The Uniroyal Funcup championship arrived at a sunny Snetterton in the heart of Norfolk last weekend, with the drivers of the Cuisine de France car determined to demonstrate their competitivity after the disappointments of Spa.
Ian, Marc and Pete were on the pace in Qualifying, the new engine also assisting on the long straights at Snetterton, and the car set up working well thanks to the efforts of Pete and the Abbey Motorsport crew through the practice sessions. However, it proved difficult to get a "tow" from a quick enough car, essential to get a super-quick lap time. Not that this mattered since the starting grid would be drawn at random and the #190 car would start 12th. The sister #92 Abbey car would start in 5th place having set a blistering pace in Qualifying.
Marc took the first stint and made up a tremendous amount of places in the opening laps, climbing to 5th, and looking good for 4th before an unfortunate contact with the car ahead damaged the front splitter, leaving Marc to struggle with understeer until the schedule pitstop allowed the team to fit a new bonnet and splitter. Rejoining in 15th place, Ian then pushed hard to climb to 11th before handing over to Pete who set about catching the cars ahead.
"The first thing I noticed was a huge vibration in the front end, I guess a legacy of some damage to the tyres in the first stint," Pete commented."This made it difficult in the braking zones but generally the car was working well. I think we climbed to eighth but it was really hard to close the gap to other cars who were towing each other around".
Over the next three stints, Ian, Marc and Pete were able to climb to 6th place, Pete putting in the fastest lap (1:27.819) as he latched onto the back of the #131 JPR car. "I was easily able to keep up with JPR today. Although they were quicker in certain places, they were much slower at the Russell Chicane which is a critical corner. In fact their speed there caught me out on one lap and I had to brake more heavily than I wanted, causing a quick spin!"
Meanwhile the #92 Abbey car had suffered a driveshaft failure which dropped them down the order having run in the top three for much of the race.
In the #190 car, it was down to Marc to take the final stint. The team strategy of fuelling Pete to the brim on the previous stop paid off as Pete handed over to Marc in a super-quick pit stop with no refuelling needed. The only delay was caused by the left door jamming shut which meant Pete had to exit over the gear linkage on the right whilst Marc waited to enter the same way.
Ultimately though, the tactics cut the gap to the Random Racing car ahead by more than 30 seconds, and Marc put in a great effort to catch them with a lap to go, passing on the back straight and bringing the car home in a fine fifth place, just 3 seconds off fourth!
"Once again I'd like to thank Ian and also Tony's Abbey Motorsport team. They had a lot of work to do to prepare the cars after Spa and ours ran faultlessly through the whole weekend. We were definitely denied a podium today and it's a shame I won't be able to join the team at Brands Hatch as I think they will be competitive there, but I'm looking forward to jumping back into the car at Oulton Park in October".
