We are now half way through the calendar year, near the end of the academic year and settling into the motorsport season nicely!
With summer starting to make an appearance, motorsport events become a much more pleasant place to be for the spectator. As most race circuits are built on old airfields, the shelter from the wind and rain can often be a problem. I recently visited a hill climb venue called Wiscombe Park which is located in Devon. This was my first visit to a hill climb and we had 6 students present to help marshal the day. The event was full of a mixture of both classic and modern cars and motorbikes. It was a great day where you could watch from all locations at a close distance whilst access to the paddock where the cars were kept was excellent. You can find more hill climb venues and information at http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/
At college, the race team is doing well; we are now leading the class B championship by 1 point after some good results in May, with a 2nd and 1st in class for the two races. Our next race is June 15th/16th. Visit www.castlecombecircuit.co.uk for more info and for live race day updates, you can follow us on Twitter @MotorsportBC
In F1, there have been some new developments and controversy, particularly with the Mercedes AMG team. A clever development is their new dual skin gearbox casing whereby the outer serves as a location for their suspension pick up points and the inner houses the gearbox internals itself. This concept allows them to modify the suspension freely without contradicting the gearbox rules. More info can be seen here. The cause of controversy however is their test day which was completed with Pirelli tyres using a current Mercedes car. With in-season testing banned, only 2 year old cars can be used for this kind of supplier development test but reports suggest that the FIA, Pirelli and Mercedes have had some form of communication error in which the outcome and potential consequences are unknown. Keep up to date with this story and other motorsport news at www.autosport.com.
If any of you would like me to be covering other areas of motorsport then please comment on the blog and I will do my best to add something different – speak to you again in July!
If any of you would like me to be covering other areas of motorsport then please comment on the blog and I will do my best to add something different – speak to you again in July! You can see Josh’s latest race on YouTube. Visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1TSyRS79-s
