The next set of test days in the MX5 came over the summer of 2020. Immediately the car looked drastically different. Over the past year and a half, we had stripped a lot more weight from the car and added in the roll cage (See Build Progress 1 blog for a more in depth look). We also had some much better tyres which greatly improved the performance on both the wet and dry time on track.
Baby Steps
The most immediate difference in the handling of the car came with the roll cage. With the structure being so strong, it really connected the car together. Both from front to back and side to side. I felt this straight away as I came down paddock and it really surprised me, it made the feedback feel so much more immediate and deliberate. On this first day back I was there with Matt, my race tutor. He has been helping me massively in all aspects of my racing and so it was great to finally have him help improve my driving specifically for the Mazda.
Through the beginning of the day we focused on shaking down the car. Making sure everything worked the way it should and then after the first few stints we focused more on my driving. But as the day progressed the rain came in steadier and steadier until we found ourselves in a torrential downpour, red flagging the session.
This did end up being useful as it gave me some time to reflect on Matt’s comments throughout the day. Going into the day my priority was Graham Hill and Clearways, but as it turned out I was losing the most time at Druids (not a surprise to anyone that’s been to Brands!). Although I felt like I was taking it fast, Matt said I needed to start braking much earlier in order to nail the entry speed. Once I had this done, I could then build up the later braking, rather than chasing the brakes from the get go. This helped drastically and the car felt much smoother through the turn. The impact on speed was clear as I ended up carrying so much more speed into Graham Hill I had to re-think the majority of my approach and braking style into that corner!
The other area for work was Clearways. Arguably the most important corner on the circuit as it sets you up for the main, and longest straight on the track. Any speed you lose on this corner will be multiplied immensely by the time you hit Paddock. I mostly worked on being able to reliably hit the apex. So often I would understeer just wide of the inside kerb, and although it still looks and feels fast, the lateral forces scrubbed off so much speed and also made for unreliable throttle inputs on exit as I was never confident enough as to how close I’d end up to the edge. Although I improved this corner a lot throughout the day, It is still one that I need to focus on and improve if I want to be reliably extracting ever bit of performance out of this car that I can.Finishing the day with a 1:06:47 was a great improvement but I still needed to test the limits of this car in the dry.
Final Day
Luckily it wouldn’t be long until I was able to do that, as two months later I was back out at Brands. This time, in the bright September sun! For this track day I was out in the car with my Dad and Grandad, and so wasn’t necessarily focusing on times as much as just improving my overall consistency and techniques. There wasn’t really much major to comment on from this day as it all ran rather smoothly. Although I did managed to achieve a 1:04:74 which shows just how much this car has changed since the last time I took it out (before this year) my best time was a 1:14 (admittedly on a damp track but still not too wet to compare)!
Still with a long way to go. This was a great confidence booster and showed that the improvements to the car I had made over the past few years had been well worth it. Sadly I did not realise that this would be my last time out on track in this car for almost two years as I saved up to have the final, and most impactful changes to the car.