Joseph Wright
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Allie Ferrie takes Silverstone victory for Kaibutsu Racing in latest RDGPC event.
After 62 Laps of racing came to a close this weekend, Allie Ferrie was able to call the correct strategies and take her Kaibutsu Racing car to the Checkered Flag. We were able to catch up with Allie the day after her victory, where she needed a much needed rest following the very tense race.
Q: You qualified 3rd on the grid, with a respectable lap. Where you expecting to be so high in the Qualifying result?
Ferrie: Yes and no. Practice had shown I had the pace to be somewhere at the front, barring others sandbagging, but all season I've had trouble delivering a lap with the 2-hot-lap limit in qualy. Was a very pleasant surprise to hook it up and deliver a faster lap than I'd done in testing.
Q: How did the start of the race go for you?
Ferrie: Not great! I was slightly confused about what was happening with the safety car, so I got jumped at the start by Charles [Baccio], then while exiting turn one another car chopped my front wing and I was lucky to not have a tremendous accident there and then. The restart went much better, I got better drive off the final turn than Charles did, and he didn't fight me too hard into T1 which set me up to stick with the top 2 for the opening stint.
Q: What strategy were you thinking of running after the first few laps had concluded?
Ferrie: I was always planning to run 3 stop. Campbell [Wallis] and I had decided from testing that the Red tyres [softs] were going to be tough to keep alive, but the Blacks [hards] were too slow. We calculated that with enough clear track and few enough incidents 3 stops would surely be faster and safer than desperately clinging on with destroyed tyres near the end of a stint.
Q: After your first stop, Matt Beavis continued on a further five laps. Did this start to worry you?
Ferrie: It did, yes. I assumed that most of the other drivers would have drawn the same conclusions as Kaibutsu did and be three stopping, and that if they weren't their pace would have been slower. I honestly thought I'd blown it and might drop further down the field after that first stop.
Q: You were catching Beavis at a rate of knots during the event after two of your pitstops. Where you pushing as hard as you could, or did you know Beavis would need to pit again?
Ferrie: Pushing like hell. Once I knew I was on an alternate strategy (it would have been weird for anyone three stopping to run such a long first stint when you could make the fuel last for two), I knew that there was no option other than to go flat out until my tyres gave up then minimise time lost in the last few laps of a stint, knowing that Beavis would be going even slower at the end of his.
Q: You were involved in an incident with backmarker Matt Wright, where you ran off the circuit? Did this worry you when getting back on?
Ferrie: I may have said a few choice words at my screen! Ironically it may have helped me in the end, as it got me out of Matt [Beavis]'s slipstream for half a lap, which helped my front tyres, and meant that I caught him back up at the right moment to slipstream him down the hangar straight. Always the chance that if I'd been tucked under his rear wing for too much longer I'd have burned my front tyres to the point I had no grip advantage.
Q: When you finally overtook Matt Beavis, he spun just behind you. Was this a scary moment in your race?
Ferrie: Very scary, as although I didn't feel anything, my gut reaction was that I'd either hit him or squeezed him into a spin, which would have been a sad end to a great fight. Luckily this doesn't seem to have been the case.
Q: Nearing the end, you had an incident out of the final corner. What happened?
Ferrie: I took slightly too much inside kerb through tiredness which tipped the car into a spin. Lucky to not destroy the rear of my car, as I did get slight body damage off the wall.
Q: An amazing victory indeed overall. Where you expecting this?
Ferrie: Not at all! With such a long race in such hot conditions at a track where slight errors can easily cause a 150mph+ visit to the barriers, I was assuming that I was going to be spending most of my effort merely getting to the finish without doing anything too embarrassing. The high rate of attrition and low number of lead lap finishers shows how tough it was to get to the end in one piece.
But with both Kaibutsu Drivers out from Indianapolis, they are sure to lose third in the Teams Championship come season end after the double points outing in two weeks.
Elsewhere around the field Matt Beavis was able to finally cross the line at the end of the race to take his first finish of the season: a podium no less. Charles Baccio was able to continue his consistent running with yet another step onto the roster. Matt Wright had an inconsistent running with over 15 trips to the pit lane, however, he soldered on taking a well deserved 10th position. The LG boys had a nice finish to continue their run up the championship order.
After Round 4, here are how the championship standings sit going into the final race of the season at Indianapolis.
With only one race remaining, all focus shifts to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Round 5, and the final round of the season where we will crown our Indy 200 and GPC Champion. Keep an eye out for more to come, where we shall talk about the Indy 200 in more detail heading into the finale event of the RaceDepartment Grand Prix Championship Season 5.
Our sign ups are still open for the final round of the season for Indianapolis, so check out the RDGPC forums to learn more and sign up!
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