It was a long weekend at Snetterton, with lots of mechanical issues on the car, spotty rain all weekend, and the usual biting wind too. The British GT and F3 cars were fun to watch though. One of these times I'll finally remember to bring chapstick too. And maybe get better about bringing the camera as well.
Testing on Friday was slowed down by a broken axle, though we didn't miss any track time. We did avoid having to drive 3ish hours to the factory to pick up a new one though when they finally found a spare one in the truck. That was a straightforward fix, but the uncertainty meant we didn't get to try any different setups on the car.
Qualifying on Saturday was going well, and Jamie was in 4th until the last lap when one of the other drivers was a bit aggressive and t-boned the car going into a hairpin. The other driver had totalled his car during the last race, so I think he might be not the best driver, though he is pretty quick. The same a-frame that failed before was clearly bent this time, along with the Watts link, and the Caterham guys said part of the hub should be replaced too. Another part, the DeDion tube was hopefully straight... So we swapped all of those new parts on, and put the string gauge on and it was obvious that the DeDion was actually bent. Then we took everything back apart and putting the DeDion next to a new one, it was clearly bent as well. All this work made for a late night, but not too bad, we were only working until about 11:30.
The first race on Sunday was going well, but something was clearly not right, as we were 2 seconds off the times set in qualifying. Jamie did well to finish 7th, though he was clearly slower than everyone else around him. We got the car back and started looking into what had changed, and if there was still something bent in the rear. Eventually we found that a rear sway bar link had fallen off at some point on the way to the grid! So the car was understeering massively and that explains what was wrong! We got that sorted out and then spent the afternoon walking around the F3 and GT garages and watching some racing. The crowd was pretty big compared to a lot that I've seen.
But then the last race ended on the first lap when he got t-boned again, this time on the other side! We'll see if all the pieces we replaced are damaged again. He will need another exhaust now, which is not a cheap part, and now has 2 bent rear wheels that are apparently not available at the moment. So a frustrating weekend, but it was enjoyable overall, the time really does fly at the track.
Today I'm doing some background research for my thesis, and hoping to meet with my supervisor too. Other than that I'm starting to make some lists of teams I want to apply for jobs with. Wish me luck with that!
I did hear from Jane that they are on the ferry to the Orkney Islands this morning, and the sun is apparently at least partially out for them too.
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