Will, Jack & Toby @ PFi Winters - Rd 3

Test day was a ‘blowy’ affair with much of the day spent holding the awnings down and trying to keep warm, that said Jack Clements on his first visit was having a great time simply soaking up the atmospherics of one of the country’s top circuits.

Will, Jack and Toby spent the majority of the test on different settings, homing in on the ideal solution was problematic with such harsh changes in the weather, at one point I think we had light snow which only lasted a few minutes but long enough to realise how much of a challenge was ahead.

For Jack the whole weekend was a simple experience matter, we were keen to get him to drive well and he did that but the technicalities of the track for a visiting novice can prove frustrating, Jack as always took it in his stride and whilst at the back was not giving up and vowing to return and improve his times is a sign of the weekend he enjoyed.

Will Attreed has been doing the winter series and has been very quick to improve his pace, the test day was a steady affair but Will getting several chances to run with some bigger players enjoyed some of his best driving to date, the culmination of his efforts were seen in the B final where he was top 3 until the race was stopped due heavy rain which of course abated as soon as the drivers acknowledged the red flag, for me Will was done out of an opportunity to get to the A final and with the B being re-run later on the gamble on tyres whilst worth it didn’t pay off and Will lost out in overall pace, a sad end to a respectable weekend drive which was affected by other factors.

Toby’s test day was a steady day and the variations in weather did not allow for consistent testing sadly, we managed to sort the cogs but with the Sunday looking more dry than wet we could only guess the potential outcome. Race day provided Toby with a P9 in qualifying, P6 in the Pre final, despite being as fast as the front and within a hair we overheated the rubber in the last two laps and lost 2 places, starting in 12th for the final we were squeezed badly and never recovered from a tracking issue resulting from that apparent ‘racing incident’ (do I seem in disagreement with the call!) Toby had the pace for top 8 which we had targeted but it was not to be, we return in March of course to hopefully get Will and Toby where they deserve to be.

I do like PF but this was something of a ‘messy’ weekend in terms of the racing at our level, I do hope the behaviours in the B Final re-run are addressed for the benefit of the sport in general if nothing else.

Keep it flat, if not go play golf.