I’d made the decision ahead of Cadwell that this would be my final seasons racing for the forseable future. I kind of ‘semi’ retirement. I’ve had an epic time racing cars but unfortunately, my ‘sensible head’ had it’s say and realised that another season in the 420R wasn’t a good choice.
I’ve got to drive every step of the Caterham ladder, stood on every step of the race and championship podium and met some amazing people and made friendships with many of them.
It was therefore a little sad to be arriving at Cadwell. It’s a track that comes with a reputation. Both for being an absolutely epic track to drive but also a track that bights back.
It’s another new track to me and whilst it felt very familiar as I’ve raced it on the sim and seen plenty of racing on TV, it was the first time visisting for real. The first few laps out I knew it was going to take everything to find pace and hold on for the weekend.
I was blessed and curssed by exceptionally fast team mates. They never relented all year and therefore, every session of every track was relentlessly rewarding and bruising all at the same time.
It litterally took me all of the 2 days of testing to finally find the pace. However, in the final couple of sessions of the second day I found something. Suddely, everything clicked. We had a wet session and I finally found the confidence I’d lacked all year in the car and with the tyres. The result was a lap 1.5 seconds faster than my nearest team mate. And in the final dry session, I put in a time that put me in the running.
I went away from the track feeling bullish and finally things felt like they had come together.
Qualification
However, qualification didn’t go to plan. It didn’t go to plan at all. On about lap 4, a clipped the wet grass coming out of Chris Curve. The car immediately swapped ends and the rest is history.
Contact with the tyres meant some reparis were needed and, as this was the final race weekend of the season, the ‘sensible head’ once again came to the fore and I decided to pull the plug early so the car could be made right and I’d be in a good position to give some lucky person my pride and joy in mint condition.
The season has been a tremendous adventure. The whole year, I’ve compared every aspect of my racing with the best. That has weighed heavily but there have definitely been sparks of my old form there. I just wasn’t able to bring that out often enough.
The car defeinitely needed 2 years of experience and I really feel I could give things a far better go if I had my time again. But right now, that’s not possible and I am forever grateful that I’ve managed to do something I love for so long.
New adventures await and I’m sure racing cars will be a part of that again at some point. But just not in the immediate future.