rF2 British Touring Car Cup @ Oulton Park - Sunday 22nd November 2015

[Stenne]

Enjoyable race 1 but I want to know how Stenne found 4 seconds between practice and race
During practice I thought I had someone at the back of the grid with me but come quali he took pole!

Well, I guess that there is no other explanation than that I improved through out practice and quali.

The track was quite new to me so I started a bit cautious and progressively found more speed in each corner. In some corners I could use a higher gear at the end of the session than at the start. I also made some setup changes during practice that worked in the right direction for me. In quali I managed to push hard and had a lap with no major mistakes. In quali I used less fuel but no other setup changes. I also ran both quali and race with soft tyres.

Here are my lap times:

Practice

Quali:

Race:

 

[Dave Wild]

Obviously more talented than me Stenne

 

[Stenne]

Well, I would'nt say that. Look at the race result. You finished almost a lap ahead of me and that's what counts in the end

 

[Dave Wild]

You finished almost a lap ahead of me

Only because you made a mistake Sten and I could easily have done the same.
I was just surprised at how much time you made up as I know I couldn't do that.
I will watch the replay and see if I can pick up any tips.

 

[Stenne]

Well, you're welcome, but in first hand I think you should look at the replay of the race winner who was very consistent throughout the race and did'nt have any major mistakes.

Of course one needs a good pace but in my (still limited) experience I've found that it is few and not so severe mistakes that make a good race result. One of my biggest challenges in trying to improve my results is to keep up concentration and be consistent throughout the whole race. Even in races where I've had no major mistakes I still have up to 3 sec (or even more) as average deviation from my fastest lap. If I look att the top guys they have around 1 sec gap. That's about what it takes to get lapped by the winner.

Here's a quite telling example from the top 15 drivers (all very good drivers) in a 30+ lap race some weeks ago that's quite telling. (in order of driver finish position)

Average deviation from the drivers fastest lap and deviation gap to the winner

Btw, one setup factor that made a big improvement for me at the Oulton practice was Steering Lock, which I had'nt payed much attention to before. I had based my setup on a setup that I've got from one of the top drivers where the steering output was much to sensitive for me and I just had'nt the skill to master it. I lowered the Steering Lock which gave me much better control especially at corner entry. I lost time in the tight chicanes but that was compensated for by better control at other parts of the track.

See you