My life in the fast lane
Engine misfire in Singapore.. 
Monday, September 28, 2009, 09:13 AM
Posted by Administrator
It was a disappointing finish to an exciting weekend of racing at the Singapore GP. We continually improved the car throughout the weekend and had a very strong car to fight with in the race, however an engine misfire that started on lap 3 ended all hopes for a strong result.

In qualifying, I drove some good laps, but I struggled with an oversteer that cost me some time. I put the car in P3, which was 0.3 seconds behind the pole sitter Christian Menzel.

At the start of the race, Menzel and Sugden came together in Turn 5 giving me the chance to move up to P2, although Menzel was able to open a 2 second gap as I had to avoid hitting Sugden.

The chase was on and I was able to close the gap over the next two laps to bring the lead down to 1 second. My car felt great and the changes to the setup over night made a massive difference to correct the oversteer probelms we had on Saturday.

However, soon after, my engine began developing a small misfire. This slowed me down maybe 0.5 seconds a lap, but I was still able to keep pressure on Menzel for the first half of the race. The misfire continually got worse each lap until the final 3 laps where I was losing massive straight line speed slowing me down about 2 seconds per lap.

The 3rd and 4th place cars of Baird and Watts soon caught back up to me and although I tried my best to defend, they easily overtook me down the straights on the final lap to take the final podium positions..I crossed the line in 4th.

It was an extremely disappointing result for me as I know I had a car to challenge for the win today. To have engine problems for the second consecutive weekend brings across some frustration, however, I am fortunate that I was able to maintain the 4th position and finish the race.

I know there's nothing I can do about the problems, so I'll just have to keep my focus ahead to the future races, especially next weekends FIA GT race in France at Paul Ricard.




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