British Supersport – Brands Hatch Indy
Friday- the morning session was wet so took it steady in the dodgy conditions aiming to make sure my gearing on the bike was correct and not making any silly mistakes early on in the weekend. I finished 11th which I was fairly happy with and hoping for a dry second session. It was dry for the second free practice and our aim was to find the suitable tyre for the race, we tried a few tyres and were quite happy with the tyre we were going to use. I ended up in the session 21st on a time of 48.6. I was reasonably happy with time but disappointed with the position.
Saturday- the morning session was quite cold so track grip wasn’t the best, my best time was 48.3, which was faster than Fridays time but still only 19th position which I wasn’t too happy about. However I was only 0.9 of a second off of pole and I knew it was close. I was also happy with my race pace. The second session was warmer and the grip was up, on my qualifying tyre I did a best time of 47.9 which was faster again but remained 19th on the grid. I was really looking forward to the race as I knew it was going to be close and was happy that I had got into the 47’s.
Sunday- in warm up my tyre was worn and once I had done e few fast laps I took it a bit more steady, saving myself for the race. As the lights went out I got a good start and was quite aggressive into the first turn, then coming out of Graham Hill Bend Paul Young fell off and I nearly got collected in it and because of this Westy and I had a big gap in front of us to close up. I followed Westy for most of the race and we pulled ourselves up to the back of the group in front but as I just got onto the back of Martin Jessopp with two laps to go the red flag came out and that was the end of the race. I finished 11th which I was pleased about as I started well down the grid. It also showed that your race pace is just as important as your qualifying laps.
I would just like to thank the whole Centurion Racing Team for such a fantastic season as it wouldn’t have been possible without them. I didn’t realise how tough this class really is and if Paul and Gary hadn’t of given me this opportunity I would have been racing in my own team and I would have been lucky to get in the top 20, but with this team I have scored a few top ten result already. Thank you very much to everyone involved.
Dan #20
