Anglesey 6 hours 2009
Team “Cuisine de France / SPAR” raced to their second victory of the year at Anglesey race track on Saturday in the fourth round of the 2009 Fun Cup UK, in their TDI diesel car run by Solutions Racing.
Driven by Ian Connell, Marc Connell and Frenchman Franck Pelle, the team crossed the line after six hours with a one minute advantage over Team Ram and Track Torque 3.
Qualifying :
After Franck and Ian had struggled to find a good set up in testing on Friday, , the Solutions Racing Team guys worked long into the evening checking all the set up data and re-setting the car back to a known position.
Ian did just three laps to qualify first, immediately finding the car faster and handling better. He handed over the car with warm tyres and brakes to Franck to set our qualifying time! Franck this on his second lap, setting 2nd fastest time of the hour long session, behind the Happy Racing car.
Job well done, he then handed over to Marc who needed more track time, as he had missed Friday testing and has never driven at Anglesey before, but now had 40 minutes or so to find his way around. 15 minutes from the end of the hour, Marc parked the car early, as he was happy that all was well. We drew 10th place on the 25 car grid...
The Race:
Franck took the start and by the end of lap one was already up to 3rd place, before moving into the lead on lap 4. By the end of his stint he had put in a great drive to extend his lead to 16 seconds, then handing over to Marc.
Marc settled down quickly putting in very good times to increase the lead to over 30 seconds, before handing over to Ian.
Ian suffered in his stint with changeable weather condition making the circuit slippery and a safety car period that closed everyone back up again. Deciding to be very cautious in these conditions, rather than make an error, Ian dropped to 3rd, 6 seconds behind the new leaders Team Ram, but very confident that Franck and Marc had the pace to lead again when conditions improved.
By the end of hour four Franck had got the car back up to second behind Happy Racing, handing over to Marc who took an immediate lead with a quicker pit stop. Just after this Happy Racing crashed with brake failure.
By the final hour Franck was back in the car and leading now by over a full lap. However we were worried about rear tyre wear, so just 15 minutes from the end we pitted to make a precautionary rear tyre change which the Solution guys did fantastically quickly!
The race now ran the last few minutes with us about one minute ahead of Team RAM, to give us a great win on Ian’s birthday!
Race analysis
Start position 10th
Hour 1 1st
Hour 2 1st
Hour 3 3rd
Hour 4 2nd
Hour 5 1st
Hour 5 1st
Race best lap times
Ian: 1m 23.6
Marc: 1m 22.4
Franck 1m 22.2
Coverage
The race will be televised on Sky Sports and Motors TV in a few weeks. I will advise you of the transmission dates when I have them.
Specialist Motorsport press coverage
There is an excellent report on the race which includes a picture of us leading the pack in this weeks Motorsport News published today. See page 9.
Team
Thanks to our engineer Stuart, plus Mike, Pete, Steve and all the Solutions Racing Team who did a fantastic job running and preparing the car on race day. Thanks also to Connell Racing crew members, Marvin who did our refueling and Mike who ran the race strategy from the pit wall.
Our Solutions racing Team mates had fast but troubled runs, with CCS Media coming home in 14th place and 6th in the petrol class, while My Handle.Com new to racing this year ran well after an early bump to finish 18th and 8th in the petrol class.