After guiding F3 rookie Stephen Jelley to three race wins in the 2004 British F3 Scholarship class Championship, Performance Racing were the first team to get their hands on the new Neil Brown Engineering Mugen-Honda engine set for next year’s re-christened National class.
Braving wintry conditions at
Donington Park last Thursday,
Crash.Net caught up with Performance Racing’s chief engineer Duncan Williams and captured his initial thoughts on an engine that could re-fire the class in 2005.
Crash.Net
After half a day’s running is there anything that you can glean from the new engine?
Duncan Williams
Yes, we’ve got a good feel for the engine now, Stephen [Jelley] is very pleased with how it runs. There seems to be a similar output and performance to what he’s been driving this year in the B class Championship. The Neil Brown guys have been ever so helpful to us in getting this car up and running for today. We’ve had quite a busy week in getting this car up and running because obviously this car is completely new to us for although the technology is very similar we’ve got a new data logging system to get our heads round, which has been causing us a few problems today, minor problems.
But its looking very good, we’re looking forward to next year, it’s going to be a very, very good championship and this engine should encourage a few more teams into the Championship.
Crash.Net
The idea of introducing the new engine was to reduce costs and increase participation. Do you think the new engine makes the National class more accessible to drivers coming up and compared to the engine you used last year where are the main areas of difference that you’ve discovered?
DW
The main areas of difference is the longevity of the engine which will cut the costs down, there’s fewer rebuilds per season and also where its now a one make formula there’s no update costs, the costs are actually fixed, which again should help encourage more teams into the Championship.
