The day starts at 4am. It’s raining in Essex and after the recent window adjustment i’ve had something fall off inside the door and the window is now jammed against the fibreglass roof and therefore even worse than before it was fixed last week! Rain is freely entering into the cabin when stopped. Luckily theres no stoppages on the M25 and M1..
Signing on was completed and i met a few other customers of Lotus Silverstone on their trackday in Exige S V6s… I felt a little concerned about the lack of power the Evora has comparatively… The only solace is that most have never been on the GP layout before. It’s short-lived when the LaFerrari rolls in along with a suitable entourage of super cars. Oh Shit.
The track brief was light hearted but with a serious undertone of “if you mess up hard, you’ll be going home”. Everyone retires to the garages to check over their cars one final time before sighting laps.
The track was greasy but it had stopped raining at least. The sighting laps were considerably slower than MSV tracks run them at and all the better for it – lines could be remembered better.
The AM sessions ended with me setting a 3:00 lap time – slow but highlighting areas that i needed to work on – tyre pressures were too high (at stock settings) causing mild understeer and oversteer in certain situations and my lines and smoothness was all over the shop.
With that i disappeared off to Lotus Silverstone to get the window re-fixed and have a cuppa tea! By the time this was rectified i’d spent two hours there and both myself and the car were thoroughly rested and refocussed. Upon returning to the track (and after some lunch – a fairly decent cheeseburger and chips – for weight reduction you know..) i checked the tyre pressures and promptly dropped them to 30/32 (F/R – the same as i ran on Snetterton 300) and let the engine warm. Then it was out for a warm up lap to get the heat into the tyres.
The first hot lap i set a 2:50 – but i didn’t know it at the time – already a stark improvement.. The second i hit my best time for the day at 2:45. Bearing in mind the 111R driven with slicks and by a race driver laps at c.2:43 i think that is a pretty good time – especially considering the Evora is close to 50% heavier than that car and its my first time on the track. The remaining 4 laps were a range of 2:46-2:50 before the session was red flagged due to an off. It seemed the rest of the day was set to repeat red flags every time i got off my outlap so i decided to end the day positively and head home.
Overall would i book Silverstone GP? Yes, 110% – it’s a brilliant track and really taught me a lot about the flow of the car. It’s shown me that despite others having more power (The Exiges) i can easily keep ahead of others using the Evoras chassis to carry FAR MORE speed through corners. I just need to tidy up my lines, heel and toe to balance the car and keep practicing!
ERC Racing 111R lap
My best lap
Footage from the rear of the LaFerrari monstering down the track behind me
British Horse Power 