Getting to
Thruxton we unfortunately hit trouble in the practice sessions when we went out to run the new gearbox in and before I hit the track, Geoff told me I’d be in trouble if I put a decent lap-time in because I was meant to be running the box in. The radio wasn’t working properly in the car so the team couldn’t hear me and as I was coming through Village, the power steering switched itself off.
I grabbed a big armful of steering and then it came on again and it is probably the biggest moment I have ever had without crashing in motor-racing. I really thought that was it and the car was going to be very second hand because I knew the car would either bite and roll or it would slide and I’d save it and luckily we saved it. It did that twice before we came in and found the problem which was a battery and SEAT helped us out with that. But it meant we were losing time when we wanted to dial the suspension in and it puts the wind up you when it happens while you are doing those speeds and it took me until the middle of the first race to get the confidence back during that corner.
In qualifying we then had a problem with the damper on the inside rear of the car and we didn’t pick it out at first as we thought the handling problems had been linked to the power steering problem. I couldn’t make the car work, but I couldn’t tell the team what the problem was, and it emerged that through Village and Church the body of the car was resting on the wishbone of the suspension so it was like driving with rigid go-kart suspension and it meant the characteristics of the car were very unusual.
