Radical SR1 Cup race diary: an incident-packed debut at Silverstone

In the end, race one qualifying got an eighth place on the grid and race two was seventh, in a field of 15. Some, including yours truly, were complete rookies, while others were in their second year of the championship.

After qualifying, there was time for an extensive war council session with Radical expert Roger Bromiley, the man with the unenviable task of improving me as a racing driver. As well as a debrief on qualifying, there was a lengthy - and eye-opening - discussion on race tactics.

As with qualifying, the race actually starts much sooner than crossing the line for the first time. The warm-up lap also plays a crucial part in this; there’s time for a practice start as you get off the grid, then it is straight into hard acceleration before hard braking in straight lines to start to get heat in the brakes and tyres.

Once a bit of heat is there, the weaving from side to side on the track starts. This isn’t just for show; the violent movements from side to side, covering around half the width of the track, gets further crucial heat into those tyres.

Throw in some psychological tactics, such as getting up alongside or in front of the bloke ahead of you on the grid to let him know you’re there, and ‘accidentally’ stopping in the wrong grid box to allow a further practice start, and you should be ready for a good start, providing those nerves don’t get the better of you.

The start, then, is something that requires impeccable clutch control. You hold the revs at around 9000rpm, and then gradually feed it in to ensure a smooth getaway, rather than dumping it and spinning the wheels, at the risk of stalling.

From eighth on the grid in race one, my start was slow and cumbersome, but off the line I went, on the inside of the track, with no immediate danger to being passed (or indeed passing someone for that matter).

Until, of course, the ‘incident’ at turn one occurred. There was little drama to what caused it; it was an inexperienced driver who hadn’t managed to warm up the tyres properly taking a corner on too tight an angle. Lesson learned and I was down, if not quite out completely.

While the contact that followed the spin - as one car collected the rear wing and the right rear corner of bodywork of our SR1 - had a significant impact on the aerodynamic performance on the straights and downforce through the high-speed corners, the wheels and suspension were fine, and nothing was hanging off that could possibly incur in a black flag for a mechanical defect.

A recovery drive got me up to 13th out of 15, and it could have been 12th with one more lap as some serious time was being taken out of the car in front. Indeed, if my car had shed a few more bits of debris on the track after the contact, it might have been enough for a beneficial safety car to bunch the pack up. Sadly, it never materialised.

My incident meant the gap between races one and two was a busy one for mechanic Pete Geeson and the team to ensure the car made it to the grid again. It did, and a hearty thanks must go to Pete and the team for their efforts.

The first corner incident also gave Roger a little raw material to work with with tips on racecraft, but the cause for the first corner crash became clear upon review in the video suite: the warm-up lap was simply not good enough for putting enough heat into the tyres. The start had also been too slow, and the corner could have been made easier by moving to the left of the circuit and widening the angle.

These invaluable tips firmly ingrained, the warm-up lap for race two involved more aggressive bouts of acceleration and braking to get those tyres warm, before more vigorous chucking of the car from side to side on the straights.

I lined up in position seven on the start line, and after another shaky getaway - the highlight of which was probably not stalling - I sped towards the arch nemesis of Copse again. Luckily this time it was without incident, and a position was even gained along the way.

And that was just about the highlight of the race. Fifth place was briefly achieved when someone in front fell off, but they quickly reclaimed their position. The eventual gap to the winner was around 30 seconds with the rest of the group staggered behind. Seventh place behind was a further 12 seconds behind me.