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The Inside Track with Power Maxed Racing: Our trip to Snetterton and the hottest round of the year to date

By Power Maxed Racing / MJP Media | 12 August 2015

High temperatures and high jinks at Snetterton produce a difficult weekend for the team.

The mid-season break has been a busy time for us as we not only had the Dunlop MSA BTCC 2016 tyre test at Snetterton which Josh took part in, but we also had the car at CarFest North, Chris Evans' event for the BBC's Children in Need. Star baker Paul Hollywood drove the car that day and the fans' reaction was fabulous. Then it was back to action and the trek to the longest circuit that we use, the MSV Snetterton 300 which is a massive 3 miles long.

The track is enormously technical in the infield, but also has the longest straight of any track that we visit, so it is a really difficult setup balance between outright speed and low speed and cornering grip. The first free practice session was all about getting a reasonable setup and although Josh was 14th and Dave was 15th, we took comfort from the fact that we had both cars so evenly matched that it could provide a springboard for the rest of the weekend.

Free practice 2 was unusual as the temperature had rocketed and we knew it was going to be tough on brakes and tyres. Dave was able to pull a bit more from the car with an excellent 8th position, whilst Josh was 15th, but well within touching distance. Qualifying is traditionally where the big guns turn up the wick and Snetterton was no exception. Even though Dave was only 0.6 seconds behind the pole time and Josh was only 0.8 seconds behind, they were still 11th and 15th respectively.

Race day was even hotter and the first race of the day seemed to be difficult for all of the teams as they sought to protect their tyres and brakes. This left little in the way of aggressive driving in the pack, but we were happy with a very hard fought 8th for Dave and 15th for Josh. Race 2 was quite the opposite and particularly mental as crashes galore at the start meant that no fewer than 7 cars failed to make it to the end of lap 2. We still don't know what caused madness, but unfortunately Dave was caught up in one of the skirmishes and Josh lost time trying to avoid it all, ending 17th. We felt very hard done by!

Race 3 saw things a little bit calmer, but we seemed to be slightly off the pace in the still sweltering conditions and Dave came home in 14th with Josh just behind in 16th. It wasn't quite the weekend we were hoping for overall, but there were some glimpses that we aren't far off the really big boys in terms of outright pace. Unfortunately, once you are in the pack you are at the mercy of others' driving standards and that makes things difficult sometimes.

On a positive note, we are now ready to go at Knockhill with some good extra data and for Dave Newsham at least, he doesn't have a 500 mile plus drive to get there!

See you soon folks.

Power Maxed Racing

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