In his latest exclusive column for Crash.net, Martyn Bell looks back to his second race meeting in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Mondello Park...
It was another baptism of fire at Mondello Park, but then again we knew it was going to be. I’d never raced at Mondello before and it is a difficult track, one that is hard to learn and I had my work cut out with this one! But yet again we’ve learnt a lot and how many teams can say that they gained 3.5 seconds over the course of the weekend?
We had a few issues over the weekend, one of which was when I put it off in qualifying. We’d put some new brakes in the back of the car and I think I tried to go too fast too quickly and locked up. I put the car in backwards as I didn’t want to cause too much damage but the red flags came out and that meant I was out of the session. It was a shame as I was trying to learn the circuit because Mondello is a hard place to get your head round.
To be honest, I think it’s the kind of track that you need to have visited quite a few times before you could really say you know it or you’d need to see some local guys to find out about it. Even when you’ve walked round it, you go round and think ‘I forgot about this corner’ and it’s a circuit that is also hard work in the rear wheel drive car. Changing gear when you don’t have a sequential box in the car was also tought because you have to change gear so many times, but we made steps forward throughout the weekend.
