The news that Piers Masarati had joined us from his PK Sport run Porsche GT2 had the pit lane asking all sorts of questions and I was glad to see that Piers did not falter under the extra attention he was now gaining.   With only two 40 minutes session prior to Saturdays qualifying session I was keen to make sure that Piers got as comfortable as possible with his first experience of the Porsche GT3R.  The first session in the morning was devoted to Piers, he was under instruction just to go out and get used to it - it was his first time in racing a left-hand-drive car and his first experience of a racing 996 Porsche.  Piers first impressions of the car was that he couldn't believe the level of grip that it had through the corners and how punchy the highly tuned 3.6ltr normally aspirated engine felt.  It was good to see his times come down consistently throughout the session and that he was easing himself into it at a pace he was comfortable with.

In the final session of the afternoon I went out with a agenda of fine tuning the set up of the car and then to give Piers the last 15 minutes of the 45 minute session to see what he thought of it.  The first thing that became apparent was that there was to much rear brakes, two spins on consecutive laps meant that there was another two-and-half turns of bias put into the front brakes.  That problem solved!  Around lap five I started to notice a abnormal movement in the rear and excessive oversteer on right-hand corners, the car had developed a lurch to the rear-left under power and a rather worrying 'wobble' at speed.  The car needed to be dismantled and the suspension, engine and gearbox mountings checked through, but with only just under 15 minutes left in the session we sent Piers out again, warned him of the characteristics of the problem and let him get some more valuable track time in.

When we left the circuit on Thursday evening, the rear of the car was being dismantled and the dampers where being sent off to be checked.   With all of Friday to source and fix the problem I have no doubts that the car will be back on form for qualifying on Saturday...

First Session
With the problem seemingly fixed and new brake discs, calipers and pads fitted all round I was confident that the car would perform and I would be able to place it in the top four of our class.  Disaster almost struck on the 'out' lap down the back straight under the Dunlop bridge, the rear damper failed again and nearly threw me of the circuit when I hit the small rise under the bridge.  Knowing that the team couldn't fix it during the session I radio'd in telling them of the problem and that I'd decided to do the compulsory three qualifying laps to get the car qualified and that to tell Piers he was to do the same when I came in.

Second Session
The rear dampers had been removed and original Porsche Bilstiens fitted, but unlike the first session, the rain had started to come down.  GTO's had the first ten minutes so I went out to see if I could move the car up from second from last!  The rain stopped after about five minutes and the track started to dry quickly allow me to improve upon the mornings 'dry' time and for the first twenty minutes the car was the quickest on circuit.  Happy with the car's suspension, brake balance and handling and with the circuit drying out I was keen to get Piers back out in the car for more time acclimatising to his new surroundings.

By the end of the session the circuit was dry, but Piers was unable to improve our 8th in class, 21st overall position, but we had improved from being right at the back of the grid of 34 cars!

Race - Sunday

Rain had been promised for Sunday and it arrived 5 minutes before our race was due to start, thus delaying it for one and a quarter hours!  When the rain had stopped and the officials had declared the circuit safe, the race started behind the safety car due to amount of standing water.  After 5 laps and 15 minutes the safety car eventually pulled off and the rush down to Redgate was quite busy but without any incidents.  I had caught a GT class car that was struggling in the wet but had enough power out of the corner to make it impossible to get past, eventually after much harassment into the corners I forced a mistake out of him and was able to get past, but it had cost me 15 seconds on the rest of the cars in my class.  After a 35 minute and 15 lap stint I came into the pits for the driver change over and handed Piers the car 5th in class.  Our first driver change over ever went well with just a 14 second change over which meant that Piers re-joined the circuit in 5th place.  With a comfortable lead on the car behind and lapping at the same pace as the car in front Piers brought the car home at the end of the race 5th in class, with the 3rd fastest lap time in class.

From a weekend that was wrought with mechanical problems the eventual outcome was quite pleasing and that we stand a good chance as ever of finishing on the podium when we qualify up at the front.