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Friday practice 1
We tried some new things for the wet which didn't work. The car was unhappy and I couldn't get the tyres at all warm.
Friday practice 2
At last we have made some progress on the car and it is starting to use its wet tyres better.
Saturday Qualifying
Our engine is somewhat down on power so we trimmed the car to a low drag configuration and I gave it the best effort on the new tyres. I had a good run at the beginning but towards the end I got caught out by some red flags and I made a couple of errors on the really good laps so we qualified seventh.
Race 1
Made a great start and passed a couple of cars ahead and slotted into fifth. The car was a little unbalanced but I felt we were going well and in a good position to move forward. On lap 4 I ran wide on the way up to the bridge and got lots of mud and marbles on the tyres. This isn't a spot you want to go off, as the bridge would be a very solid thing to hit. I spent a couple of laps getting the tyres clean and up to temperature again but by that time I didn't have a hope of catching anyone so I just cruised home to fifth place.
Race 2
Not quite so good a start but still managed to get away in sixth. I tried to get the car settled but couldn't get any where near the times from race 1. The car was nervous on the area off the bridge and later analysis of the data showed it was 8km/hr slower through there than previously. I tried for a while but couldn't get it to improve so all I could do was carry on to the finish for sixth place
Summary
The finishing positions are not really indicative of our speed here on a track that normally suits our car well. Our poor old engine is starting to show it's age and whilst our low drag setups maintain the speed on the straights the car is too slow through the corners. We have now slipped to second place in the Silver Star series and we need to do better at Mallala on August 10th to 12th
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