FOOL ME ONCE SHAME ON YOU. FOOL ME TWICE SHAME ON ME!

During last months rounds of the Gulf Radical Cup the oil and water temperatures displayed on my steering wheel-mounted dash had gotten to a worryingly high level. Keeping in mind the fragile nature of the Powertec engine in the back of the SR3 (it is essentially a Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle engine bored out to 1500cc), I raised this point of concern to my engineer at Gulf Sport Racing.

A week later I got an email from the Gulf Sport guys stating that one of the engine boffins at Powertec had flown out to Dubai to investigate the issue. After poring over the data from the cars, it appeared that all the SR3's that were fitted with the latest hot weather cooling kit were facing similar issues. This new setup got rid of the old style bulky radiators that previously sat in the nose of the car, and instead used a heat exchanger mounted next to the engine to keep the oil temperatures at the desired level. While the new cooling system worked reasonably well earlier in the season when the weather was more forgiving, it had started to struggle as we slowly but surely marched towards summer and its blazing heat.

The result of this was a damaged head gasket, as well as a warped barrel and piston rings. While there is no such thing as a warranty on racing cars (as I have found out many times) Radical acknowledged the design fault in their new cooling system and the failures were remedied by the manufacturers at their expense. So, thanks to both Gulf Sport and Radical for taking action. Cheers guys

Back to the business of racing and next up was round 7 of the GRC. While I was still ahead in the standings, my points lead had shrunk significantly after the ups and downs of the last few rounds. Nevertheless I came into the weekend feeling confident that I could regain my early season form and was hoping to walk away with a big haul of points.

The weekend got off to a positive start with my name at the top of the time sheets for every session of testing, including the Friday morning warm up just before qualifying , where I was almost a full second a lap quicker than my nearest rival around the high speed twists and turns of the Dubai Autodrome National circuit. So you can imagine I was not a happy camper when a red flag interrupted the qualifying session before I had a chance to put in a serious lap, having spent the early part of the session scrubbing in a new set of tyres. At the start of the first race I tucked into second place behind Fahad Al Mussalm, who was back behind the wheel for my nearest rival Team Bahrain 777. After recovering from an ill advised first lap overtaking attempt I spent the majority of the race trying to take the lead, but try as I might I could not find a way past. I began to get frustrated stuck behind Fahad's defensive driving master class and my subsequent overdriving led to a high speed spin in the banked turn 9. In my panic I stalled the car and by the time I was moving again I had dropped back to a disastrous fourth place where I stayed to the finish.

I would love to say that the second race went differently but unfortunately it was a carbon copy of the first. I once again stormed through the field setting fastest lap, only to have another high speed spin while pressuring the Bahraini driver for the lead. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! Luckily this time I didn't stall and managed to hang onto second place. Heading into next months penultimate round 8, I have to stop doing my Felipe Massa impression and convert my superior pace into tangible results, or I can kiss my championship hopes goodbye.