The team is looking forward to Croft this weekend, our most Northerly race planned for this year. Looking at the forecast, it is expected we will have an English summer all weekend and go from monsoon one minute and thirty degrees the next. Luckily, we have both the Nankang AR-1 for dry and the Nankang NS-2R for any heavy downpours, the tricky bit is making sure you are on the right tyre at the right time!
On Friday the car is booked in for a full day’s testing with 4 sessions split throughout the day. The weather for Friday looks changeable with conflicting forecasts from cloudy to heavy rail. The hope is to get the driver and car dialled in to the circuit and get as close to an optimum setup as possible in the time allowed.
Saturday sees both qualifying and race for the Classic Sports Car Club Modern Classics and the Lancia is in class A, or the highest class for the series. At Croft the grid is shared with the faster New Millennium series featuring much newer and more modern machinery often with aero bits producing meaningful downforce. At the of writing the star cars joining the Lancia on the grid include a Ferrari 355s, Lotus Esprit & Elise, Porsche 911 RSR, 944s, 968 & Boxter, a Ginetta G50 and a host of BMW M3s. The weather reports heavy showers so the tyre decision will play a key role in the outcome of this race.
Sunday afternoon sees both qualifying and the race for Future Classics for cars built in the seventies and eighties. The Lancia is in the A80 class and is expected to do well against the competition. The race to the finish in this race is likely to be with the 1979 Porsche 911 RSR of Tony Blake as well as a powerfull Triumph TR7 v8. In the A80 class the Delta is up against Coventry’s finest in the shape of a v12 six litre Jaguar XJS. Depending on the report, this is either going to be a dry or showery day so again tyres may play a role in deciding the outcome.
All to play for and the team are confident that should the car finish, it will do well. Here is a video from last year in the Renault Clio 182 championship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GpBELSTsp8 Watch out in race 2 for what could have been a massive accident with car 27. Stay up to date with live timing here: http://tsl-timing.com/event/172964