Brands Hatch GP - Roadsports - 750MC - 8th July 2023

We had over a months rest from the 750MC races, but the Brands Hatch GP round of the RoadSports Series started a crazy few weeks of racing, that followed a 2 weeks, 2600 mile road trip around the USA. I hope the vlog will explain it better with what was going on than I can in words here.
You can read about Oulton 750MC Club Enduro race below.
For Brands, we wanted to mix it up a bit. Me and Ryan were going to drive both TTs and swap buring Qualifying and the Race, then Dylan was back, driving in the RS3 as Brad was on holiday. We'd tried this swap before and it was a disaster, so why not try again?

Below is the layout of the Brands Hatch GP Circuit, which is the same as they use in the BTCC, and as it was when the F1 circus visited here in the 80s:

The TT TDI has a declared weight of 1140kg, and being in class A can only have ~285bhp/ton, which works out around 325bhp on the Championship Dyno.
The TT TFSI can have a maximum of 295bhp/ton due to Petrol Forced Induction cars having a 5bhp deduction.
This weekend 750MC were using TSL for timing.

Testing

The test day was only on the Indy Circuit, not the full GP, so we decided to skip it and go straight into Qualifying. We had not driven this layout of the track since 2021 in the SuperCup, so it was going to take a bit to get into it.

Roadsports Qualifying

A 20 minute Quali session with 2 drivers was never going to be easy. We decided we would do 1 flying lap (and therefore the 3 laps as per regulation) in the cars we were not starting the race in, so we could then get used to the track in the car we would be starting the race with. This meant I went out in the TTFSI first, and Ryan in the TTDI. I've not driven either of these cars in their current form, having only done a handful of laps at Donington in both, well before the new aero, wheels, tyres and suspension. And as mentioned earlier, we had not been at this track in around 2 years either.
I think we both did pretty well on that single lap, I did a 1:42.685 and Ryan did a 1:43.483. My lap put us on Pole until the Ginetta G20 pipped me a lap later.
It was time to swap, and I immediately felt the TTDI was sharper on turn in and put the power down really well. My first flier was a 1:39.502 even with traffic, putting the Diesel on Pole this time. Then the next was a second quicker, 1:38.578, further cementing the pole position. I then hit traffic so tried to find space.
Ryan was doing well in the TFSI, being super consistent in the low 1:40.2s, but not finding the pace of the TDI.
Dylan seemed to be having a nightmare when looking at the timing screen, but had just got himself into a bad position traffic wise. Luckily he found space on his last lap, a 1:39.128 putting him 4th overall. So that was a 1st, 4th and 6th. Not too bad I would say!
Post race was not so good, the TTFSI was weighed and was nearly 50kg shy. We had taken the ballast out of it at Anglesey since it did not race, and someone (who shall remain nameless) forgot to put it back in. Facepalm! This meant that Ryan would be starting at the back. At least we were book ending the grid!

Space was always going to be the issue here, as it is not easy to overtake similarly paced cars in Quali, which you can see from the big variation in lap times.
I looked at the data and Ryan had lost most of his time to me in traffic, so the TTFSI would hopefully get closer to the front pretty quickly if he could keep that pace. With such a gap between the cars, we decided to abort trying to swap over, and give the TTDI the best chance to win it's first race.

I'd started and finished the session on Pole in two different cars, not bad really.

Qualifying Laps

Our fastest Quali laps are below:

Roadsports Race

The race was not Live Streamed by the guys at AlphaLive this time for some reason, they are back for Snetterton.

The first Pole Position for the TTDI was good, and looking at my data later on, I could have gone 0.7s quicker had I not come into traffic in a few spots on my lap, so I was confident in keeping the lead. I was hoping the RWD cars would take longer to fire up their tyres, allowing Dylan to get through from Row 2. Ryan was right at the back unfortunately!

I maintained the lead on the rolling start, and with the slightly greasy conditions off line, had the confidence to push whilst the guys behind seemed to take it easy. By the end of Lap 1 I was over 4s in the lead. Dylan had done exactly what I hoped for and was in 2nd with a 1.1s gap to the Lotus behind. Ryan had made it up to P22, overtaking 16 cars on the first lap!
By the end of lap 2 I had pulled another 1.3s on Dylan and he had increased his lead as well. Unfortunately for Ryan, he pushed the brakes hard and one of the lines burst, sending the pedal to the floor. He was lucky not to crash and made it back to the pits, his race over before it really started.
On lap 3 as I exited Druids, the car dropped into limp mode. I quickly reset it and was back going, but I lost over 4s to Dylan during this time. As Ryan had come 2nd in the last RoadSports race at Anglesey, I had a 10s penalty to serve in the pits so needed as big of a gap as possible.
I'd pulled it back to ~4.2s through the traffic, some laps Dylan would gain on me, others I would be luckier with the traffic. Eventually Dylan pitted, so I would need to wait until my stop to see where we ended up. On lap 16 I made my move, right on the last lap that I could have done it before the window closed.

I came out and Dylan was about 5s ahead of me, so we both had a pit stop close to the ideal time, mine just being 10s longer than his. I had some time to make up.
However, due to another couple of limp modes due to fuel pressure, and a leaky turbine housing causing the turbo to spool very lazily, I was unable to decrease the gap any further. Still, if you are going to lose to anyone, it should be your friend in your car!

I was 5.3s behind. This was the time I'd lost on lap 3 and I lost probably the same again when it happened another 2 times. It was not meant to be today, but I was super pleased for Dylan.
The TTFSI finished more or less where it started, which was a shame as I am sure it would have carved it's way through the field.
It seemed like a lot of cars had issues, with 11 retirements, so we should count ourselves lucky we even got to the flag!

I did 4 laps within a tenth of eachother when not in traffic, but then the laggy turbo meant I lost a lot of time, around 1s a lap for the final few laps, then over 2.5s on the last lap.

Fastest Laps

Our fastest laps from the race are below:

The next ClubEnduro round is 2 x 100 minute races at Spa, and with less than a week between them (Qualifying and Race 1 is on the Friday), we decided to drive the truck straight from Brands to Spa, saving ~5hrs of driving as the tunnel is only an hour away. Luckily there were no issues with the cars that could not be fixed.
Dylan was also taking the RS3 to Goodwood to be on the Biltein stand there. So many moving parts to these last few weekends!