Day 1 of the first Round of the Castrol Toyota Racing Series had two practice sessions. Teams all have a strict tyre allocation to be used for the series, and on this first day the majority (if not all) drivers were using older used tyres from last year. As such, the condition of these would be varied, so it is about familiarising with the circuit and car.
The track is fantastic and enjoyable to drive. The TRS car is not as physical as the F3 with a little less downforce, but the circuit certainly has a few challenging sections.
Practice 1 went well, and I felt comfortable with both the car and circuit very quickly. I did have to pull out of quite a few laps to create some space within traffic, however I was able to put together some solid laps to end up P10 of the field of 16.
The second session started well and I was able to push a little harder to take half a second off my time in session 1 and was running in the top half of the field. Unfortunately mid way through the cockpit started to feel very hot. The exhaust system had come loose, which was the cause of the rise in temperature. On top of this, the sensor in the cockpit thought it was on fire and set off the fire extinguisher around me. As a result I obviously had to pull in to the pits which ended my session early.
Looking forward to day 2 where we will see new tyres on the cars for the first time at some stage.
