Ford Rising Stars Racing

It was another early start this morning, leaving the town houses at 6.30am to head out to the track. Our first practise session was at 9.30, which means we need to be 100% ready to be on track at 9. Everything has to be 100% by this atage, or else trying to catch back up is nearly impossible.

We share the pit front with Ford Performance Racing, who are always really accomodating and often offer assistance if we need it. Time is always very precious when it comes to practise as this is the only time we really have to make sure that any changes we have made to the car work, and its also a time to try changes ahead of qualifying. Space is also really limited, so squeezing 40 odd cars in makes getting in and out the bays chalenging at the best of times.

Practice 1 was wet, as we expected, and so both driver circulated to get a good feel for the track and to bed in the new wet weather tyres. Although not pushing hard Daniel ended the session well inside the top half of the field and Michael a supurb 4th.

Practice 2 was a lot drier, and Michael spent the first few laps bedding in another set of wet weather tyres, just in case more wet weather was to come on later in the weekend. Daniel spent most of the session learning the car and track and trying to stay out of trouble, although a damaged steering rack from an incident early in the session made progress hard to come by. Daniel ended the session further down the field than he would have liked. Michael had a lot of trouble with the traffic, worming his way through 39 cars, but in the closing stages hauled the car up to position 1. A quick pit stop to make a few more changes proved costly, and could then claim not higher than 3rd position.

After todays practice sessions, the top 3 drivers went straight from their cars into a press conference, where the waiting media are there to ask questions, which are then used in various press releases and news stories for the general media and specialst publications throughout the country.

Once the cars are back in the pit tents the drivers sit down with their respective engineers and go through all the data collected, which helps them make decisions relating to the cars' setup for both qualifying and the first race tomorrow (Saturday).

At 5pm there's the drivers meeting, where the officials can run through a few different things, for example if they've noticed a lot of people driving over a certain ripple strip they can warn them that there will be pennalties applied if thats done during qualifying or racing! Its an important part of the weekend that often gets over looked!

Once again we'll be hving dinner with the team out at the track before we head back to the town houses for another nights rest. Hopefully tonight will be earlier than last night...

Stay tuned for part 3...