This weekend the 17 year old we sponsor in the MINI Challenge, Toby Goodman, earned the opportunity to take part in the Lotus Cup Europe support race for DTM at Brands Hatch after a space became free in the team. It was a one-off race, but a great experience and a full on weekend in front of a packed Brands Hatch crowd.
Practice – To say that the Lotus is a bit different to the Mini I’m used to is a bit of an understatement! Left hand drive, mid-engine, supercharged, rear wheel drive and just about double the horse power. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to the challenge and getting back out on the Brands hatch circuit. The first session was wet and apart from being great fun, drifting the lightweight sportscar out of most corners (very enjoyable but not the fastest method of lapping any circuit in the wet) we couldn’t really get an idea as to how the car was like to drive in the dry. Second outing was much more helpful; however, the car was running a very unique set-up which didn’t sit well with my driving style, and after a few set-up changes we ran out of time for any clear running.
Qualifying – I crossed the line at the end of the session in P6, which wasn’t a bad result after only 25 minutes in the car. The data showed that I was losing most of the time in two corners which, if I fixed, would have given me a lap time only a couple tenths of a second off the championship contenders. Head was held high as we left the track, and I was thoroughly looking forward to racing in front of the DTM crowds the following day.
Race 1 – A rolling start for race one was another aspect to the weekend that needed adjusting to. The races in Lotus are much longer than in the Mini’s, being 30 minutes compared to 20 or sometimes 15. This meant pacing yourself and managing the tyres were even more important than usual. After an average start and dropping a couple positions, I managed to work my way up to 5th and maintain position for the remainder of the race. Even though the race itself wasn’t the high octane, “door to door dogfights” I am used to in the Minis, it was still challenging to maintain the pace and consistency amongst the faster V6 and 211 class cars that were lapping us throughout the race.
Race 2 – A great start this time, and after the end of lap one I was up to 4th and was chasing down the podium spots. Unfortunately, a red flag was brought out early on due to a fuel leak in one of the faster cars which inevitably lead to them having a very fiery departure from the race. After the restart, a small mistake on my behalf caused me to compete in a bit of rallycross temporarily before re-joining the track. A couple positions were lost, however I managed to reverse the damage done and regain the positions after closing down the two second gap they had. We crossed the line with another P5 and were bang on the pace by the end of the weekend. Two great results and with a little more seat time, who knows where we would have ended up…
Toby gave huge thanks to ESMotorsport and Lotus Cup Europe for the opportunity.
