We set some good times in the free practice sessions at
Oulton Park and going into qualifying, we looked at the telemetry and saw that we were between gearing at a lot of places. Me, Kelvin and Geoff sat down and made the decision to change the gearing – and it didn’t work. At the hairpin I was having to dab the clutch because of that and it eventually broke the driveshaft. But it was me who broke it this time, not the car as I was abusing it. Getting the gearing wrong knocked the stuffing out of our lap times and I felt unsettled as I couldn’t change at the apex of a corner and things like that. It was a totally wrong decision and I was so mad with myself for doing it. But then again we had to try it and it was better to do it then than in the first race.
However it meant we were at the back of the grid and the qualifying curse had hit again! We knew we were quicker than qualifying showed and I was gutted that my horrible luck was continuing as the car was good – we just didn’t get the result again and my lap times were a couple of seconds away from where we were in practice.
Race day though was a different story and we finally got that first top ten finish of the season. I’m really chuffed that we got the result, and it was almost as good as a podium for us after the problems in qualifying. The first race was solid and the second race was going great at the start - I was up to sixth or something like that and then Chris Stockton punted me off in the wet, maybe he couldn’t stop but I didn’t have a problem with it. I finished 14th but it was difficult towards the end as the circuit was drying, as the car was a bit of a handful.
Ahead of the final race, my team manager said ‘Martyn, this is your best chance today. Go out there and do it’ and we did well. I’m pleased for the team as we put in a tenth place finish and it was one that we earned, we didn’t just inherit it.
