After extensive preseason testing from March onward, the first round of the GB3 Championship finally arrived; unveiling a new layer of competition in GB3.
Round One saw the team head into the weekend with a brand new engine, as Jason’s had both performance and reliability issues during the preseason testing program. The testing available on Thursday and Friday gave the team the opportunity to test the new engine and explore new setups and lines, and while Thursday was uneventful, Friday seemed to revealed how sensitive the new GB3 car is to track conditions.
“I think in general we maybe struggled to keep up with the track conditions and prepare a setup fitting for each session. I had felt good in qualifying but had trouble with the first sector, and that’s just what put us on the back foot. Every other sector I was top 15 to top 10, but the lack of pace in S1 put me in P20” said Jason on qualifying.
In Race 1 Jason used his pace in the other sectors to climb up to what would have been P13 from 20th, until the DRS failed and stuck open heading into Brooklands.
For those unaware of what DRS(Drag Reduction System) is, DRS is a system the driver controls with their steering wheel that opens a flap on the rear wing to reduce drag down the straightaway. This is only allowed on the straights because that flap needs to be able to produce downforce in the corners.
Races 2 and 3 were not dissimilar. Fighting to gain positions due to a poor qualifying forced Jason to take risks that did not pay off in Race 2, and in Race 3 the engine began to fail on lap 3, severely limiting passing opportunities.
“It all sounds pretty grim and uninspiring, and not to sugar coat it, it was a challenging weekend to say the least. But from our perspective as a new team, we got exactly what we needed out of the race weekend; valuable data for my engineers and good racing experience for myself. We’ll be carrying that with us from now until Spa next month” says Jason on the weekend.
With the engine back to the shop, the team is in a hiatus until the next round at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, one of the oldest and most famous tracks on the F1 calendar. Jason remains working hard off track and continues his extensive simulator and karting work.
