Andre in Practice - Image copyright Darren Rycroft anysportphotos.com
Dubai, Nov 5th 2010; The theme for the two weeks leading up to the Motorsport Festival has been work, just work. There was a lot of work that needed to the MSW Racing Seat Supercopa in order to have in ready for the festival. Plenty of late nights filled with Lavazza coffee helping the team repair and prepare the car meant that I was so exhausted that my personal trainers at the Original Fitness Company rarely saw me.
Recognition must be given to the team at Austrian Automotive for taking on the job of the body repairs given the strict schedule that we was forced upon us with only 10days between race weekends. Between themselves and Fibra Foil, the job done on the Seat was immaculate and the car showed up to the circuit on the Wednesday night, on time, looking as good as it did for the opening round of the season.
The two day schedule of the Motorsport Festival meant that we were looking forward to a very relaxed weekend where we would have enough time between session to evaluate, make changes and sit back with our feet up for a bit, or at least we hoped so. Thursday practice went well and I was happy with the setup on the car and somewhat happy with the lap times that I had done. I felt that there was a lot more left in me and I wasn’t pushing the maximum that I could. Maybe somewhere in by subconscious the accident from the previous race weekend was still lingering and affecting the way I was driving.
Qualifying came around and again mentally I just felt that I was missing something, it didn’t feel like the previous race weekends felt, and was very apparent in the lap times. I wasn’t able to match the pace that I had set in practice, plus was cut short when fueling issues that we thought were sorted decided to spring back up and cut my session short. That meant I qualified 3rd on the grid, but more importantly I was driving a car with an intermittent fuel pump issue which we were not 100% sure what the actual culprit was.
Being towed back into the garage did feel a lot better that having the car on the back of a flat bed, however, neither situation is one that I enjoyed being in. Getting back to garage the immediate focus was to figure out why the car kept cutting out and of course solve the problem. Speaking with the team at NFS, they have experienced the same symptoms that were cured by replacing the fuel pump. There were 2 solutions that were presented to me, one involving a lot more parts and work and the other a simple replacement with the same part. I opted for the latter to be a temporary fix that should have gotten us through the weekend, and would be permanently and properly fixed for the next round in December.
Race day rolls around and I feel much better, my spirits are higher and there is a ‘bounce’ in my step that seemed to be missing the previous day. After spending a considerable amount of time looking over the data I was being more timid in common areas of the circuit between the National and Club layout, and knew that I could push harder. This was something I was looking forward to.
Time to get ready for the first race and I am beaming, ready to go, feeling very confident despite starting from 3rd on the grid. We roll around to form up the grid and I can see Nadir Zuhour and Khalid Bin Hader directly in front of me, knowing that it will be very hard work I know that my team has supplied me with a car that is capable of getting to the front and staying there, and that is all I am focused on. The flag drops for the green flag lap and I practice my start and continue cruising down the main straight. I am so focused on planning a strategy for the race start that I do not immediately notice the lack of exhaust note from my car. Again I have lost complete power and I am forced to start from the side, this is unbelievable! I get the car going again and rush around to the grid making sure I am not the last car which allows me to take my normal starting position instead of starting from the back. Now I start to worry, what is going on in my car? Why is it still cutting out? Will I even finish? I decide to simply ignore the problem and drive as if everything was normal.
Andre plays it safe into turn 1 knowing that he's not on the ideal line
The lights go out and immediately I pull right up to the back of Bin Hader who was directly in front of me, there is not enough room between himself and Zuhour so I must go on the left and hope I can get around the outside. I play it safe into turn 1 knowing that I am not on the ideal line and have to watch the Performance Seat slip up the inside of me, followed closely by Zuhor in his Top Line/Auto Trader car. I stick to my line not allowing the veterans to bully me around and stick it out side by side through turn 1 which gave me the edge into turn 17. That’s one down, now it time to hunt Khalid down. Into turn 10 I can see that Khalid is have issues under braking and I decide to play it cool and wait for my chance. I thought to myself that entering the bowl must be my best chance as it’s the next heavy braking point on the circuit, and such the lead car gets squirmy in the braking zone and such compromises his corner. I take my regular line, close the gap between the exit of the bowl and 15 and squeeze down the inside of 16 to emerge as the leader after the first lap!
We drag down the main straight side by side and again experience, or lack thereof, gets the better of me and give Bin Hader the edge. Knowing we have another 10 laps ahead of us I decide not to do anything too crazy and brake slightly early in the hopes that my competitor will do the same, or better yet unsettle his car again and allow me to get away. I can see Bin Hader lock his rear wheels again and I think this is great, but somehow the talented Emirati driver manages to slip in front of me and regain the lead. I sit back and continue pushing, not overworking the car, knowing that it is a long race and I have the best setup car on the grid, I will be able to get by him again! Into turn 10 on the second lap and again the Black Seat is locking up and I am able to close the gap, I power through turn 11 in the hopes of giving him a run up the hill, but as my luck would have it, the car dies on me!
Naturally my immediate reaction is frustration and anger that this has happened to me. Again the car restarts and I charge on, making my way through the Class 2 cars with the hopes that some misfortune may fall upon the other Class 1 cars, and again the car shuts off. I decide I rather not upset any of the other battles on track so I just cruise around passing cars when I can and bring the car home to record a race finish with the hopes that we can solve the problem over the lunch break.
Andre Ramdhanny
Going over the car and looking at the data we think we find the problem, but no one in the team is sure and we basically cross our fingers and hope that we can get to the front during race 2 and give the guys a bit of trouble there. The car works fine and again I decide to simply go for it, give it all I’ve got and see where we can end up. I start race 2, get through the first set of turns cleanly with traffic all around me and I can see the leader a mere 100 meters ahead of me, this is doable, please let my car keep running! The motorsport gods obviously had a different idea on what they had planned for me as again the car dies. I manage to get going again however this pattern continues, so much that the officials decide that I am a bit of a danger and call me into the pit lane. As if things couldn’t get any worse there is some pitlane confusion which causes me to drive around for another lap, which in the Clerk of the Course’s eye is disregard for his instructions and rules. This results in me being removed from the race and unfortunately not recording a race finish.
Again the all too familiar feelings of disappointment in myself start to set in. After all the nonsense of pleading my case to the appropriate people, answering the same question to every single person in the paddock and thanking the team for all the support over the weekend, I get a chance to reflect on what really took place.
