- Alright we're here at Teretonga in Invercargill for the first round of the
Endurance Series, South Island Endurance Series.
We're just getting the car set up and we're about to go out for our first practice session.
- So we just got the telemetry going so we can see all Andre's sensors, all the data we
need to know where he is on track and what lap times he's doing.
- It's so hard to tell now in practice 'cause you don't know what other people
are up to, if they're just like warming up or getting a feel for it.
It's sort of like, there's nothing in your rear view mirror and they're just like.
It's GT cars right up in your business.
- Pump it.
- It's what me and Alan like to do on the weekends.
- Just trying to figure out if we've actually brought enough fuel with us.
It's a small oversight for sure but what we've got here on the data is it's calculating
the amount of fuel that we're using for every lap, which is this little number here
so we're using about 1.3 litres of fuel every lap.
So we're probably going to be doing around about 50 laps depending on safety cars,
so depending how much practice we want to do today, comes down to how much fuel
we're going to use, plus we've got qualifying tomorrow so we might be a little bit tight.
You live and learn.
- So we have a leak in the diff seals that the axles go in.
It's dripping down on the exhaust and causing a lot of smoke, so we're going to
pull the axles out tonight then order some new diff seals, put them in, put the axles
back in and that should cure the oil leak.
- It's really slippery, still did a 1:04.7 which is a PB, didn't feel like a great lap
but it's nice now having the traction control adjustability on the steering wheel so I
found I could actually tweak it as the tyres came up to temp.
But yeah, scary with that R8 GT3 just flying past like you're standing still.
But yeah cool, pretty happy with it so far.
Oh I turned the traction control off sorry.
- Yeah plus third gear like ohhhh.
- Hand out the window, yeahhh.
- I think I got a fan and I started a new Instagram account.
- So we're just at the end of our practice day before racing tomorrow and it's
been pretty productive, we've learned a little bit.
This track is quite tight through the back section and we've got a car that's got
a reasonable amount of power, not a huge amount of grip, it's got a small
slick and absolutely no aero.
So I did a 1:04.7 but the whole back section of the track you're sort of really feathering
the throttle, trying to fight it breaking out into oversteer.
So we made the decision to try softening up the rear sway bar.
The aim of that is to try and get a little bit more drive out of the corners.
And it's not a night and day change but took it back out in that last session and it does
seem like it's made a bit of an improvement, it definitely felt a little bit more positive
and could get on the throttle a little bit earlier.
So didn't actually relate to a faster lap time because I was stuck in a lot of traffic,
so it's quite hard here with all of the cars on track at the same time to piece
together a good lap but qualifying tomorrow, hopefully we'll get that
opportunity.
We've just got to the racetrack for day two so it's race day today, about 8:30 in the
morning at the moment.
There's a little bit on the go, we've got our driver's briefing at 9am and we've got
qualifying, it's a 20 minute session at 10 so I'm going to go out in the car first,
we've got some brand new rubber going on the car.
The tyres we were running yesterday were pretty old so we're hoping we might improve
on that 1:04.7 a little bit.
So I'm going to go out, probably do about 10 or 12 minutes of that session,
do a driver change, Ben's going to jump in the car and finish off that session.
While we're getting the car ready here, we've got Brandon working on the car.
We got a mechanical black flag yesterday for some of the oil leaking out of the diff
seals and getting onto the exhaust.
So we've got Brandon working some Irish magic coming up with a makeshift solution
that's going to stop the diff oil getting onto the exhaust.
So that's what the people in race control were seeing yesterday.
So that's the plan for today, let's see how it goes.
So yeah there was just like a lot of cars, I was really struggling to get a clean lap.
You'd either pick up a slow car that was warming up or a fast car would come
up behind you and you sort or had to give racing room.
So yeah the tyres were amazing, it's got a lot more in it but it really didn't represent
in the lap time, I think it did a 1:04.8 so it's got more in it.
But yeah tyres are sweet, everything's working, happy days.
Just bleeding out the brakes, on one of my last laps I got a long pedal coming into the
last corner which is a little bit disconcerting so we'd like to be able to rely on the brakes,
so yeah just give them a quick bleed before the actual race which starts in 20.
- I'm quietly confident that we can finish the race, I don't ask for much.
- [Race Control] Caution, yellow at flag point one, car off driver's right.
- [Andre] Shunted in the ass, then I got shunted in weaving
- [Brandon] Are you all good?
- [Andre] I think so.
- [Brandon] Yeah I think there's something hanging off the back.
- I'm just going to keep driving.
Yeah I think I'd say that went pretty well.
Pretty busy going into turn one, the TCR Audi in front of me spun so I
backed out to get out of his way and someone shunted me in the back so that
was a great way to start.
But didn't really do any damage, it was just a gentle shunt so kind of settled down,
got into a bit of a rhythm.
It's definitely done something, didn't quite sound right and couldn't quite
pick it but still felt fine under full throttle so just kept on trucking,
heaps of safety cars in that session, I think we had two cars go off into the
gravel so that wasn't that helpful.
But yeah by the end of it I was circulating pretty comfortably in the 1:05s and having
a good race with a TCR Audi in front of me so happy days, let's see how Ben goes.
- Look at it, it's magic.
Look at that, we've got the diff oil.
- [Brandon] Abiding either side of the exhaust.
- Not getting on there, not causing smoke.
I'm really happy with how the race went, I got a 1:05.6 which I was hoping to get
a 1:05 so really happy with that.
We finished the race which is another big positive.
Also we had a little issue at the end there with our bumper just destroying itself
and flying off which seems to happen most races so we'll get something a bit more
substantial on the back there next race.
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