The Viper is a really good car, but the way the British championship is at the moment, the car is seriously, seriously handicapped and it doesn’t go anywhere. The ride height is far too high and there is too much ballast in the car. The gearbox is very slow and the other cars have racing gearboxes and can leave the Viper for dead. The ride height being so high will have a big impact at a circuit like
Oulton Park, as the car won’t handle at all in the fast corners – it’ll be almost un-driveable. Even with the ride height down to a reasonable level, the car would find a good second to two seconds a lap around Oulton, but the
Ferrari will still be quicker. You could put 200 extra kilos into the car and it would still be sitting on pole position because it’s just too quick.
I didn’t make it onto the grid at Oulton and unfortunately that probably means I won’t be able to make an appearance in British GT this season as I’ll be too busy looking after the Embassy programme. There is too much to do for me to go between series’ so I have to concentrate on the Radical and doing the best I can in the car from this weekend in Italy.
My aim for the weekend is get circulating and be as close to Warren’s times as possible and I want to be consistent. These prototype cars are fantastic. The braking is unbelievable and is probably the biggest thing I have to get used to. That is the reason why I have been quick in the past at Le Mans when it has been wet, as I have been driving the car as if it was a GT car. But when it dries out, they are unbelievable to drive. With a GT car, they roll around into the corner but these things are like a dart – you just turn in to a corner and away they go!
