Daniel Cooper

Friday - The track was damp, I was feeling very comfortable and was in fifth place until we had a few problems with the bike and in the last 10 minutes of the session. I dropped back to 21st place on a time of 1 min 43.9. I was feeling confident that we would be faster in second session. During the second session the track was dry and I managed to  knock five seconds off from the first session with a time of 1 min 38.4. I managed to get a race simulation of 19 laps under my belt which enabled me to select the right tyre for the race on Sunday. I was pretty happy with the days work.
 
Saturday- The track was slightly damp again because we were one of the first sessions out on the circuit, I went half a second quicker than Friday’s practice time but our tyre strategy for the session was slightly wrong and it affected my position. I managed to do a 1 min 37.9 and in ended up in 15th place. During the second qualifying I was given a new tyre choice and it worked well. I secured my best time of the weekend of a 1 min 36.6 and 13th on the grid for Sunday’s race. I was pleased with this as it is my first race back after my injury and I was looking forward to the race.
 
Sunday - I used a second hand tyre on for warm up and it didn’t have much grip so I decided to take it a little bit steady so that I was ready for the race. I got tangled up at the start when James Webb went down before the first corner and was 19th after the first lap. I had to get my head down and start plugging away and managed to get myself through to 14th place before the safety car came out at half distance and then the red flag.

On the restart I started 15th on the grid and managed to get a slightly better start and started working my way through the field again in the short eight lap race. I got up to ninth position on the last lap until I hit a neutral going into the Foggy Esses and had to take to the grass losing seven places in the process and finishing the race 16th. Overall I am very pleased with the weekend as I feel I am more comfortable on the bike and I am now more aggressive.

Even though my result hasn’t been as good as I would have liked I know I have ridden well and with our test at Brands Hatch coming up before the last round I am confident we are going to be at the sharp end of the field. I would like to thank the whole team for this weekend and also Dunlop for giving me good tyres. We are starting to make good progress and next season is going to be exciting, I can’t wait.
 
Thanks
Dan # 20

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 2:28 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.