Circuit:	Silverstone, Northants
Date:	October 8th 2006
Championship:	Caterham Academy Championship 2006

As the F1 pit garages were being allocated to the Caterham racers on a first come first served basis, I decided to get to the circuit in good time to try and at least secure a place in a shared garage. I was amazed to find however that although I was one of the first there at about 7.15 a.m., all the garages were either full or locked. Anyway, the weather had turned out to be reasonable, so most of the Academy Group 1 grid took up positions in the paddock rather than the garages.

The morning was somewhat more relaxed than normal as we weren't racing until late afternoon and signing on/scrutineering/briefings etc, were therefore at far more civilised times than in previous races.

I had tested at Silverstone in the most horrendous of conditions the previous week and had been pleased then to secure a reasonably competitive time. I therefore went out in qualifying with a degree of confidence and slowly built up the times, even though I didn't find anyone lapping in my vicinity to get a tow from, something we are being told time and time again, is crucial to qualify well. Two drivers who seem to have this down to a fine art are good friends, Peter Young (car no. 27) and Andrew Thomas (10) and who qualified on pole and 3rd respectively. However, unfortunately, Andrew was subsequently relegated to the back of the grid on a post qualifying scrutineering infringement.

I was aiming for a time of about 1.12.50 (which, with the benefit of hindsight would have given me a 4th place) but it wasn't to come and my best qualifying time was 1.12.848, placing me a disappointing 9th. With Andrew being "relegated" to the back of the grid, I would be lining up on the 4th row in 8th. Once again, less than a second separated the front ten places.

As we lined up in the assembly area for the race itself, little did I know how eventful such a short race was about to be, with one particular incident to lead to the potential manufacturers recall of maybe 100 cars.

Lining up on the grid, once again cars in front of me were slightly out of their grid boxes leaving me no room to run through the middle of them in the event of one of them stalling. I therefore made a conscious decision to just "take things easy" until after Copse and think of "car preservation".

As it happened, it proved easy to pass one car at Copse and I noticed out the corner of my eye, another car running very wide across the run-off area to the outside of the track. Another place made up. Then to my horror, Mark Bowles's (59) rear offside wheel departed company with the car at high speed and Mark's entire undercarriage became a huge brake, with sparks flying everywhere. Very colourful and obviously frustrating for Mark, but at least another place made up.

I was now running 5th in very close proximity to those cars in front and under heavy braking at Brooklands, I managed to get past Philip Gidlow (99) on the inside round Luffield, to take 4th place. All good fun I thought. This is more like it !

On the next lap, the second placed man in the Championship, Morgan Parry (46), squeezed past me braking into Brooklands and then Championship Leader, Lewis Hopkins (37), took me on the slipstream running down the pit lane straight. I ran 6th for about 5 laps, trading places a couple of times with Philip Gidlow. However, on lap 7, to my horror running down the back straight, I couldn't find 4th gear. I remember trying three or four times before it slotted in and of course in that time, half a dozen cars had just flown by and left me in the distance. I was now a most disappointing 12th and the gearbox had become very notchy indeed. I now had everything to do to get back in the race.

Over the course of the next three or four laps, I took places back from Alistair Greenlees (13), Chris Legg (6) and Simon Naylor (5). Gareth Thomas (77) then span on lap 10 to give me another place and on lap 11, I took a place back from Philip and was running 7th. Philip, Alistair and myself were having our own mini race for several laps, continually changing places.

On lap 12, I was reasonably pleased under the circumstances to be running 7th, having been 12th and then, running hard down the back straight, saw who I believed to be race leader, Peter Young (27), spin horribly at high speed into the wall approaching Brooklands and then bounce back across into the middle of the track. As I passed the yellow flags, I remember thinking that had to be a red because of where his car and associated debris had finished up and sure enough, as I was coming out of Luffield onto the main straight, in 6th, the gantry lights in front of me turned red. It was all over.

Under the red flag rules, the positions are taken back to the previous lap with the exception of the car deemed to have caused the red flag, in this case Peter. So I was placed 8th rather than 6th. However the main consideration was to learn that Peter was OK. Although I understand he paid a mandatory visit to the medical centre, I was delighted to see him walking around in the paddock shortly afterwards.

So lots of spinners, lots of overtaking, a mess up with my gears, a departing wheel (at speed), a horrible crash (at speed) and Championship leader Lewis Hopkins taking an early unusual "cross country" trek which saw me, unusually, positioned for a short while at least, in front of him in the running order. All in all, a rather eventful if somewhat short, Sunday afternoon drive !