Hello everyone and welcome to my latest blog. It has been a few weeks since my last post and much has happened since then. With only one round now remaining in both the British Formula Ford Championship and the Formel ADAC Masters series the year is almost over. It has been a superb rookie season for me so far and one which I hope you have enjoyed reading about. As I missed the latest round of British Formula Ford at Brands Hatch in order to contest Formel ADAC at Sachsenring the Ford Championship is now looking very close. I am currently 5th overall with my Kevin Mills Racing team mate Daniel Erickson only a few points behind in 6th. It will all come down to the final round at Castle Combe on the 3rd of October and after recent testing form I’m sure I can finish the season strongly. Despite missing the last round I have attained enough points to be the Scholarship class victor which is a great reward for the efforts of myself and team throughout the year. I just hope now I can put in a good performance at Combe to finish the season in 5th place overall which would be a fantastic achievement for my first season of car racing, especially with such strong competition in British Formula Ford.
Whilst my Kevin Mills Racing team mates were at Brands Hatch over the weekend I was a few hundred miles away at the Sachsenring (Germany) preparing for my second taste of ADAC Masters. Having never seen the circuit before Friday testing I had just 40 minutes to get myself up to speed. Sachsenring is a brilliant venue and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of this high speed circuit. The opening part of the lap is very technical with some slow and medium speed corners. It is easy to lose a lot of time here and it took me the whole weekend to get fully on top of this sector. The circuit then opens up in to a series of very fast left hand corners which are taken flat out in my ADAC car. It took me a few laps to build up the confidence not to lift through this section but the data showed it could be done and therefore it must be done. In qualifying I was 0.5 seconds off the ultimate pace and this left me down in 7th on the grid and 8th in race 2. I just couldn’t extract those final few tenths quick enough to pose a threat in qualifying but I was getting faster each and every lap.
In the first race I started 7th and after an unfortunate spin at the first corner due to a nudge from behind I was left in last place. I was determined not to stay there though and I set about quickly catching the field. 10 seconds down on lap 1 I took advantage of the clear track ahead of me to post some competitive lap times and caught the pack to eventually finish 8th. A Disappointing result but we showed good pace for Sunday’s second race and I was confident of a good result. Starting from 8th I managed to survive the first lap and held position. After being held up for the first few laps I managed to eventually pass 7th place man Christian Wangard and set about catching 6th. The first few laps had left me 4 seconds behind the leaders but it wasn’t over yet. I quickly began to take time out of the cars ahead of me posting new fastest laps on the way and caught up with 5 laps to go. I moved up into 6th before passing Adrian Campfield, Saturday’s race winner and fellow Brit for 5th. This is where I would stay for the final 2 laps coming within a few tenths of 3rd position.
It was a great weekend and I was happy to come away with 5th and a fastest lap. I couldn’t help thinking things would of been different had I of had the chance to test but unfortunately there was just no possibility. I think I did a good job considering the lack of time I had to improve and coming away with 3 of the 4 fastest laps of the race fills me with confidence for the final round of the series at Oschersleben in October. I look forward to reporting on my final 2 races of the season in both Formula Ford and ADAC Masters which I hope will be a fantastic end to a so far fantastic rookie season.
Cheers
Dan Cammish
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