Ok, so we didn’t win on our first outing at the weekend. But who, honestly, apart from naïve little me thought we ever stood a chance? The way it worked out, the weekend could have gone better but we made a huge statement, and that is that we are going to be right there, on the pace, very soon.

The fundamental handling characteristics of the Noble M12 GTO 3R are fantastic. Right out of the box we’ve known that, and with the very limited amount of time that we’ve had to learn the car, it’s a good thing too. On arrival at Donington on Saturday morning the Rollcentre Racing mechanics had been flat out on the car for months to have everything sorted, and the whole of the rest of the team are really proud of them.

Saturday

Practice

Practice was ridiculously early on Saturday morning. We were due on track at 9 o’clock. I didn’t even know there were two of those in the day before Martin Short, Rollcentre team boss, instructed me to jump in the car. And so it was, wiping sleep out of my eyes that I slithered out onto the track on slicks just after 9, only to find that it was VERY slippery. Whilst it hadn’t rained all morning, the track hadn’t dried much from overnight rain and now it was spitting again. I came straight in and we stuck some wets on the car. I revelled in the wet conditions and immediately leapt to the top of the timesheets for the cup class. Our car handles so well in the wet. The guys brought me in so that we could get Fanny Duchateau, my Belgian co-driver, in the car.

Fanny was equally happy with the way car was going, and now the track started to dry again so she came in for slicks. Once the dry line fully appeared Fanny settled down to some very good times and she was comfortable in the car, so she pitted again for me to get back in the car. I was on a mission to put our car back up towards the top of the time sheets.

Unfortunately, just after posting our fastest lap of the session, a 1:15.7 I encountered a Ferrari in no-mans land in the very fast Craner Curves on its out lap. Deciding to go around the outside turned out to be the wrong decision and he drifted across towards me. There were two choices at this point, push him off or take my chances on the grass. I chose the latter and ended up spinning into the gravel at The Old Hairpin for my troubles. That ended our session with still more than ten minutes to run. The extra set-up time would have been useful but I guess you can’t have everything. I don’t hold it against the Ferrari driver, after all he was probably still asleep too, but an apology would have been nice.

The main problem with the car in practice was a recurrence of a problem we’d encountered in testing. The gear change mechanism. The mechanics had had a good go at making it better for us, but neither Fanny nor I were really comfortable, and the slow change was costing us dear on the track. It was noticeable how the Porsches and Ferraris pulled away as we waited for the synchromesh in the gearbox. Also, the power steering had failed with Fanny in the car. These two issues needed to be looked at before qualifying, but not until the car was emptied of gravel!

Qualifying

The way the championship now works, there are two qualifying sessions, one for each race and each undertaken by one of the drivers. I was down to qualify first. Wow, fifteen minutes is nothing! With so many cars on the track it was nigh on impossible to find a space to qualify in. I messed it up in a big way and came in near the end for a quick set-up change. With time short we couldn’t change anything so they sent me straight back out but a car had gone off so I was held at the pit lane exit. We were to be given a one shot lap, but everyone on track together. Amazingly I found a hole, hung back at the end of my out lap and then gunned it over the line. Everything was going perfectly until the final run down to the chicane. I tried to beat the gearbox, didn’t take my time and fifth gear didn’t go in smoothly. It must have cost us a second at least but still ended up being my fastest lap at 1:15.9, good enough for 8th in class. I was pretty annoyed but at least Fanny would have a chance to put us further up in her session, immediately following ours.

It wasn’t to be. The rain came down just as she was about to leave the pits and so the decision was made to switch to wets. One of the jobs still to be done on the car is to fit centre-lock wheels for quick changes, but since we don’t have them yet it took some time to change the tyres. Eventually Fanny joined the fray but the old power steering gremlins struck again. As a result, there ended up being no time for Fanny to complete a flying lap and set a time. We would start dead last for race two.

Race 1

After all the events in the morning, you’d have forgiven the mechanics for thinking it was now time to go home. But no, we still had a race to run! They again had a go at improving the gear change and fixing the power steering. The rain had been coming and going all day, what was in store for the race no-one seemed to know. I had people on one side telling me that the rain was coming to stay, others telling me that it would hold off. I prayed for the former, and nearly got it. When I jumped into the car for the ten past five start, the car was on wets, but by the time I left the garage, slicks had replaced the treaded tyres on my car. The out lap was interesting to say the least; at least one car in front of me spun just trying to get to the grid. The decision was left to me as to whether to change to wets on the grid. I was indecisive so Martin chose for me and we stayed on slicks. If we’d had any intermediate tyres, we’d have chosen those, but we didn’t so slicks it was as the grid cleared of people.

Two, again interesting, rolling laps later we were underway. I’d tried desperately to get some heat into the tyres but they were having none of it and stayed stone cold. The first three of four laps or so were a lottery. I just kept following the car in front and hoped to stay on the track. A few people fell off to the side of me but I just kept going, eventually making a move on the Porsche ahead of me. By about lap nine the track started to dry, ever so slowly. It was about now that I was passed by an N-GT TVR. The driver was obviously struggling to haul the big TVR around in the damp and I got held up considerably. If I’d got my foot down a lap earlier, he never would have caught me and the lead cup class cars wouldn’t have got away. Having eventually passed the TVR I seemed to be constantly passing cars. As the track dried, all the wet shod cars were struggling and I could take advantage. By the time I pitted, we’d made it up to 3rd in class, effectively 4th after the pit stops.

It hadn’t all been plain sailing though. The gear change was again playing up and, surprise surprise, I lost the power steering. Thankfully it wasn’t broken this time, just an air bubble that had found its way to the pump and stopped the system. Even so it killed my shoulders and arms. I was praying for my stint to end for the last few laps, I thought my arms were going to drop off! This shouldn’t have been the case; I never realised how unfit I have become since going off to university. The couple of months of gym work I’ve done since the end of January are no where near enough to undo the one and half years of abuse I’ve given my body. You’ll see a different person at Mondello Park, and that’s a promise. Once out of the car, I just laid down in the garage, I could hardly even get my helmet off!

Anyway, Fanny was doing a sterling job and consolidated our fourth place. Just then it started to drizzle again. Despite the tricky conditions she kept the car on the island when others around couldn’t and we ended up 4th. What a fantastic result first time out. Obviously we’d have loved to have been on the podium, but 4th was great anyway. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Can we go home now?

Sunday

Race 2

Not quite such an early morning on Sunday was a relief to everyone, but the mechanics still came in to sort out the steering once and for all. It wouldn’t cause us any problems in the second race. We tried again to sort out the gear shift. I was sitting in the car in the garage on Sunday morning going through the gears whilst our engineer Mike Hurley tried to fix everything. We fired it up and again I ran though with no problems, maybe that was going to be good too. Were these good omens? Whatever, it was going to be difficult starting from the back of the grid, but everyone was confident that Fanny could climb a few places and get us in the hunt.

Something in the region of sixty Noble owners and their families had turned up to cheer us on and they seemed almost as excited as me about the car when I chatted to them, a really nice group of people, who (naturally) love their Nobles. They had a fantastic view from their hospitality box above the pits and were probably just as nervous as the rest of us as Fanny thundered down the start straight in fully dry conditions to start the second race.

She was immediately in her stride and passed car after car in working her way up to sixth in the cup class. The car seemed to be running really well from what we could see on the pit wall. Then disaster! The faster N-GT cars began to lap the cup class runners and one was a little too eager to get past Fanny. Godfrey Jones in his Porsche GT3RS hit her square on the left rear wheel on the long uphill run towards McLean’s, both cars spinning off into the infield. Testament to the strength of the little Noble was that the most Fanny endured was a broken wheel, trailing bodywork and a heap of lost time. The Porsche was out on the spot, front right suspension destroyed. Even so, we still lost about two laps in the pits ripping the left sill off and replacing the damaged wheel before sending Fanny back out again. At this point, of the 14 runners left in the cup class, only three were behind her and the closest in front was more than a lap ahead. We had our work cut out to gain any places back.

Still, there is never any point in giving up so we pressed on in the hope that other teams would have troubles too. Next, and rather embarrassingly for me, was the pit stop. Everything was going smoothly and I was installed in the car well before the mandatory 45 seconds were over. But as I went to restart the engine I hit the wrong button, DOH! A pretty amateur mistake considering that the start button and power off buttons are about as far away from each other on the dash as they could be, perhaps I was drawn to the big red button. After shouting out of the window ‘POWER, POWER’ at Pete (I had no radio with no electrics) he turned it back on and I was away. Already fired up because of Fanny being hit, I joined the fun flat out, with no holds barred. I was going to claw back every second I could and get us a result.

I was still 11th at this point but almost everyone in front still had to pit, so I plugged away. Soon it was 10th, I’m not sure why and then I started having trouble with fourth gear. As a result of the linkage being difficult, we’d slowly broken fourth gear and it was increasingly difficult to find. After persevering for several laps I decided enough was enough and left it out altogether, completing the stint using only 3rd and 5th. That cost us dear and I could only lap in the 1:17 – 1:18 bracket. I should have been able to do 1:15s. All of a sudden cars were coming past me and I was worried that I’d lose a place. But instead I kept gaining. P10 became P9 and then the gods shone on me.

Coming out of McLean’s I was cursing the N-GT Porsche that had just squeezed me onto the kerb when the car in front of him slid off the track. Then he himself went sideways, and I caught sight of oil. If it hadn’t been for those two slithering around I surely would have missed it and might have gone off myself, but managed to get the car to the inside and missed the worst of it. Exiting the corner there was yet another Porsche going backwards; I assumed it was his oil but it turned out to belong to an expired TVR. P9 now became P8. A lotus had gone off at The Old Hairpin pushing too hard, so despite our early problems and losing a gear, we were in the points! At this stage it wasn’t pushing hard anymore as I wasn’t going to catch anyone else and I decided to settle for the point.

I still had time for one big grin though. As the yellow DRM Ferrari came past to lap me, it became apparent that the only place he was faster was in a straight line, I was much quicker through all the corners. Once the gear change is sorted I’m positive that we’ll be bang on the pace and pushing for race wins, and that will be very soon. The rain started to come down a few minutes from the end and the organisers brought proceedings to a halt one and half minutes early. So the car came home 8th and we were ecstatic that we’d finished both without major mechanical dramas. Even if I did look a little deflated after the race, I can look at the positives now, but without the Porsche incident, we could have been 4th again.

Well done to Martin, Mike, Lewis, Julian and everyone else who helped to build the little Noble so well. Well done to Lee Noble for designing such a wonderful car and well done to Fanny in what must have been a very tricky first weekend racing in a foreign country surrounded by foreign people. Thanks to everyone who came to watch too, your support is greatly appreciated. We did make a statement and we’re only going forwards from here.

The next race is at Mondello Park, in Ireland on May 8th and 9th.