Daniel sets the pace in Brands Hatch 'Indy' testing
Last Tuesday (August 18), Daniel Erickson was at the pointy end of the field in a special test day on the Brands Hatch 'Indy' circuit. Unlike typical general test days that separate all makes and models of cars into open and closed-wheeled groups, this one was sponsored by Ford for runners in the company's various one-make series.
With the next British Formula Ford Championship rounds at the circuit on September 5-6, it was no surprise that all of the fronrunners turned up. And with no fewer than seven sessions reserved for Formula Fords, they had ample opportunity to get their cars properly sorted!
Daniel gives a session-by-session account of how his day unfolded:
"The weather was overcast in the morning, but then the sun came out for the rest of the day and it was quite warm. We brought four sets of tyres to use on my Kevin Mills Racing Spectrum 011c: three sets that had been used before, and one brand new set.
"I started the first session on my Silverstone race tyres, but the balance didn't feel right. Usually a racing car either understeers or oversteers, but this time it was understeering one lap and oversteering the next. When the Kevin Mills Racing mechanics checked the wheel alignment they soon found the reason: the left rear wheel had way too much toe-in. It probably happened when I bumped wheels with another car in Round 18, the last race at Silverstone. This is fairly common in Formula Ford, because we spend a lot time driving side-by-side around corners!
"Then in the second session the brake pedal went straight to the floor heading up to Druids. The car fired off the track into the gravel trap, but thankfully it stopped before the tyre wall!
"The incident was probably caused by brake 'knock-off', which is when the brake disc knocks the pad a tiny fraction further away from the disc than where it usually sits. The next time you hit the brake pedal, the piston in the caliper only pushes the pad back close to the disc, instead of hard onto it, so that wheel has virtually no braking! Knock-off happens from time to time, but it still gives you a fright if you're not expecting it.
"I have a pretty fair idea of how it happened at Brands Hatch. There's a green concrete strip outside the ripple strip on the exit of the first corner, Paddock Hill. You have to drive your left wheels over the concrete to do a really quick lap, and my car bumped back over the ripple strip at a slightly wrong angle. That would have done the trick.
"When the brake pedal went to the floor I quickly got off it and got back on it, but by then I was already going too fast to get around the corner. I tried to turn in anyway, and the car went into a 360-degree spin across the track and into the gravel! It kept spinning as it slid, so I was facing the tyre wall when everything stopped revolving. That was a bit scary, too. When you slide sideways in gravel there's always a chance that the tyres will dig in and roll the car. I've seen it happen on videos, although I wasn't thinking of it at Brands Hatch! At least sliding sideways over gravel slowed the car down faster. If it had gone straight ahead it probably would have gone into the tyre wall.
"I was back on the track for the third session. This time I was on another set of old tyres, and managed to do consistent 48.8s and 48.9s laps. There was no official lap timing on the day, but Kevin Mills Racing was timing the other frontrunners and they had me quickest by one or two tenths of a second. The next fastest times were 48.9s-49.1s, which was very pleasing for our team.
"It was the same scenario in session four, on the same tyres. My lap times were just a little bit quicker, if not the same, as the quickest of the other drivers.
"For the fourth and fifth sessions I stayed on those tyres and concentrated on getting my cornering lines spot-on, especially through Paddock Hill bend. It's a daunting corner, fast over a blind crest that drops away to the exit, so you need to be confident of exactly where to place the car. By the end of session five my lap times were still quicker than everyone else's.
"For the sixth session we changed the car's set-up to minimise the drop-off in lap times over the life of the tyres. Unfortunately the change didn't really achieve what we wanted - sometimes you do something that makes sense in theory but it doesn't work in real life - so we made another set-up change that had the right effect.
"In the seventh and last session I put on our new tyres, and did a best of 48.6. That was a couple of tenths slower than the best lap, a 48.4s by Garry Findlay, but I'm not worried because I know that I could have gone faster. I drove the first few laps steadily to see if the new set-up was working, and when I pushed really hard to do a quick time the tyres were past their absolute best. Also, being my first 'new tyre' run on the circuit I didn't know the traction limits.
"During the day I did 180 laps in all. On the old tyres I was as quick, or quicker, than everyone else, and on the new tyres I was only a fraction off the pace with a good idea of what to do to make up the difference. But perhaps the most important thing was getting experience on another unfamiliar circuit. Many of the people I'm racing against this year have raced on these circuit for years, so the more laps I do the more confident I feel.
"My driving is improving with every test day and race, and we're also improving the car, so things are looking good for the races at Brands Hatch Indy on September 5-6!"
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