Today James Weston brings us his race report from the recent Michelin Clio Cup Series races at Croft in the early part of July.
James was only racing in his second ever race weekend and also his second race weekend on the track in his Clio.
What a weekend it was for James as well but we will let him talk you through how his impressive race weekend unfolded.
Friday Testing
Croft is a very challenging track. It demands skill at both high and low speeds and took some getting used to. There is plenty of nerve needed to meet the demands of the track! The Renault Clio Cup race car is an amazing car, delivering grip at the highest speeds.
Testing was another massive learning curve, learning the tracks and the limits of the car. We made massive leaps and bounds and I received great instruction yet again from team boss Danny Buxton when going through data. It helped hugely and we got our times faster and faster on each of the 4 practice sessions. Lots of positives were taken from Friday and the pace was really good!
Saturday Qualifying
We headed out into qualifying and were again about track time and aiming to match the best times from the end of testing. Lap by lap I bought my lap times down. We were running a bit slower than final testing times so I came in for some tips. Danny got me focused on the areas we looked at in the data so we set out again.
In the closing stages of qualifying I went 0.4seconds faster than my fastest lap in testing, putting me in P8 only 1.7seconds off pole position. Best qualification yet, so happy, and so much closer to pole position than at Snetterton.
Saturday Race
I was focusing on getting a solid performance here to build upon my 7th and 9thpositions from Snetterton. I made a poor start to the race by carrying too many revs. I went from 8th to 10th. I stuck with the pack much better than at Snetterton and following Pierce. We were a bit queued up behind Tarling. Lidsey got past, then Pierce and then myself and the hunt was then on for Pierce.
I made a great run through the chicane and got along side Pierce but was unable to get around the outside of him coming into tower. The following lap I got my line perfect into the chicane to get another run at Pierce, unfortunately he caught the tyres on the inside of the corner and these moved just into my path causing some heavy front end damage to the Clio and reducing the performance. I gradually began to catch Pierce again before a major under steer moment coming into Sunny In causing me to run very wide. This allowed Tarling to close back in and re-pass me.
I was determined, however damaged my car, that I would regain my position. On the second to last lap I managed to get my nose in coming into Sunny In and got in front before Sunny out. Due to my overall pace being compromised by my front end damage I had to heavily defend the rest of the lap. The last lap saw me pull away through most of the track until we reached the complex.
Into the hairpin I was very defensive and it ended in a drag race to the line which I managed to win! So I achieved P8 overall and Class 4 winner!
Sunday Qualification
After a trying day on Saturday the car had been repaired and was ready to go! With the Tyre Rules of the series and the fact that my body work had caused heavy damage to one of my tyres on the Saturday, qualifying and the race was to be done on heavily used tyres.
There were only 2 drivers running new tyres so the rest of the grid was in a similar situation to me. We went out and were nailing some good solid laps and were running in P8. I came in for some tips and having another shot at another couple of laps.
I went out and nailed one lap putting me in P6 and followed that with another, again P6 and I was on another hot lap and game into turn 2 to find a spinner and a yellow flag massively compromising my time. I was called in the pits to conserve tyres for the race and we finished the session again in P8 but I was happy with how much closer we were to other top drivers.
Sunday Race
The start was much better getting past Lidsey, but blinding starts from Pierce and Tarling saw them up my inside into Turn 1. I pushed hard and stuck on the back of Tarling getting past him up the inside into Tower with a late dive. Lidsey also followed through and put me under heavy pressure for the next few laps. I was defending well and we were catching Pierce. Into Tower a few laps later a move from Lidsey up the inside of me in Tower saw him get up the inside as I was unable to shut the door.
I followed Lidsey as we closed down Pierce. Lidsey got past and I was closing him down. As I closed him down I was right on his tail coming into the Complex and Pierce ran wide and I got up the inside 2 laps from the end. An eventful race saw a few incidents further up the field allowing us to make up a couple more places. It was a great race, working really hard in the car and in the heat saw us come home with the best result yet…..P5 and another class win!
I was so happy with the day! Happy I could deliver a great result for a top team Scuderia Vittoria. Bring on Rockingham 10/11th August!
You can follow James on twitter @westonracing23 and also James Weston on Facebook to keep up to date with what he is doing in his racing career.