There was a defining moment today when everything fell into place. I’m not exactly 100% sure, but I think it was about 2pm. Roughly around the same time the track started to dry out. Only then was I able to lean a little more on the tyres, trust the brakes a little bit more and not be such girl. You see, if I’m honest, I was a teeny weeny bit scared. Let me rewind 5 hours.

9am and there was a thick cloud of fog pretty much localised to the Silverstone race circuit. Visibility was bad enough to stop play for about an hour before we began as their general rule of each marshal being able to see the previous was not met. By the time we were on, we were an hour behind schedule and then someone appeared to have spread a generous coat of baby oil across the whole track.

After a number of frightening oversteer moments, I decided to temporarily retire to the pits and witnessed red flag after red flag as cars span from one corner of the track to the other. It really was a case of counting the seconds until the next spin. Unfortunately, the day of one particular individual was brought to a dramatic end as his GT3 became permanently joined in matrimony with the pit-wall.

As always, this is as stark an education as you can ever receive as to the dangers in trackdays and the risks we take. A number of laps later and I was still not confident enough to truly enjoy myself. Even a few laps with a circuit instructor did nothing, if not turn me into a more nervous wreck with his ridiculously frantic method of tutoring.

It was only when Andre came out for a few laps with me that I was able to truly understand the car and it’s role on the circuit. Andre has raced at the Nurburgring 24h race a couple of times and knows enough about racing for me to call him an ‘expert’ on the matter. 20 minutes with this fella showed me a lot about what I was doing that allowed me to start having a lot of fun.

The remainder of the day turned out to be incredible fun and my attack started to become a little more committed. I was still one of the slower cars on the circuit, but I’m humble enough to admit my skill deficit. Still, Silverstone is a wide, high speed circuit and as it became dry, I was able to take explorative lines and different braking zones. The car is quite forgiving and allows you to get away with moments of minor ineptitude, but you still cannot overcome the laws of physics and I suspect if you were to take liberties, you’d be spat off the tongue of Silverstone and into the gutters of the sand traps.

Andre was positive about my methods but he did say I need to rely on my car a little bit more and should look at boosting my confidence.
Meanwhile, other trackday participants are both awful and awesome. GT3RS’s are quick by reputation and their drivers today made no effort to invalidate that assumption by being incredibly quick but also courteous to those who were a little….experimental in their approach. But in equal measure, there was, as there always is on public trackdays, the idiot crowd who cannot make a distinction between public trackday and a raceday.

Oh and boys, leave the nomex suits at home.

Some of these pictures are copyright Tim Dunop and Dunlopix.