Brands Hatch 4/9/06

I did my first track day at Brands in the Pug. It was fun, but because lack of power and grip it wasn't hugely exciting. I spent a great deal of my time pulling over to the right to let cars past. But with the Westfield it should be a different matter. Pulling out of the pit lane for the sighting laps I was reminded of just how steep Paddock hill is. So for the first few laps I was braking very early and going round this rather gingerly. But after a few sessions I was braking reasonably late and carrying a decent amount of speed round this bend. I probably could have gone faster round here, but didn't fancy trying to correct it as I dropped into the downhill section, and I didn't seem to be any slower that anyone else. Doing it this way I found I could get on the throttle pretty early and power down the hill; a fantastic feeling! 

Then it's up hill to Druids. You can brake pretty late here. The bend is fairly straightforward, though it is important to hit a late apex and get the power on smoothly. It's easy to lose it here if you are too aggressive. On one session I came out of Druids pretty fast as I was trying to get away from a pretty nippy TVR with a decent driver. There were no yellow flags, but as I came out of the bend a car had lost it coming out and was on the racing line sideways. I was going too fast to go round him, so all I could do was slam the brakes on and hope the TVR chasing me had good brakes. I managed to stop a few feet from the car and the TVR managed not to hit me, so everyone was happy, though that was a bit of a scare.

After druids it's down to Graham Hill. This is a pretty straightforward righthander, though I had a bit of a scare here in the afternoon as one Elise span to the left, the other braked and went off towards the right and I had nowhere to go, so once again I had to slam my brakes on and hope for the best. I nearly ran into the second Elise, but was fine. So after a brief trip to the pits to have a word with te leading Elise who never seemed to notice the blue flags that are waved at him, I went back out.

Graham Hill takes you onto the short back straight which leads to the Surtees/Mclaren/Clarke Curve series of bends. Apart from Paddock, this is the most thrilling part of the track. Surtees is a fast lefthander that could probably be taken flat out, though I always felt I had to dab the brakes. Then you need to aim to straightline apex of Surtees with the apex of the next right hander, then slam on the brakes for the long sweeping right.

This requires an early apex and let the car drift wide as you get the power back on early for the straight. Once you've drifted to the outside you need to move over to the pit wall and stay over to the right till you approach paddock hill again, which in the Westfield was at about 115mph.

The Westy really excelled at Brands. I had no problem getting past a 220bhp Elise with a decent driver, and a supercharged Audi-powered Elise, with a not so good driver. I could even just about keep up with a 270bhp Elise with a supercharged Honda with a decent driver. By the end of the day there was only two cars that could get past me (regularly!). One was the McLaren F1, often in the hands of Derek Bell, so no shame there. The other was a nippy Radical, which seemed to be using the day for testing.

I'd stiffened up the suspension since Silverstone, +2 clicks on the front and +3 at the back. I think I might add a couple of clicks at the back, as judgeing from the state of the front tyres I looked like I was suffering from a lot of understeer. 

I'd love to go back to Brands again. It's a fantastic track for a Westfield, and I'm sure I could go faster. I'd prefer to go with Lotus on Track though, as after two scary moments caused by inexperienced drivers, it would be nice to be on track with a bunch of experienced drivers.

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