Tag Archives: 420R

Caterham Seven 420R, Championship Event, CSUK Championship

Oulton Park British GT Weekend

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We should have been supporting several British GT weekends through 2021. However, Covid saw the foreign rounds disappear and we were left with one final partnership at Oulton Park.

It’s not a track I have loads of experience at. However, it’s a brilliant track to drive. Such a wonderful set of corners. You really go on an adventure every lap with something for everyone. Fast and committed. Tight and technical and gradient thrown in everywhere. Plently of barriers to punish you as well if you get things wrong.

Qualification

Frustration! Slick tyres on a drying track was the correct choice and I was on the correct combination. However, I was further back in the queue than I would have liked at the start of qualification and that meant I was finding it hard to get any track position and a clear lap.

It’s not often I can say that I was held up by Will Smith, but I certainly did as he was on older slicks.

After several off track escapades in what were very tricky conditions and a session only 10 minutes long, it all came down to the final lap.

It went well, although I had to navigate Tom Eden who had parked on the final apex. I was sure this had scuppered my lap, but was surprised to find myself again in Superpole.

Superpole

A steady lap. And it showed. 4th on the grid was the result after James Murphy fell foul of track limits. I felt more was possible but I failed to get back up to speed quickly enough. A familiar defect to my season.

Race 1

A good start for once. I made up a place to run initially in 3rd. This changed to 4th when James Murphy taught me a lesson on the amount of grip you can generate early on with a specacular move into the Chicane. 4th was looking good. Great actually.

I had a gap behind and was keeping up (just) with the ultra rapid Steve Nuttal, Henry Heaton and James Murphy. This was more like it! Due to the tight schedule on the GT calendar, we were only having 2 races this weekend, back to the 30 minute race format. That comes with advantages for me; less starts; less early laps; more ‘settle in’ period. However, this year it also comes with a big downside. Fitness!

13mins in and I made a mistake coming out of the second chicane. I drifted onto the grass and lost positions gathering things back up onto the track.

I then got spooked into the final corner braking zone causing Greg Monks to hit my rear. Not his fault at all. But that saw me lose more places. So disappinting from the drivers seat. Gonig from 4th and now dropping to my more familiar mid field setting.

I got stuck behind Rob Watts and Greg Monks having an epic battle. I felt I had the speed over both of them but just not the racecraft, or energy frankly, to make it stick.

That then cost me more positions with Jake Swan-Dixon coming back through. Ultimately, he made it all the way to 5th place and that would have been a position I was capable of if I was more race hardened and fitter.

Race 2

The race that never was. Well, “half wasn’t” I suppose.

Conditions once again were extremely changeable and tricky to judge. The whole field decided on slick tyres even through there was rain threatened. With the banks absolutely chock full of specators, it was going to be an absolutely epic advertisment for Caterham racing. For whatever can be said about our brand of motorsport, it leads to endlessly entertaining and epic racing.

An initial delay being released onto the track and then an even longer delay held on the grid before we got going meant that the threatened rain had a chance to arrive.

I made a reasonable start and then managed the conditions well to move forward. I’d got all the way to 5th place when Alex Jordan found the barriers and a safety car was thrown. Unfortunately, this meant that all the residual heat from the tyres was lost and the rain was getting heavier by the second.

Unfortunately, some poor communication by race control meant that instead of calling us all in to swap to wet tyres, they showed us a premature chequered flag instead.

That’s a signal there is no recovery from. The race is over and restarting it would have lead to more technical and regulatory issues that would likely have lead to the result being void.

Finishing in 5th would have been a result to take away of course, and I would have been happy to! However, half points was all that was awarded so it was added to everyone’s dropped scores list for the season.

We all went away from that weekend feeling disapointed. It’s a long way to go to only get one race and for me, 2 potentially great results went away.

Caterham Motorsport, Caterham Seven 420R, Championship Event, CSUK Championship

Report card ‘C’ – See me after class

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Well, that was an induction and a half. I went into Donington the least prepared I have ever been for any race event. With so little running in the car ahead of the weekend, with no racing action since 2018 and only 1 hour of practice to try and get up to speed on Thursday evening at the circuit, it’s no particular surprise, but still hugely deflaiting, that I came out of the box slowly.

Whilst other drivers have a natural ability to find pace, it’s something I’ve always had to work at. It can take a while to convice my sceptical mind about the sanity of taking an extra 10mph into a corner or leaving the braking another 10m down the road. My brain has to experience it before it believes it’s possible.

That’s rather a catch 22 and only cures itself with laps and seat time. Something I was desperately short of. However, of the laps I’ve done very nearly all of them have been on the new slick tyres on this years car. Whilst the DNA of the Caterham is still very much present, the sheer levels of grip offered up by the tyres is three levels of bonkers beyond anything you think possible.

Heading into Qualification, it would be the first time that I would be strapping on the new, dedicated, wet weather tyres. Conditions were absolutely filthy and with ony 15 mins track time and sharing the track with 310R cars, for the first time ever, I absolutely failed to get any lap time set. Over 5 seconds down on the lead times in class and 13th out of 14 cars on the CSUK grid.

That was sore when jumping out of the car and progressively began to sting more as the morning wore on. It certainly needed some soul searching to get strapped back in the car again for the race.

Race 1 approached, as it has a tendency to do, and the weather forecast had been correct in its prediction that the rain would not abate on Saturday. With zero visibility, we headed out on track for my first race lap in 2.5 years. Whilst not comfortable, I was able to start making some places and as the much needed seat time in the wet increased with each passing lap, I was able to figure out the grip levels of the new tyres and started to approach a more acceptable pace.

By the flag, I’d move up to 8th place and set 6th fastest lap – over 5 seconds faster than qualification and at least in the correct ball park.

An early night and the traditional stress and pacing saw race 2 approach sooner than I expected. This time, dry track conditions and therefore the slicks strapped back onto the car.

I essentially let the race happen around me. I was attached to the lead train for a while but sub-conciously I was preserving a ‘safety bubble’ around the car, which meant that I was always slipping backwards and my pace was off. I was as high as 5th at one point, but slipped back again. Ending the race in 7th. Another slight position improvement but again, so many lessons to get through in my re-education into full on competition.

I’ve been lucky through my racing so far to have always had a really competitive field torace against. However, the CSUK Championship is full of seasoned and championship winning drivers. Of the people ahead of me on the grid, only one doesn’t have a Championship to their name. With a couple of exceptions, everyone was also hot off the previous seasons racing and had managed some additional seat time in the new spec car. Many have also been racing the 420R car for several seasons already, which at least makes you feel more comfortable in your surroundings.

We were now all into unfamiliar territory though, heading into our 3rd race of the weekend. Due to the physical nature of the new 420R spec machine, we are running 3 x 20 minute races per weekend instead of the more familliar 2 x 30 minute races. Therefore, cooling down after the first race before building up to do it all again is not something anyone is particularly used to.

I had another action plan to get a bit more enguaged in the racing and start to compete a little more. Whilst I was sucessful in that venture to a certain degree, I still wasn’t happy or where I wanted to be and was making mistakes left, right and centre.

Caution when lapping the traffic also cost me time and position on track off the back of the lead group. However, other drivers were less fortunate in the traffic and that ultimately resulted in several 420R cars crashing out and sustaining race ending damage. That promoted my finishing position to 5th place at the chequered flag. Whilst it’s not a satisfying feeling to benefit from others mis-fortune, the 5th place was a good end result and my relative pace was again reasonable – but certainly not stellar.

The car is in one piece though and that’s more than some could say heading away from the track. From very nearly last place in qualification, I’d made step by step improvements in finishing positions to end up 5th place in the final race. That’s certainly the right direction. However, until I can legitimately say I’m properly competing, rather than clinging on, I won’t be happy with my performance.

Hugh thanks go to my mechanic Jack and driver coach Darren for sticking with me and DPR Motorsport in general for their relentless attention to detail.

Caterham Seven 420R

A new dawn

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Plans to get out racing again in 2021 are starting to finalise. A big step in the right direction is owning a race car and there is now a tick in that box.

And what a machine it is. A thoroughbred Caterham Seven 420R with all the bells and whistles, meticulously prepared by DPR Motorsport.

I didn’t intend to buy a car just yet as 2021 is still a long way off. But when the right car appeared for sale at the right time, it was too much of a risk not to put in an offer.

As much as I would love to, having just shelled out for the car, I just don’t have the finances to race in 2020, so the plan remains to mount a charge for the 2021 season.

In the mean time, I will be getting out on track through 2020 to get used to the car and get myself prepared. Dad, and the rest of the family, are also pretty excited to get back out on track and to learn how to spanner this new beast.

Although it looks similar from the outside, it is a very different animal underneath from my previous Caterhams.

And, I don’t have to wait too long until it’s first outing, so I’ll be reporting back in a couple of weeks on how it is to drive and just how big the grin on my face gets.