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Brands
Hatch is arguably the most entertaining circuit
in the UK and drivers always love to drive there.
That said, Jordan had never driven on the GP circuit
before and the team had never run an F3 car there,
before this weekend.
Our
expectations were high as we had a test day on Friday
to get to grips with the circuit. After three 50
minute sessions we were closer to the best class
lap time than ever before at this stage of the weekend.
Had we not been stopped by the production of a red
flag near to the end of the last session, shortly
after we had fitted our first set of new tyres,
we could have been even closer.
We
were in good shape for qualifying and knew that
we would have to sacrifice our race tyres in order
to give Jordan more laps on the circuit on Saturday.
In order to compensate for this we opted for a less
aggressive setup and knew that we would be slightly
off the pace as a result of this decision. Q1 went
well with Jordan running 4th for most of the session
but fell back during his mid session stop and eventually
qualified 8th but much closer to the pace of the
more experienced teams and drivers. Q2 also went
well for us as we were once again closer to the
pace of the faster cars and drivers. We had again
opted for the less aggressive setup to allow Jordan
to run for most of the session and were pleased
to have maintained our progress even though this
was a slower session than Q1 as the track had slowed
considerably. Jordan qualified in P6 and ahead of
International class drivers who were put to the
back of the grid for yellow flag infringements during
qualifying.
Sunday
was a brilliant day sunny and warm with no wind
and the track looked superb. Jordan was very optimistic
for the race and we as a team hoped to make more
progress.
Jordan
had a little concern about some low rev vibrations
that he had not experienced before but the data
looked ok and we had no reason the think there was
a problem, however Jordan had a problem getting
the car off the line and an engine stall caused
him a 7 second delay to restart. He made light of
catching the cars ahead and was past Christian Einar
in the Carlin car easily, catching the others was
less easy and he eventually finished in 8th place.
During
the interval between races we checked the data again
but found nothing to indicate a problem. His race
2 start was magnificent and he was past 6 cars by
the time the cars left the arena to disappear onto
the GP circuit. On the straight he was passed by
all of those cars and could not understand why.
He raced well and was 5th in class for most of the
race ahead of an International class car for many
laps, only being passed close to the end eventually
finishing 7th. After the race he complained about
the vibration which was eventually traced whilst
at the circuit to an electrical problem, which had
left him considerably disadvantaged and unable to
compete on equal terms.
'The
team and Jordan made significant progress this weekend
and we were saddened to have had a very small problem
which had major implications on our ability to compete
equally. We are catching up and it is disappointing
that we had a problem which slowed down our progress
and definitely affected our results, but that's
racing and we have been fortunate to have been lucky
with this sort of thing so far; we will be back
stronger and wiser than before. Jordan drove superbly
and we look forward to Spa where he has driven once
before on a Formula BMW test day.' commented Trevor
Powell, Team LOCTITE owner.
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