The Mondello park circuit was superb. It is a fairly slow circuit with the Production class cars averaging around 65mph but it is a very complex. None of the corners is straight forward as each is approached over a crest or with a curved braking area leaving only the short start finish straight for the driver to catch some breath.
The weekend started quite well for me as I was reasonably on the pace. I struggled with chronic under-steer in the 2nd practice session so the team increased the rear ride height which combined with new front tyres transformed the handling. The 156 seems to be very sensitive to set-up changes and there always appears to be many ways get the result but with different compromises. Ride height was not something I had really played with and so I was rather impressed with the results.
The weather was to play a significant role all weekend and it started with the qualifying session. We started with the usual plan where by I would go out and do a couple of laps to generate some heat in the rear tyres before pitting for some new fronts. However, as I left the pit lane the rain started. I looked at the black clouds and thought that it would be unlikely to dry by the end of the first 20 minute session and so I decided to try and get in a time whilst the track was still vaguely dry. I managed a couple of laps and got the 3rd fastest time whilst slithering around on my slicks. However at the end of the 3rd lap and gearbox made a nasty sound and started vibrating. I tried to crawl back to the pits but about two thirds of the way round the gearbox gave up and I had to pull off the circuit. To make matters worse the rain did stop and the track did dry so in the final minutes of the first session my 3rd place became 11th, and of course I would start the feature race from the back.
For the sprint race both James Kaye and Gavin started behind me after not taking part in the qualifying session (Gavin ripped the sump open on a curb, Alan Blencowe did the same thing on the same curb at the end of qualifying leaving the team with plenty of overnight work). We decided on a team strategy where I would move right at the start towards Dave Allan in the Honda Civic blocking James Kaye while Gavin would go down the left hand side. At the green lights the plan worked to perfection giving Gavin a useful advantage over James Kaye. Gavin subsequently went on to win the race and won the driver of the day (out of both Production and Super Touring). My race was going reasonably well. New Slicks and the ride height changes made the car much quicker into the slow corners and reduced the tendency to under-steer on the corner exists. I went past a few other cars and was on the tail of my team mate 'Alan' when a fuel pressure warning came up on the dash and the engine started to splutter. I pulled into the pits and started shouting over the radio for more fuel assuming that to be the cause of the problem. The rules don't allow re-fuelling but it turned out to be the scavenger pump which had broken. The scavenger pump delivers a flow of fuel into the swirl pot for the main fuel pump. It's a fairly small insignificant looking device - but that was my race over. After so many failures I was starting to get rather fed up with Italian engineering, but then I noticed a label on the scavenger pump which said 'Made In Germany'.
And so on to the feature race. The trouble with making mistakes in BTC is that it gets shown on national television. After my dismal performance at Silverstone, in Qualifying and then the fuel pump failure in the sprint race, I was determined to do well in the feature race.
The cars assembled on the grid and the heavens opened. However, it was obvious that the rain would cease and the majority of the race would be run in dry conditions. So whilst the Super Tourers could start on wets and then use a well timed pit stop to change to slicks, the entire production class started on slicks.
The feature races appear to be more like mini-endurance events. The cars have put in a lot of laps by this stage of the weekend and so there are plenty of mechanical failures and then there is the classic BTC door battering that sees several competitors visiting the barriers and gravel traps. Very often the best strategy is simply to survive and pick up points - but then that's not racing is it? Having done reasonably well in the wet during qualifying on slicks I decided to take the opportunity to try and make up places. We approached the 3rd corner, a tight uphill right hander with a curved approach, and I was following Dave Allan in the Civic type R with Ivan Muller and another super tourer behind me after a late change of tyres. I thought 'I can go quicker than this' and went down the inside of Dave Allan. Now this is the point where conscious thought gets in the way of the sub-conscious driver and this is when mistakes happen. Well I couldn't go quicker and so the rear end let go. Surrounded by traffic there was not a lot I could do other than control the spin so as not to make things worse by taking out Ivan Muller! I got going again and worked hard to catch the field (sounds like Silverstone all over again). I was going pretty well, apparently my first flying (non spinning) lap was the fastest production class lap by some margin and was not bettered until lap 5 or 6 as the track started to dry. But I was obviously going too quick for the conditions. I arrived at good old turn 3 again and the rear end let go. This time I was going much to fast and could do nothing to keep out of the apparently magnetic gravel trap. As the race ended I was kicking myself. The front runners, Norman Simon, Gavin, Mark Fullalove and James Kaye all broke down or fell off and so the race saw some new visitors to the podium including Peter Cate. Alan Blencowe was stuck in third gear for most of the race but managed to finish 6th. And so the question is should you go for it and take risks or take it easy whilst waiting for bad luck to visit your opponents? I think any racer must surely go for the former.