Blog
While Niall spent this year competing in the SEAT Supercup Ireland, we always planned an assault on the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch for the famous end of season trophy race. The last time Niall drove our Formula Ford Van Diemen RF99 was at this event in 2013 which he won! Our plan was to use the Martin Donnelly Trophy as a warm up race before the big one! Niall was in a position to win the SEAT Supercup series which concluded the same weekend at Kirkistown. Obviously with a championship at stake our main focus had to be on the SEAT.
We headed to the circuit on Thursday to shake down the car and for Niall to reacquaint himself with his old car. Initially we were struggling a little for pace, but knew that some of the lack of speed was down to a set of old tyres from 2014. But how much time was in the tyres we wondered?! In the afternoon we put a fresh set of tyres on and Niall found half a second, putting him very close to the front running pace. During our final run of the day disaster struck! A rear suspension component failed at the end of the back straight at Kirkistown. Niall was pitched into a spin and hit the barrier at 190kph. Niall was fine, HANS did their job yet again! Bits and pieces of the car were scattered everywhere, it took us about an hour to find the drive shaft which was found about 30 meters from the crash! See what it looked like onboard at the top of the page!
Here you can see the failed suspension part that caused the crash....
We had a late night ahead! We repaired the damage and also replaced the engine as it was always the plan to test two engines. On Friday Niall wasn’t 100% happy with the car and during the day we made lots of setup changes but still wern't on the pace. Niall dominated the Formula Ford championship at Kirkistown last season driving the Motorsport Ireland car so there was a bit of pressure on his shoulders. Once again I told him to focus on the SEAT and treat the FF1600 as a test. But Niall wanted to win both classes! During the first heat Niall was struggling for straight line speed, managed to finish 3rd but was later given a penalty for track limits, those dreaded MSA track limit rules again! We found a problem with the engine and changed the cylinder head before the final.
Due to the penalty Niall would line up 12th on the grid. A great opening lap and a half saw him move up to 3rd. On the pit wall we looked at each other all thinking the same thing, could Niall catch the leaders, has the engine given him the pace he needed? Two laps later the car dropped to 3 cylinders and Niall was in the pits. The cylinder head we fitted had different plug leads which didn’t fit correctly on the plugs in this cylinder head. We decided to fix it and send Niall back out as we came here for a test after all. Niall’s pace was ok, probably good enough for the podium position he was in before the problem. Kevin O’Hara was in a league of his own that weekend and nobody was going to outpace him.
Have a look at the first few laps of the Martin Donnelly from Nialls onboard GoPro
Niall later dominated the SEAT races and won the series, the day felt bittersweet! So as you do on the journey home we analysed the weekend and assessed everything. For sure we knew we had to resolve our engine issues but despite that Niall didn’t have the ultimate pace and was not happy with the balance. He was constantly complaining of mid corner under steer and nothing we tried cured this. Niall said the car felt a lot better before the cash on Thursday. In the past we heard stories of guys struggling with a crack in their chassis’s, could something like this be our problem? Monday morning Joe removed the engine and stripped the back of the chassis and to our delight found a crack! It was in a critical area where the bottom of the bell housing bolts on. Mick, our skilled fabricator repaired the chassis and he and Joe added some extra braces to help stiffen up the rear end.
A lot of work was done on the car last week so let’s hope we can return to Brands with the winning pace Niall has had there for the past two years!
You can follow Niall at @niallmurray5 on Twitter where he will post live updates throughout the weekend!
Eoin
Here you can see the failed suspension part that caused the crash....
We had a late night ahead! We repaired the damage and also replaced the engine as it was always the plan to test two engines. On Friday Niall wasn’t 100% happy with the car and during the day we made lots of setup changes but still wern't on the pace. Niall dominated the Formula Ford championship at Kirkistown last season driving the Motorsport Ireland car so there was a bit of pressure on his shoulders. Once again I told him to focus on the SEAT and treat the FF1600 as a test. But Niall wanted to win both classes! During the first heat Niall was struggling for straight line speed, managed to finish 3rd but was later given a penalty for track limits, those dreaded MSA track limit rules again! We found a problem with the engine and changed the cylinder head before the final.
Due to the penalty Niall would line up 12th on the grid. A great opening lap and a half saw him move up to 3rd. On the pit wall we looked at each other all thinking the same thing, could Niall catch the leaders, has the engine given him the pace he needed? Two laps later the car dropped to 3 cylinders and Niall was in the pits. The cylinder head we fitted had different plug leads which didn’t fit correctly on the plugs in this cylinder head. We decided to fix it and send Niall back out as we came here for a test after all. Niall’s pace was ok, probably good enough for the podium position he was in before the problem. Kevin O’Hara was in a league of his own that weekend and nobody was going to outpace him.
Have a look at the first few laps of the Martin Donnelly from Nialls onboard GoPro
Niall later dominated the SEAT races and won the series, the day felt bittersweet! So as you do on the journey home we analysed the weekend and assessed everything. For sure we knew we had to resolve our engine issues but despite that Niall didn’t have the ultimate pace and was not happy with the balance. He was constantly complaining of mid corner under steer and nothing we tried cured this. Niall said the car felt a lot better before the cash on Thursday. In the past we heard stories of guys struggling with a crack in their chassis’s, could something like this be our problem? Monday morning Joe removed the engine and stripped the back of the chassis and to our delight found a crack! It was in a critical area where the bottom of the bell housing bolts on. Mick, our skilled fabricator repaired the chassis and he and Joe added some extra braces to help stiffen up the rear end.
A lot of work was done on the car last week so let’s hope we can return to Brands with the winning pace Niall has had there for the past two years!
You can follow Niall at @niallmurray5 on Twitter where he will post live updates throughout the weekend!
Eoin