Donington was the curtain raiser to the GT Cup season.

Hopefully the gremlins that had plagued us at the end of last season were behind us and expectations were being managed on the ‘glass half full’ side of the equation.

            How wrong we were. In our efforts to squeeze more power out of our 2.0 litre unit we had unwittingly opened up our very own personal can of worms. I have been told that mapping an engine is a ‘dark art’ and it appeared that our mapper had apparently missed that lesson at Hogwarts. To cut a very long and depressing story short, this is what happened: -​

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• Saturday free practice – car is fast (2 seconds quicker than a benchmark rival) and confidence is high

• Saturday qualifying – out laps strong and mid-table qualifying a cert – then loss of power

• Saturday afternoon – mixture is running lean in cylinders 3 and 4 and ‘cooking’ the pistons. Engine removed

• Saturday evening – replacement engine installed – all work finished by 10pm

• Sunday practice – car seems fine – confidence average

• Sunday qualifying – 5 laps in and the issue reoccurs - replacement engine cooked

• Sunday afternoon – Saker loaded onto its trailer for its ride home

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Hats off to the team for working so hard to try and keep us on the track, but it was not to be.

 

So there you have it – 2 broken engines and no racing. Anyone for golf?