MotorsTV UK Official Blog

Just a quick update for you all ahead of my home round. It’s such a great track and I have nearly 200 friends, family and sponsors here to watch me race, so no pressure! I have done so many laps around this place and know it like the back of my hand, which sometimes is not the best thing as you ride around areas of the track that you might think will be a problem but others are oblivious to.

It’s important to me to have a good result as a huge thank you to all my fans and sponsors that support me so well all year, and its always special at your home track.

We have a week at home after this round then at the weekend we go to Goodwood Festival of Speed which is always a great event, there is so much to see and the Ball is fantastic. The last couple of years Lord March has hired Cirque de Soliel and Debby Harry to perform, so it’s not to be missed.

Hello everyone,

Sorry for my slightly late update after Silverstone.

Well, what a weekend…. it all came together for me and I finally scored my first podium on Saturday and then went and got another on Sunday!

With the weekend being my home race there was a lot of media attention beforehand. On the Wednesday evening before the weekend BMW asked me to attend a BMW UK Motorsport evening where all of the BMW UK employees attended to see Robert Kubica, Troy Corser, Andy Prilaux….. and then me being interviewed by Murray Walker about our own racing seasons and how we are getting on and more a bit about us as people.  It was just great for me because Murray Walker is one of my TV heroes and I have stared at him on the TV interviewing the F1 greats and now he was giving me an interview! It’s another very special moment. He was really good fun and had a great way about him to keep you relaxed so it all went very smoothly.

Also, on the Friday morning after free practice and just before qualifying myself and three other drivers went and did a BBC Radio 5 Live interview…. now I really should have got the clue in the name of the radio station but I had no idea it was a full on live interview until the last few seconds when we went on the air to the whole country!! It was all done upstairs in the Brawn GP motorhome in the F1 paddock and, well it was another pretty scary thing to begin with but it all just went very smoothly and we could just have a great laugh and a conversation really! I think the BBC were happy with the job we did. The funniest part of all though was we kept on having to stop talking to cut down to the F1 paddock to hear Bernie Ecclestone but I felt quite sorry for the reporter because this is what he said… ‘Hello Bernie, we are live on the BBC what can you tell us?’… Bernie: ‘Tell you about what?’… BBC: ‘The problems going on with Max Mosley at the moment’.  Bernie: ‘Max is having problems? I didn’t know that’. At this point they just gave up and cut back to us all looking very angry. I don’t think my laughing helped!

Now, my racing. Free practice went very well indeed – 2nd place – and then the rest of the weekend followed suit. In qualifying my car was so good but I got blocked on my best lap. Still, 6th and 3rd on the grid was satisfying enough. I really had to fight hard in the first race for that first taste of champagne. Lifting the trophy for the first time was definitely very special for me and when I scored another podium the next day it did not feel half as good!

After the very difficult start to the year it was really satisfying to come and score a weekend like that, especially as it was my home race which made it very special indeed. We have had the pace to be on the podium all year and would have been last weekend if not for my penalty at Zandvoort. But importantly, I have now proven my potential and shown it so that makes me very happy. It is very easy for people to doubt you when you are struggling sometimes but many people always believed in me and this really is important to me to show them that they were right to do that.

I have been all over the place since the weekend, not really knowing what to do with myself! I have just been training in the sun and flying my planes but today I will see my friends for a BBQ so I am looking forward to that … but next weekend I get to go to the Goodwood Festival of Speed which is just awesome because it has been three years since I last went and so I cannot wait. You get so close to the greatest cars from the greatest races.

I hope this has been interesting and I just cannot wait for my next race weekend.

Thanks everybody and I look forward to updating you soon after my next race at the Nurburgring in three weeks.

Rupert

Hello again and welcome to my third blog for Motors TV. Two weeks after my last race at Rockingham near Corby I travelled to the Knockhill circuit in Fife, Scotland for rounds 7,8 & 9 of the 2009 MSA British Formula Ford Championship.

Qualifying didn’t go exactly to plan and it left me down in seventh on the grid. One tenth of a second separated the top seven though and it would remain this close all weekend. The nature of the track kept the grid so close and this meant for some very exciting racing. Qualifying was decided mainly by who got traffic and who didn’t. With twenty two cars on a fifty one second lap there wasn’t much space to find a rhythm and get the job done, my 4th or 5th lap was going to be my best and for sure it would have been pole but I caught my team mate in the top chicane and that was that. It was a great session for the Kevin Mills Racing Team with my team mates Alex Jones and Daniel Erickson third and fifth with Alex taking pole for race two, my second best lap was good enough for 5th which confirmed that I had underachieved a little in the session so I was a little disappointed.

Race One of the weekend took place Saturday afternoon in warm and sunny conditions. Starting from seventh I immediately dropped to eighth by the first corner, a classic Cammish start, but I was getting better. I battled hard for the next twenty minutes and found myself in third with two laps to go. I then managed to pass team mate Daniel Erickson with a mega overtake at the end of the pit straight with just lap to go and held on until the Flag. Second overall, the best finish of my three meeting-old single-seater career.

Race two came on Sunday morning in similar conditions to the first. I started from fifth and quickly made my way up to third behind Erickson. My KMR Spectrum chassis was working well around this Knockhill circuit and I was feeling confident of a win. Unfortunately my confidence was short lived. At turn three Erickson just clipped the tyres on the inside which were meant to stop people from cutting the corner. The tyres bounced into the air and landed on my right front steering arm bending it and making the car very difficult to drive. I dropped to sixth by the flag which was a good recovery but I struggled to see any positives as it could have been my first win.

Race three was on Sunday afternoon, a quick but torrential downpour had wet the circuit earlier but it was fully dry by the time we came to the track. I was starting fourth as I managed to post a quick lap time in race 2 before the car sustained damage. The times were so close with still only a couple of tenths between the top runners. I made a good start and held station in fourth. Carnage at the first corner ensued when front row starters Gary Findlay and Josef Newgarden locked wheels going into turns 1 and 2, I took to the gravel to avoid the spinning Findlay but recovered to 3rd on re-joining the tarmac. A few laps later I was absolutely amazed to see Findlay in my mirrors after I last saw him facing the wrong way and spinning into the middle of the pack. He passed me a lap later and I was demoted to fourth when I lost traction on gravel spread across the track at the hairpin. The race for me was fairly boring from here on, I managed to gap the chasing pack by a good few seconds but Findlay, Dan Erickson
and Chris Palmer had done the same to me. However I could see them beginning to squabble as the race drew closer to the end and I found myself right in the thick of the action as the last lap board came out. Down the back straight we went with the top three all driving down the inside of the track defending as best they could. At the last minute Findlay pulled left to take the racing line up the hill and I darted into the gap. I just about managed to stop the car on the apex but unfortunately was right in the blind spot of team mate Erickson. As he accelerated he drove over the front of my car and span into me causing damage to both cars, his was terminal. I recovered to take fourth but couldn’t hide my disappointment. Of all the people it had to be my team mate and I was gutted for Dan and the team.

So that was my weekend at Knockhill. With second, sixth and fourth place finishes I came away still third in the championship but having closed on leader James Cole and also gained lots of points on Josef so that was a bonus. I once again won all three scholarship races giving me nine wins from nine races.

My starts were slightly better than that of Rockingham but in truth it would have been difficult for them to be worse, but I’m learning. Now with six signatures on my license I can remove that novice cross from the rear of the car so another milestone reached, hopefully I can move to the top step of the podium at the next round at Snetterton. Also I have a trip to Germany coming up for some slicks and wings action but that’s for another blog.

Cheers

Dan Cammish

It’s been a nice couple of weeks, I have been out in Italy for a week now as I had some meetings with sponsors and it’s been great. The weather has been awesome and it’s been really good for my training. Myself and Westy have been running and cycling everyday and in this heat it’s pretty tough.

The last time I raced Misano was in 2004 and the circuit went the other way around so it will be like racing a new circuit, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s so hot here today but I think it is forecast to rain really heavy Saturday and Sunday so we should get some excitement this weekend.

Last night we had a press event at Frankie Chili’s beach where we played some beach tennis with some pros and some canoeing against some journos and the FG Sport guys. It was great fun and even better as I won both events over all. I won a huge Sarano Ham which myself and the team will enjoy this weekend.

My team as always have been working so hard this week trying to find some improvements for me so we can really push to be up the front again. I have a feeling there is going to be some good racing.

Back in touch after the weekend.

Leon

Hello everyone,

After a difficult first weekend at Brands Hatch, I took the road to Silverstone in order to participate in the Formula Palmer Audi’s 4th, 5th and 6th rounds.

For once, it was easier to learn the track thanks to the hours spent on the video games. Also, having been rocked during my childhood by watching the fights between Prost, Senna and Mansell – which often took place at this track – I had some reference points about the overtaking opportunities!

Behind the scenes, Brazilian friend and fellow competitor Thiago Calvet and I decided to use the fantastic communication product that is motorsport to send a message of support to the families of the Air France flight Rio-Paris. We hope this message can reach them and can give them some comfort.

On track, we didn’t have any major surprises. Faithfull to its reputation, Silverstone served up its typical weather, rocked by wind and rain interrupted by rare sunny times. A very difficult situation for choosing the car set-up, because of track conditions changing very quickly. The decision between setting the car for the rain, for the dry or for an intermediate situation was quite difficult.

During free practice on a dry track, my car responded excellently. After a few reconnaissance laps, I could start to push a bit. I quickly jumped to the top part of the classification, only two tenths of a second from the fastest time. A real relief after Brands Hatch, and above all a performance that boded well for the rest of the weekend. Silverstone is quite a fast track though, and I immediately felt comfortable into the fast corners. My team and I worked on the balance of the car in these parts, while maintaining a good set-up for the slow curves.

But on Saturday morning and the last free practice, our efforts were ruined by a rainstorm. With so little experience in these conditions at the wheel of a car with a turbocharger and 360bhp, I must confess that I was a little apprehensive about the idea of challenging this wet track!

But after a few laps, when my mechanic Chris Roberts showed me the P1 board – moreover with an advantage of half a second over my nearest competitor – I realized we were on to something good. I decided to use this free session in order to try to exceed the limits of my car in these conditions. “Brake later, accelerate earlier, more violent with the gas pedal without being surprised by the sudden power from the turbo”. With this driving style, my times improved considerably, until I made a tiny mistake and finished in the gravel trap only three minutes from the end of the session, while I was still at the top of the ranking. Nevertheless, I had no regrets because there was no damage done to the car, and I had been able to find the limits.

Unfortunately, faced with the weather changing, we then made bad choices with the set-up for qualifying. A challenge that did not work and which did not allow me to do better than 9th and 12th on the starting grid.

The races would be tough, but nothing was lost. About the races, there is much to tell. F2 driver Jolyon Palmer’s scary accident, who lost control of his car on the brakes at over 230kmh, and who then hit the two cars preceding me. Or the long battles that I had with Paul Rees, Ash Babbra and Adam Foster, with wheels touching and overtaking on the grass! The races were very exciting, and I eventually was able to bring my car No. 14 of the Team Biotech International in the top 10 twice.

A positive weekend then, even if my practice results have proven that I can place higher. Snetterton will be a good chance to confirm these performances!

Jarama was the venue for my second round of the European F3 Open Series. Due to noise problems there has been a complete ban on testing at the circuit pre-season and so we had no idea of what our car would be like at this circuit and i didn’t know what to expect either.

Free practise went very well considering the lack of track experience, i loved the circuit, it’s full of highly cambered corners and very little run off areas, it’s one of the old school style circuits and definately one that favours the brave. I ended up p.6 overall and p.1 in the ‘06 class so not a bad first session.

Quali didn’t go so well, struggled with the balance of the car and ended up a disapointing 11th and 3rd in class with my team mate in the ‘08 car an equally disapointing 13th. At least I had an exciting race to look forward to from row six.

My start was excellent and I moved from 11th to 9th by the second corner. Then, by lap 3, I was in 8th and 1st in class. My car was much better in race trim and I was all over the back of p.6 and 7. The aerodynamics of an F3 car can a real issue when it comes to overtaking, especially for an ‘06 car having to drive through the huge hole in the air that the ‘08 cars leave in their wake. I was pretty much stuck in 8th and there was very little I could do. Luckily, however, it rained for one lap towards the end of the race and this gave me my oppurtunity to progress. I passed Jonathon Legris as he ran wide exiting the hairpin and then on the same lap outbraked Neil Monserat around the outside of the final hairpin on the circuit to move into P.6.

I remained in P.6 and p.1 in class until the chequered flag. If your not in the top three overall in the first race then 6th is where you want to be as the top six finishers get reversed, meaning I would start race two from pole!!

My start in the second race was good and I led into the first corner, however, this was very short lived as i was forced onto the marbles and understeered off on the exit through the gravel and right down the order to p.18. I made up three or four places with some pretty daring overtaking manouvres only to be then taken out on the following lap…. Gutted, my first F3 pole hadn’t gone quite how i’d hoped. Still, I’m now 7th in the overall championship and leading the ‘06 title. Looking forward to Spa where hopefully i can extend my ‘06 championship lead and get right amongst it at the sharp end with those ‘08 cars…

Talk to you all soon

Callum Macleod

Hello everyone,

Well, it has been a while since I last updated you all on my progress. I have just woken up this morning from probably one of the most promising but yet disappointing race weekends in my life.

Before my race at Zandvoort this weekend we had tested at Hungary and made some very big improvements with the car and I finished up 5th. I now have a great feeling in my car for both old and new tyres. With all of this I went into Zandvoort full of confidence expecting a good weekend.

I kept myself relaxed coming into the weekend and had been on many long bike rides in the great weather and also flying my model planes. It is important to have other interests and hobbies because otherwise you could very easily get mentally exhausted from just living racing all of the time. Although, having said that, everything I do away from the track certainly contributes to my on track performance. Being 18 years old you can imagine all of my school friends are into lots of partying and drinking alcohol… but as a racing driver this is not an option for me. I cannot do any of this. I see a lot of my friends but they all understand that my career is far more important to me than any party so it’s not too bad.

So, the race weekend.

I arrived at Zandvoort in Holland for my second race weekend of the season on Thursday morning. I immediately loved the place. It is a real racing circuit. It is a very difficult circuit to hook a lap up though as it is very easy to make a mistake. Most of the corners have a big camber which allow you to carry massive entry speed and roll through the corner but not fly off the circuit.

We had an official test on Thursday evening for 1 hour. This went pretty well running in the top 4 on old tyres but then I made a mistake and went off at one of the fast 5th gear corners at the back of the circuit. I was lucky not to hit the wall but luckily the floor of the car dug in and it ripped all of the floors off the car which actually stopped me hitting the wall! This could have been quite bad as it is a 150kph corner. I limped back to the pits with 15 minutes remaining. The team put my car on jacks and did a mega job in getting me back out again. Because only so few minutes were left we decided to use my new tyres straight away. This was not ideal after just going off but still we ended up 8th overall and my pace was good.

My engineer Boyo was happy and I said to him that the car was very good. I felt happy for the free practice on Friday.

Free practice went very well on Friday. We finished in 9th but we didnt have new tyres so it was positive and we got blocked by traffic a few times.

Qualifying however was very unlucky. On my first set of tyres I was running very well in the top 4 and decided to pit 1 lap later for my new tyres to miss the traffic at the end of the session and to also have a slightly lighter car. I came in, and built up with a very good out lap. My first flying lap put me P.3  but the others were on lap 2 so I dropped to P.8 but I was on my lap 2 also with a green in my first sector only to have a red flag!!! This was a big disappointment. Because with the clock still counting down and only 6 minutes remaining when we got going again at the restart my tyres had been through a heat cycle and the best was gone. I managed another lap within 1 tenth of a second of my best so I ended up with 8th and 6th on the grid. In reality and we could see from the data, if it was not for the red flag I genuinely should have been at the very least the front 2 rows of the grid for both races.

With my pace in my mind I felt good for my races. For race 1 my first lap was a bit scrappy though and because we were the first race of the day and all of the sand offline it was very difficult to overtake so I finished a very processional race in 10th place. The pace was there I knew that so I was hoping for a much better race in the afternoon.

My second race was late in the afternoon after the F3 masters race. At the start 3 drivers including myself all moved on the grid thinking the lights had come off but they didn’t. I did not move far and the stewards said I was 4 inches out of my grid slot. I didn’t know this at the time but I raced on as normal. I did actually get a very good start eventually and attacked well into the first corner. I made some very good moves and got into 4th by lap 4. I was pushing to move into 3rd position and then I was given a drive through penalty for a jump start. You cannot imagine the feeling of anger and disappointment I had at that moment. My car was awesome, really very good and I know I could have and should have won that race. I was completely hooked up and for something like that to happen just really really hurts. This morning when I woke up it hurts even more.

But, from all of this. We are running at the front and I know that my time will come. I have a great team, a great car and some great people supporting me. I just want to show them that they are all right to believe in me. My time will come. It is my home race at Silverstone next weekend so I do not have long to wait until I have another chance. It would be a dream to win at the last ever GP weekend at Silverstone and would be something very special.

I look forward to updating you all again soon.

Thanks,

Rupert

Hi, I’m Leon Haslam, one  half of  Stiggy Racing Honda’s World Superbike team.  Motors TV have invited me to blog about my life and the championship so I’ll be doing just that as the season progresses.

Miller was another weekend of two halves, I know I crashed but I was actually happy with the way I rode and the bike set up for the second race. We had a few problems in the first race and made a couple of little changes for the second race which made a massive difference. I felt I was stronger than Johnny (Rea) on most of the track but his bike was so much faster that whenever I passed him he just rode back past me on the the straight. It was frustrating but we still have lots of development to do and I feel confident for the second half of the season.

It’s good to be home although we have been away for so long and there is so much to catch up on. I have been back at the gym with my trainer Kirk Gibbons and we have been doing speed work and interval work the last couple of mornings, trust me when I say I would rather be racing than doing that.

I’m a little stiff from my couple of crashes in Kyalami and Miller so I’m trying to get some physio while I’m home. I go to the Ilse Of Man next week for a charity event and to play some golf with some sponsors, I’m looking forward to it, before heading to Italy to see Oral engineering, the guys that develop my engines to try and help with the development for Misano.

Not so quiet after all, but then it never is. After Misano and Donington we have a few weeks off to try and catch up on some training.

Speak soon

Leon

Hello again and welcome to my second blog for Motors TV. Rockingham Motor Speedway near Corby was the chosen venue for rounds four, five and six of the Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain and just like Oulton Park six weeks previously the sun was shining all weekend long.

The weekend got off to a great start on Saturday morning as I took pole position for the Kevin Mills Racing squad. At only my second attempt I secured pole from American Josef Newgarden and Jamun’s James Cole who were a mere 0.055 seconds behind after both posting identical times. I would later learn that this was in fact the first pole position for the Kevin Mills Racing team and this made it extra special.

From testing on Friday it was clear that tyre management was going to be a key factor in the outcome of the three races and so I did only 3 flying laps in qualifying before parking my Spectrum chassis in the pit lane. After climbing from the car I proceeded to watch the rest of qualifying from the Fortec timing screens on the pit wall. Nervous times as Rogier De Wit left his run late in the session and was the only man left who could knock me from the top spot. Thankfully, he didn’t!

1. Cammish, 1.22.255 – Definitely one of the best moments of my career to date.

Now qualifying was over I had a long wait until the first race of the weekend later in the afternoon. The Formula 3 drivers had completed two qualifying sessions on new tyres and the track was hot and grippy by the time my race rolled around. Coming from European karting track conditions like these are where I feel most at home so I was feeling confident.

However confidence does not make up for a big lack of experience when it comes to standing starts and this one was about to be a shocker. I was in third by the time we got to the first braking zone for the tight hairpin of turn two. After a squabble with James Cole and De Wit I held position as the safety car was deployed. I’m sure many of you saw the WTCC incident from Pau, well this was nothing like that but it wasn’t exactly text book. The field shot past the safety car on the exit of turn one leaving myself and others wondering if we were meant to be behind it. Newgarden controlled the pace and acted as the safety car until a few laps later it showed up again with its lights off signaling we were going racing next time over the start finish. I was passed by Cole a lap later and settled into fourth. This is where I would finish far ahead of the chasing pack led by De Wit. However the car showed great pace late in the race as I had done my best to preserve the tyres in the middle of the race.

So that was Saturday, up and down but not a bad start. Another victory in the Scholarship class complimented my fourth place.

Sunday morning saw the paddock pay tribute to the late Joe Tandy who was a very popular young man who will be sadly missed. It was great to see Nick Tandy win for the JTR team on Sunday and the whole team showed great character all weekend.

The second race of weekend was at 13:00 – the hottest part of the day and I started from third position. Another bad get away saw me drop to fifth position by turn 2 but I managed to battle my way back up to third at the flag, just behind second place man De Wit. Once again the car was very strong in the final few laps. Our final race of the weekend was the last race of the day and I would start fifth. Another awful start saw me back to seventh at the hairpin behind team mate Alex Jones. After passing him for sixth I found myslef stuck behind the

Jamun of Chrissy Palmer. The eighteen minute race which seemed like an eternity finally came to an end and it couldn’t have come soon enough. I was sick of looking at the gearbox of the number 99 car and did everything I could to get past but Chris drove a very wide car and made it near impossible. A chance at the turn two hairpin was my best effort but Chris had good traction from newer tyres and edged ahead once more as he exited the corner.

So a long hot weekend came to an end. Three Scholarship class wins, a fourth, a sixth and a podium with third place. Not forgetting three awful standing starts and my first pole position.

Next stop Knockhill in Scotland, See you there!

Dan Cammish