Roared on by strong home support, Pippa Mann was satisfied, rather than delighted, with her results in the latest World Series by Renault at
Silverstone.
Producing two finishes in 19th and 20th positions, Mann was pleased with her consistency after a race long battle with Duncan Tappy.
"I started 20th and finished 20th," she told
Crash.net Radio after the second race. "There were some very quick people at the back of the grid and they came past at the start of the race. I had a pretty slow pit-stop, but I gained a few places because I was lapping well and I able to keep ahead of Tappy.
"What I hadn't realised was that I damaged my front-wing a little, which was fine in clear air. I was catching the car in front and I caught him with two laps to go, but that damage meant I had a complete loss of aero at the front and I ended up having to defend hard from Tappy."
Mann, however, did admit that she is finding it difficult to locate the sweet spot of her Formula Renault 3.5 machine this season.
New for this season, the 2008 chassis is an F1-inspired design, with sculpted flanks and more wings, but while the appearance of the car has been widely praised, Mann thinks this lean towards aero-dependency may have taken away some of the spectacle.
Indeed, in a race where overtaking was at a premium around a Silverstone circuit often conducive to passing manoeuvres, Mann believes the more intricate design of the latest evolution chassis has made it to difficult to get close to rivals on the race track.
“Silverstone has lots of sequences of very fast corners and it is always hard to get very close behind the car in front. Last year we were really able to get up behind the other car's rear-wing and get past, but this year's car is much more aero dependant and much more difficult to follow other cars.
