Daniel French's third season of Caterham Racing. Competing in the 2019 Motul 270R Championship. This blog shows my full Caterham Journey from the build of the awesome R500 Duratec, the Academy Car in 2017, track day information, videos and race results.
Having been bitterly dissapointed with my result at Curborough a couple of weeks ago,it was certainly time to have a good result this weekend at Brands Hatch Indy Circuit.
I arrived on Wednesday night as had booked two test days (for the Thursday and the Friday) and then some marshalling for the Saturday, with quali and the race on Sunday. Unlike quite a few others, I came out of the two test days with my car intact. Marshalling on the Saturday was a bit drawn out, but really gives you an appreciation for them as they are all volunteers and without them we could not race (the same goes vice-versa, but even so!).
Onto quali... I headed up to the holding area and luckily got the first slot out so could have a few clean laps to get some decent times in - well that was the plan; until the session was immediately red flagged by someone ending up in the gravel after Paddock Hill bend, which somehow meant I lined up last with 27 cars ahead of me! Battling through the traffic I managed a time which was enough to get me 4th on the grid, which I wasn't overly happy with, but still would give me a chance for a podium finish.
Anyway, onto the race, here's the video:-
yyyeeaaahhhhhh - I won! ☺ What a rush! One of the most incredible feelings of emotion in my whole life, and a moment I will relish for a long time to come. Well done to Graham Macdonald (p2) and James Murphy (p3).
Top step of the podium was an absolutely perfect result to my first race
With some interviews out of the way, it was time to spray the champagne (well Prosecco)
Podium celebrations were fun
I think I'm now leading the championship again, and with four races to go it's very close indeed! The race highlights will be on TV this weekend - Saturday 10th June 2017 at 15:45, on Motorsport.tv (Sky Channel 447).
I'm going to take a bit of a break from the car for a bit and get some of my life back for a bit, so I think the next time I'll go out will be for the next event at Donington Park for the 60th Anniversary of the Seven festival over the weekend of 8th and 9th July.
It's a week away from three years, since I took delivery of my beautiful Caterham R500 Duratec... And now its become Cliff and Alli Malone's beautiful Caterham R500 Duratec.
Handing over the keys of my Caterham R500 Duratec to Cliff Malone, the new owner.
I've had a great time with the car; with a few ups and downs along the way (downs mostly throughout the build phase) and plenty of fun/expensive upgrades - which was all part and parcel of the 'Caterham experience' which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Cliff and Alli were a genuine delight to deal with, and although I've asked for 'first refusal' if they ever decide to sell it, I can see them both having many years of pleasure out of the car.
Here's a video of Cliff leaving in 'the beast':-
I trust they had a safe journey home, and will hopefully see them on a track-day or any other event in the near future.
I'm pleased I've sold the car, as the Academy season is more of a commitment than I initially thought it would be and the additional space in the garage will make general 'maintenance' more straight forward. It's a shame as I utterly loved the R500, and now I'm left with a 125bhp Academy car in my garage, and an empty space where the R500 was - how did that happen?!? Again, all part of the 'Caterham experience'! ☺
Next up, Brands Hatch this weekend.... My race is at 4pm on the Sunday, so hopefully see some of you there ☺
Having been to Curborough a couple of times in my R500, I was feeling confident about the day ahead. The only thing that was going to get in my way of a win (and hopefully a new lap record) was the weather which looked like it could be a bit of a lottery.
Onto the day... There were two practice runs, followed by three timed runs... The practice runs were dry, then there was a shower and the first timed run was wet; we stopped for lunch, the track dried out, the first seven runners in my group had a dry run and then a monsoon hit flooding the circuit, leaving no-one else the opportunity of a comparative time which was highly frustrating.
Here's my times for the day:-
Practice 1 - 68.05 (fastest overall - dry)
Practice 2 - 67.28 (fastest overall - drizzle)
Timed Run 1 - 77.44 (fastest overall - wet)
Timed Run 2 - 79.15 (weather effected - dry/wet)
Timed Run 3 - 74.44 (fastest overall - wet)
And the full times are here:-
Timed runs for the 2017 Caterham Academy Green Group at Curborough Figure 8 sprint course - wet/dry/wet/dry
It's safe to say I was very unlucky with the weather, and I feel pretty down right now, but that is the harsh reality of motorsport - in particular sprint racing, where a 15 minute downpour in the middle of a session can win or lose you a weekend.
Here's two of my notable onboard videos from the day
74.44 Lap in Timed run three which was 2.5 secs faster than anyone else in like for like conditions:-
67.28 Lap with a bit of drizzle was the fastest time of the day - shame it was in practice 2:-
Having calculated the points I think I'm still 2nd in the Championship after this event, but I feel somewhat robbed, but I will dig deep and will be even more determined for a podium finish at Brands Hatch which is the first 'proper' race of the season two weeks today (4th June) - hopefully see you there!
So today was the first day of the 2017 Caterham Academy Championship season...
...The first event was at Aintree Sprint circuit, which for us was a fair drive on a Friday evening... We camped out overnight, and after an interrupted nights sleep (too excited!) We got ready for the event, by initial sign on, helmet checks, scrutineering, a track walk and then it was onto our practice runs.
The sprint circuit is part of the old F1 circuit, and is now not much more than three corners and four straights... Here's a diagram of the circuit:-
Aintree Sprint Circuit
How hard can it be? Well, quite tough actually - sprinting isn't really my thing, but there's a lot of pressure as you don't get many runs... You've just got to go out there and be 'on it' straight away... I definitely prefer circuit driving, and getting into a decent rhythm and then chipping away at corners and so on... Anyway, here's my best run:-
To be completely frank, I didn't get a good run in all day... The 1st practice run was 'ok', 2nd practice run I had a huge lock-up at the first corner, then four timed runs all of which I wasn't happy with, but luckily my time was good enough for the win!
Not wanting to knock any of the competitors, but I definitely could've gone quicker had I strung all three corners together in one lap! Nevertheless, my friend Andy Morgan in the white group (we both entered the Academy together, but requested to be in different groups) set the new category lap record time of 52.91 after withstanding some serious pressure from Dan Halstead - so nice one sun!
I picked up 1st place at Aintree Sprint, along with Graham Macdonald (Caterham CEO) and James Murphy
My hopes for this season were to have one podium and to finish in the top ten... I'm utterly thrilled to bits at winning the first event, but having achieved a podium already, is it wrong I want more?!? I guess that's racing in one sentence - never happy!
Next weekend I'm off to Abbeville (France) for a track day weekend, and then the next Academy event is at Curborough Sprint course on Saturday 20th May. Looking forward to it already ☺
So yesterday was the first 'on track' official Caterham Academy event of 2017.
Without wanting to go into too much of the 'boring' details, we arrived the day before, camped out overnight, signed on at 8am, had the briefing around 8:45 and were split into four groups with each group getting a fifteen minute on track session.
We all had to have our decals fitted, along with our sprint race numbers (which are different to our race numbers) and had to line up in sprint number order before heading out onto the track. I was in the pink group, with our first session at 9:15
Lining up in sprint number order - waiting for lights to go green
Just before 9:15 the silver group came in, the track was clear and the pink group were out... Time to get on track and start pushing... Jon from snappyracers.com is the official photographer for the season, and he managed to get this pic whilst I was on three wheels!
On Three Wheels at Castle Combe Test Day
Here's an onboard video of one of my fast(er) laps... However, I was a little 'cheeky' with the track limits at Bobbies corner...
There was another lap where I wasn't as cheeky with the track limits, and was up on the above time, but got held up at camp corner and had to lift, so lost the overall lap time.
It was all in all, a thoroughly enjoyable day for a number of reasons:-
Great to see (and meet some of) the other competitors
Superb to get on track with all Academy cars and drivers
Great weather
Hospitality and organisation great too
I've been pushing it for some time in terms of my 'Academy commitments' so will hit the gym for a few weeks and give the car a spanner check etc etc.
Next up, is will be a track day at Snetterton on Good Friday - the 14th April - hope to see some of you there ☺
With the first 'real' on track event coming up this Friday at Castle Combe circuit, the Caterham team have been pretty specific that unless the cars are 100% race ready, we will not be able to go out on track.
As the race decals are part of the requirement, they have to be fitted for Friday otherwise I won't be able to partake... So time to get a move on, and get the decals applied.
First things first - clean the car (after Spa it was a little grubby) to remove any grit / dirt, tyre debris etc etc. I found autoglym intensive tar remover to work the best at removing tyre rubber.
Car washed prior to decal fitment
All the decals were supplied at the handling day and in the decal pack there was a full schematic with positions, sizes and so on...
I mixed up a bit of fairy liquid, and water into a spray bottle, got the decals out and worked out where everything would go before getting stuck in... I decided to start with the front of the car, and found that putting plenty of lubrication on the bodywork and the decal would give plenty of slip, giving more than enough time to line everything up. With the decals positioned correctly I squeezed out all of the water, and then used a heat gun on a low setting to dry the decals and make the adhesive go off.
2017 Caterham Academy Car nose cone with sponsors decals fitted
Naturally, me being me, I wasn't happy to use the supplied side decals (in white) and wanted them in a similar colour to the yellow the car stripes and cage are painted in... I had a bit of a 'wobble' a few weeks ago when deciding on the final yellow, as the options were not 100% right, but I decided on the MacTac MacCal 9807-00 Pro Semi Luminescent.
Three different yellows, all not 100% right, but the 9807-00 Pro SL was what I decided on.
The side sponsor decals and Caterham logo were cut by SignsUK and here's a picture of them fitted, and I'm pleased with the colour I went with as on the car it's an excellent match, and I think it looks superb:-
Side Decals Fitted
I also decided to get the rear decal in the blue of the car, and the colour I found was pretty much spot on, so fitted all of the wing decals and then the centre decal too. I may splice in the smaller parts of the rear centre decal with yellow bits, but I'm still undecided if this is too fussy or not.
And today I took this picture of the car finished and 'race ready':-
My 2017 Caterham Academy Car with Sponsorship Decals fitted and Sprint Race Number
Charlotte was extremely generous for my 40th birthday, and bought me a Book-a-Track Platinum membership for this year... So rather than waste a 'free' opportunity to go to Spa Francorchamps for two days, I jumped at the chance.
The BaT Platinum membership (whilst very expensive) is very good too, guaranteed free access to every one of their track days for the year, free garage reservations, and pics too!
I headed off on Saturday around 10:30am and some 350 miles later arrived about 7pm at Spa.
Circuit De Spa Francorchamps Paddock Entry Sign
The first thing (after parking the van up) was to go and check out Eau-Rouge... Wow - for those of you that haven't been there before, it's soooo steep and the TV / video footage simply doesn't do itjustice... A couple of beers were consumed looking at Eau-Rouge and then it was time to go to sleep.
My first sight of Eau Rouge - much steeper than I thought it would be, oooohhhh exciting!
Naturally; all excited - I woke up pretty early on the Sunday morning☺ got to the paddock, parked up and got the car into the garage. We were given numbers for the front (and back of our cars) - mine was 31 which lined up pretty well with the new rear boot stripes ☺
Number 31 - lined up nicely with the new boot stripes :-)
I went out for a few laps, and instantly I could tell the bead seat I made recently wasn't quite right... In actual fact it was miles too big, and gave me real bad cramp... The only option was to take a good 5cm off the back of it, and without a hack-saw in sight - I found a team (Matt Blyth Motorsport) with a saw, and cut two inches off the back of it! A fellow 'racer' took great pleasure in capturing the moment in it's gruesome reality.
'Modifying' my bead seat
Matt showed me what a 'professionally finished' beat seat looked like, and I don't think I'll ever be able to achieve something like that... What I will take from this, is... When it comes to making a bead seat - don't try and do it yourself, it's a waste of time and money - end of.
Bead seat "adjusted", I managed to get a reasonably comfortable position, put the visor down and went about trying to get a decent lap time in.
Time for business
With Spa being such a long circuit, it took some time to get used to the track, braking points and the massive elevation changes too, but towards the end of the first day I managed to get in a 3.01.27 which I 'think' is pretty respectable...
I met up with another couple 'Chris and Andy'... Chris is racing in this years Supersport championship AND has a camper van, so we had a few beers in the evening talking campers, cars, racing and everything and anything else... It was a good night, and I'm sure we'll be seeing each other more over the course of this year as our race weekends begin to join one another.
Monday morning was a bit of a struggle to get out of bed, but I 'forced' myself ☺and was back in the paddock for 8am. The day consisted of more of the same, but I intended to leave around 3pm to get home at a reasonable hour, so didn't manage to go any quicker than I did on the Sunday... There were a few laps where I may well have gone quicker, but were ruined due to traffic, but there you go...
I did manage to keep a 620R honest (in the braking / corners) but it was a 'fair bit' quicker down the straights!
Over the weekend there was some amazing machinery at the circuit, from two Caterham Academy cars ☺, all the way up to (what I think was the most expensive there) a Ferrari 458 Speciale... Which although most of which were passing me at pretty high speed, they were very nice to see.
How good is Spa? Definitely as many thumbs up as possible - it's probably the greatest race track of all
So with a good couple of hundreds of pounds worth of petrol obliterated into the atmosphere, and a massive grin on my face it was sadly time to pack up and head home.
All packed up and ready for the long trip home
The weekend was without doubt one of the best of my life... Spa Francorchamps is an utterly amazing circuit to drive, the other drivers were a great bunch, the weather was fabulous and the venue was just awesome... It's just a shame it's such a trek away!
Next to do is to fit the Academy Sponsorship Decals (which I should be able to fit tonight) as it all needs to be ready for the first 'test day' at Castle Combe this coming Friday... This year is definitely going to be jam packed full of action and adventure, and I cannot wait...
Thoughts on the Caterham Academy so far - superb... And we haven't even started 'racing' yet.
