After a strong start to the 2010 season, Local racing driver Martin Buchan had high hopes going into the high profile British GT Championship meeting at Knockhill which meant exotic cars such as Ascari’s , Ferrari’s and Porsche’s would be taking to the twists and turns of the Knock-hill track. Testing for the event commenced on Friday 7th May. Keen not to repeat his errors from the previous test session, Martin decided not to push the car too hard so as to look after the engine and also keep the tyres in a good condition for qualifying and the 2 race sessions. However the test session was not with out its little incidents with a broken door handle, broken mirror and fallen off exhaust giving Martin and his team of mechanics plenty to do before race day.
Race day on the Saturday brought clear skies and on the program was qualifying in the morning followed by the first race of 2 in the afternoon with the second race taking place on the Sunday afternoon. With the XR2’s being first out onto the cold track the first few laps were taken at a more cautious pace until the tyres were up to temperature. Once the qualifying session was over, Martin had qualified in 9th position with a lap time of 1.04.788 but with the Fiesta ST’s that run alongside the XR2’s having the advantage of proper racing slick tyres, this gave Martin 4th in the XR2 class and 2nd in the newcomer’s class.
Race 1 took place in near perfect conditions and once the grid was assembled the 5 lights went off and the race was underway. Starting on the outside, Martin didn’t have the best start and coming to turn 1 he was under pressure from a lot of the drivers behind him. As the field turned into turn 1 Martin was still on the outside but then one of his team-mate’s misjudged his braking point and slid into the side of the Martin’s car slowing both drivers down as they approached McIntyre’s. Half-way around the first lap Martin had lost 2 positions off the start but then the red flag was shown stopping the race after an earlier incident at the first turn had left a fellow XR2 competitor upside down in the gravel, thankfully both car and driver came out with no injuries. Once the incident had been cleared up, the field took to the grid again for a shortened 8 lap race. Martin got a much better start and was able to move to the inside of the track thus only losing a single spot into turn 1, from here the rest of the race was spent battling for 4th spot and although setting slightly faster lap times than his rival, Martin could not get close enough to find a way past and had to settle for 5th position and 3rd in the newcomers category.
Sunday brought more glorious weather to the Knockhill track and with the late start time for the 2nd XR2 race, Martin was able to do lots of work to the car in an attempt to increase his speed including switching his front and back tyres around in an attempt to increase grip at the front end. Starting from 5th on the grid, Martin had the advantage of being on the inside into turn 1 meaning he could defend any passing attempts from behind but also attack the drivers on his outside. The lights went out and Martin made a much better start and safely kept his 5th place going into the 1st turn, at the end of the lap the driver directly ahead of Martin had a problem with his gear linkage and up the main straight Martin took full advantage ducking up the inside into the 1st turn and grabbing 4th place but with the top 3 cars having set a blistering pace there was nothing Martin could do except to keep pushing and guarantee a 4th place finish which is what he did. The 4th place finish meant Martin was 3rd in the newcomer’s championship once again and for the 2nd race meeting a solid batch of points. However the next day, news filtered through that the driver who had finished in 2nd position for race 2 was disqualified for a Technical Infringement meaning that Martin was now classified in 3rd place thus scoring his first ever podium finish in his racing career.
Martin now currently stands 3rd in the overall XR2 Championship with 48 points and
2nd in the XR2 Newcomer’s championship with 68 points after two race meetings.
Coverage of the races can be found on Motors TV (Sky 413, Virgin 545 XL Package). Coverage of the first SMRC meeting is to be broadcast on Thursday 20th May at 20:10 with repeats being shown throughout the week.
Due to financial constraints, Martin’s next race will be back at Knockhill on the 25th July which means missing out on the opportunity of competing at the infamous Cadwell Park (known as the mini Nordschleife) on 5th June and a guaranteed 20 points for competing in the event.
No comments:
Post a Comment