After finding issues with our chassis ahead of the Festival
(see previous blog) we were full of confidence. During free practice we constantly improved the car and Niall was really happy with the balance. Some of the guys were throwing multiple sets of tyres on and with no official times it’s always difficult to know where you are.
Qualifying Saturday morning and now we would know everyone’s true pace!! There were 68 FF1600 entered so the grid was split into three heats as appose to two in recent years. We were in heat 1 and Niall qualified third but his pace wasn’t very good. We decided to change the engine before the next heat. Our spare engine was a bit of an unknown, there were issues with the valves seating and there was a crack in the block which had been welded. I think the festival is the most competitive it’s been in years and it’s clear the standard of the engines has risen yet again, taking this into consideration I didn’t think we could win with the engine we had been using.
Niall was unable to race last year but he tested in the Motorsport Ireland Van Diemen which he was racing that season. He set the pace on each day of testing and we had several 50.2 laps of data that we could compare to. Every day race track conditions are different as a result it's not ideal to compare to data from the previous year but it still provides a helpful guide. I could see we were consistently 5kph down on the main straight which over the entire lap equated to 2-2.5 tenths of a second time lost.
The engine was in and we were ready for our Heat! We had 4 fiestas in the race before our heat. Our fiesta mechanics and I were in the pit lane. Joe and Ray went to the assembly area with Niall and the heavens opened! They were unable to change the car to full wet setup. Niall struggled for traction in the race and managed to finish 5
th. As the conditions were wet we couldn’t get any judgement on whether the engine was an improvement or not.
Sunday is when the real racing starts! The track was damp but drying fast. We were in semi final 3 which would be the driest. The fastest semi takes pole position for the final so the conditions really suited us but of course Niall had to win first! If the engine was an improvement I knew he had a really good chance of winning. After a couple of laps the race was red flagged which meant it would be classed as the slowest semi and the winner would only start 3
rd for the final. Niall drove a really good race to win. There were some damp spots and Niall had a few hairy moments! On the penultimate lap into the paddock Niall went to downshift to third but got neutral and had a huge moment, barely hanging on up to druids ahead of Jake Byrne.
Even though we won we wern’t happy with the engine, I could tell Niall was struggling on the straights compared to the guys behind. After checking the data it confirmed the engine was almost identical to the previous one. I suggested to Joe that we should change the engine’s cylinder head.
The guys did compression, cylinder leakage and timing checks on the engine; everything looked ok so we decided to race with it as it was. The race started and Niall was with the lead group but was really struggling, on lap 7 his race was over. The block had cracked further beside a core plug and the core plug blew out emptying the engine of water.
It was a disappointing end and you have to think where we would have been with a better engine. The Walter Hayes Trophy is this weekend at Silverstone; bringing the 2015 formula ford season to an end. Our aim is to compete at this event but only if we can find an engine strong enough on time!! Fingers crossed we’ll have a car ready for him to race by Thursday!
Hopefully I'll have another blog to write after the Walter Hayes Trophy!
Eoin
