Normally when we go to Knockhill it’s guaranteed to rain, so last week we went there with a load more jumpers and waterproofs, and then when we got there everyone’s wearing shorts! We couldn’t believe the weather – it was mint. The other thing we brought with us was… a new car! Well, the one that Phil Glew drove at Silverstone last time out anyway. The reason was that following the third race at Silverstone after Andy Neate had clipped the side of the car and bent the sub-frame, we got home and found that there was also some chassis damage. All the mounting points were twisted, and there was no time to get it on to a repair jig. And well we had the other car with its TOCA turbocharged engine sat alongside ready to go, so…! Fortunate really that we didn’t have another driver entered in this race!

I couldn’t wait to get in the car and I went out in first Free Practice on Saturday and was really excited, the car felt a lot different but it was amazing! I finished 11^th which was steady, but there were some issues I needed to sort out myself as a driver. You’ve got to be brave around Knockhill in some corners, and at the same time, you’ve got to be smooth. In the chicanes you’ve got to really push it but be really focused on getting through it neatly, although in FP1 I kept thinking I could have got through that quicker!

The main benefit of the TOCA NGTC engine is the torque, and you could feel it coming out of the hairpin up the hill – I was third fastest in the speed-traps and I’ve never been that high! Everywhere else it’s about commitment and keeping it flowing. This engine is a lot heavier though, so you instantly get understeer, and we had to work on getting more oversteer to get me round the corners.

FP2, I finished 13th. I was quicker and still just a few tenths off again, but I wasn’t happy with the set up. We changed a few things before we went out hoping it would suit the car and the weight of the engine, but it didn’t respond how I wanted it to and it didn’t suit my driving style either. We changed the set up to how my S2000 engined car is, but the difficulty was having to then go straight into qualifying! I gave the boys a lot of work to do that day and they said if I wasn’t faster, not to bother coming back. So finishing qualifying in P15 was a proper nightmare! I had an issue with the engine but we didn’t know what it was. It was cutting out going down the straight when going up the revs and selecting fourth gear. We didn’t really feel the benefit of the changes we made, the session being dominated by the engine issue. The car felt good though, just slower. Everything else was good too, the chassis, brakes, me, even the weather!

So for race one being near the back of the grid meant I had a hill start. These days race cars compromise for hill starts with a line-lock. You press your brake and you pull a lever, which is on a spring, and it locks the line so that you can take your foot off the brake. Then when you put it in gear and the lights go out you let go of the lever and then you’re off.

I’ve not been here for five years’ but before that I was here every year when I as racing in the UK, and I’ve never got on with the circuit. I started off not too worried, hoping of course to get a good finish, but Knockhill’s done it to me again! We were struggling with overheating and lap after lap we were losing power and because of that I’ve gone into a corner on to the grass on lap 22, not been able to pull out of it and I went off and hit one of the Dunlop advertising hoardings. If you hit one of those head-on with your front-end it stays there because you’re going that fast and it just cooked my engine! You feel really stupid going round with that on the front but there’s nothing you can do and I couldn’t shake it off. I pulled into the pits in a cloud of steam and the marshalls’ dived in there with their extinguishers, opened the bonnet and because they thought it was smoke they hosed it down. It left a right mess!

So for race two we replaced the radiator and started from 15^th again. I got a really good start, battling the Vectras, but then the safety car came out, and after a few laps of that I started thinking I hope I’ve got enough fuel! Then there was a warning light telling me the water temperature was running high again, and it began really affecting the performance. So I just had to play catch up, but instead it was John George behind who caught me and then went past on the straight. There was nothing I could do but just get round and learn the circuit even more. After the race I was thinking about when someone asks me which is my worst ever race – well this was it! The team worked hard to fix the issues afterwards. We needed a bigger core for the radiator but couldn’t do that until we got home, so the team added two smaller radiators to the engine to see if that would work.

But in the third race, I was just fighting with the car all the time because I didn’t have the power. All the cars behind were straight on to me and I was having to brake later and so overdriving it. It was the same as race two, overheating, backing off and no power. So we decided we had to call it a day and not to do any more damage. Unfortunately though there was more harm than we thought as the car had dumped all its oil.

The issues with the car over the weekend meant we weren’t able to develop the chassis to go any quicker because I’d been struggling for speed anyway. It was a very difficult weekend but we’ve learnt and got information and we’ve been able to keep developing with the new engine. The TOCA NGTC engine is the future of the championship. It’s such a great package it’s hard not to go with it!

So all I can do is look forward to Donington next week and get this out of my head! I’ll be back in my S2000 car and hopefully she should deliver. See you there!

Tom #22

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.