If the cars hadn’t been excluded from the race for also ignoring yellow flags, then I’d have been pretty upset about it. However, while the decisions were justified, it should have been sorted out before we got to Rockingham for the third round. The simple facts are that you can’t just push people off the track in cars that are worth £250,000 and you can’t just ignore yellow flags; they are out for a reason and it isn’t safe. It was plain to see on TV what had happened, so the teams that were excluded couldn’t really argue.
Knockhill is a very challenging circuit, especially in a big powerful GT car, but it’s a venue I really enjoy. It has some of the trickiest corners on the calendar and it can be hard to get a clear lap in qualifying because it’s so short and tight. The weather at Knockhill also tends to make it quite exciting as well! I don’t know if we will go back to Scotland again next year, but I would certainly miss it if it wasn’t on the calendar.
After Knockhill we headed to a very different circuit in Rockingham, with the big wide oval, but it proved to be a very challenging weekend. We struggled to get the set-up of the car right in the wet conditions and it meant Peter qualified 15th for race one and I could only manage tenth for race two.
We made some changes to the car ahead of the first race and Peter was one of the drivers who pitted early when the pit window opened along with Hector Lester in the
Ferrari and Oliver Morley in the Lamborghini. Unfortunately, just as I rejoined, the Safety Car was called out and me, Tom Ferrier and Allan Simonsen got picked up by the Safety Car.
We didn’t get waved through as we should have done as we running in ninth, tenth and eleventh which was a ludicrous decision. It meant we almost lost an entire lap to the cars running in first to eighth and even though the car had improved a lot and we had loads of pace, it took away our chance to do really well. It was an enjoyable race and it was close between me, Tom and Allan but a stupid decision not to let us left us fighting for ninth when it should have been more...
