In his first exclusive column for Crash.net, Wiechers Sport driver Emmet O’Brien looks back at his second weekend of competition in the World Touring Car Championship and a tough trip to France...
Magny-Cours was one of those weekends where it is a case of the sooner forgotten the better, except, of course for the experience!
I arrived in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in great spirits after a really positive run in Monza where I showed that I had real pace and potential for the rest of the season To be honest Magny-Cours rates as my least favorite circuit on the calendar and I am happy that it is out of the way, even though I have a different mind-set this season, which is to treat every circuit as the same, and to work very hard so as to maximise our potential at all the races.
Magny-Cours is a notoriously difficult and technical circuit, but a great circuit for testing you as you have a blend of high speed flat out fourth gear corners with some corners that almost bring you to a stop in first gear, and then there are the violent kerbs and chicanes that your car must be stable over so that you can carry speed through the lap.
For qualifying I felt that I had a reasonable chance of being in the top three in the Independents Championship, although If I am honest I was a little unsure of how our set-up was going to work. It really frustrates me when I don’t make progress - going backwards is always a worry for me - but you have to make changes sometimes in the hope of finding a big advantage. Our mistake in free practice two was that we made too many changes at the one time; we changed the diff because we thought it would eradicate the understeer, and we also changed springs and damper settings. I am a firm believer in keeping it simple by making one significant change at a time.
