would be qualifying. I tried my utmost to prepare for the daunting circuit, but unfortunately track experience was key. Qualifying in thirteenth place out of the 31 cars entered would end up being somewhat positive - I gained experience with every corner passed, building confidence and lap-time more and more (a key trait of the weekend). Starting the first race in 13th gave the opportunity for some good progression throughout the weekend, with the aims of pushing well into the top ten as we had been doing so previously.
The first race was really about finding my feet with thirty other cars fighting for the same narrow space on track. A poor start was then recovered by a couple of overtakes into Park corner, but it was quickly apparent that overtaking around this track would be difficult to say the least. Finishing in 12th place was a mediocre result when looking purely at the numbers, as we have been aspiring to consistently fight within the top ten, but once again the experience built was invaluable for the rest of the weekend.
I would start the second race in P12 on Sunday, and a good battle on the opening lap meant I had held position. However, an on track collision further back had brought out the safety car. The following events ended up being extremely frustrating, as our fifteen minute race was cut down entirely into only two laps of racing, having a final lap under green flag conditions before the chequered flag came out. The race organisers appeared to be strapped for time, however there was large debate about the possibility of bringing out the red flag to completely neutralise the race (and hence stop the countdown clock), instead of allowing it to roll down under the safety car.
Moving forwards, an extremely eventful final race would ensue. A great first lap helped me climb into 9th position in the first couple of minutes of racing. Something felt different in the car - I’d felt more confident than ever before, gaining more and more speed every lap. Overtaking seemed much easier than previously, and I felt completely in control of the car. I moved further and further up the grid, finding myself in 6th place with only one lap to go. However, as I had learnt that one could suddenly go quicker and quicker, all of the hard work can be unravelled just as fast. An erratic driver ahead had bunched a large group of cars together. Before we knew it, I had to take avoiding action across the grass after the car ahead nearly span in the centre of the narrow climb leading up through the single track mountain. This unfortunately meant that I had lost some of those gained positions, back into 10th place.
Whilst I was incredibly frustrated with the final result, there were many positives to take from the weekend, especially that the pace in the last race was up there with the leaders, the overtakes were flowing nicely and the confidence in the car was on another level, even as the tyre grip was dropping off. We were up to pace quickly, but again, if more could be extracted from qualifying, then we could have given the front guys more of a run for there money than we have done in the last few races.
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