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This weekend would prove to be very controversial in the end - but more on that later. Qualifying got under way on a dry track (for once) and the usual suspects were at the top of the timesheets. A few minor suprises though, Peter Felix was in an uncharacteristic 8th, and Sean Stanway's return put him in the top 10. CHarles Cozens returned to the pits with a blowing exhaust, but despite this he found himslef squarely in the A race for the first time.
I do not recall much of the B race, because we had a fairly frantic time trying to secure the exhaust blow on Charles car. What looked initially like a blown downpipe gasket turned out to be a radial crack round the pipe opening up!
The A race got off to its usual frantic start. There was mayhem at the start, but through it all Charles Cozens managed to make his way from his starting slot of 26th up to 12th by the time he passed me. It was all for nought though as the red flags were soon flying, and they all regridded in their original positions.
The restarted race saw a breakaway group at the front again, consisting of Scarlett, Morgan, Burgess and Macmillan. Peter Felix had to clear the rest of the pack before he could give chase, but it was not long before he was part of the action up the front. Charles Cozens had again made good progress up the field from 26th to 14th, but now his exhaust was sounding rather worrying. Ultimately the loss of power meant that even defending hard he dropped back to 16th.
The real battles did not start until after the race. The officials had chosen a couple of rules from the rulebook at random, and were now checking that all cars complied. In particular the rules state "It is permitted to bypass the water supply to the heater, but the standard heater and associated ducting must remain in the original position". Several people who were excluded for removing the heater matrix felt wronged - as they argue that this does not give them a performance advantage. My personal view (since this is my site and I can say what I like) is that those running at the front of the championship are foolish to allow themselves the risk of getting excluded on a technical reg that gains them no advantage, so I have no sympathy! Ultimately there were no less 10 exclusions from this meeting, including 2nd and 3rd placed drivers - so the moral is clear. Make sure your car complies with all of the rules.
Final round is at Mallory Park - the top slot may already be decided, but there are still plenty of places to be decided.
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