Tuesday 28th May 2024
Round 3 of the GB4 Championship saw a visit to Donington Park utilising the GP layout on Saturday 25th & Sunday 26th May.
This was to be Alisha's third race meeting in a single seater with lots of positive's taken away from the previous two rounds where she achieved a podium finish at each, including an overall race win.
SATURDAY 25th MAY:
Qualifying:
Race 1 = P7
Race 2 = P6
Race 3 = P9 (reverse grid from Race 1 qualifying position)
After a difficult end to the previous days testing necessitating an engine change, Alisha unfortunately lacked some pace and struggled with the cars balance to match the fastest times she had posted during the earlier parts of testing. Whilst by no means a disaster, this meant that she would start both Race 1 and Race 2 lower down than she would have liked and was capable of.
Race 1: P7 - NC
Alisha got a decent start and pursued the pack ahead on lap 1. As she reached the esses onto the Melbourne loop, she made a great pass up the inside to move up a place. However, her car became stuck in 6th gear and with the resulting loss of engine braking went slightly wide over the kerbs on the exit. This led to the commentary team believing her car sustained suspension damaged over the kerbs but this was not the case. She then limped back to the pits, still stuck in 6th gear, where the team were able to make a repair allowing Alisha to re-join the race, albeit some 4 laps adrift. Alisha went on to finish the race but in last position which does still attract points. However, in a cruel further twist of fate, the rules state 75% race distance needs to have been covered and Alisha fell just 0.7 of a lap short so was 'not classified' meaning she lost out on those 6 points.
This race can be viewed at the following link:
SUNDAY 26th MAY:
Race 2: P6 - P9
A wet track saw Alisha make a good start heading towards turn 1 in the pack when a car on the right hand side of the grid moved over colliding with another car alongside that was then sent sliding across into Alisha's right rear wheel causing considerable suspension damage. Nothing was actually broken but the track control arm and wishbones were significantly bent resulting in the right rear wheel toeing massively out. Alisha continued but with a heavily crabbing car. At that point many people assumed she would simply pull in and park the car. However, as she proceeded around she realised the car was 'safe' in terms of nothing actually being broken or hanging off and so continued, adapting to the very different and difficult dynamics of the cars handling. She drove extremely hard in the wet conditions consistently having to induce various levels of drift around any of the left hand bends. She went on to finish in an extremely respectable 9th position and with it salvaged as many points as possible under the circumstances. Many people have since made reference to this being the drive of the day in their opinion!
This race can be viewed at the following link:
Race 3: P9 - P3
Race 3 saw drying conditions with Alisha starting from P9 in the reverse grid format. She was able to get a very strong start and was immediately up along side the car in front and made up a few places into turn one. Alisha continued to push hard on the opening lap making up a another few places. This was a strong race by Alisha where she went on to finish on the podium in P3 after some great double switch back moves during the latter stages of the race. P2 was definitely a possibility but with the race already being shortened due to earlier delays in the schedule and then a red flag being thrown with 2 minutes to go, she didn't have the usual amount of time and so was extremely happy to finish on the podium during what had otherwise been a very difficult weekend.
This race can be viewed at the following link:
Overall a positive end to an otherwise frustrating and difficult race weekend where Alisha lost a considerable number of points through no fault of her own.
Alisha now has a break from racing during June before the next round takes place at Snetterton (300) on 13th - 14th July.
Thank you as always goes to Elite Motorsport, Ed Ives, Chris Hodgetts, Sarah Moore, Danny Watts, Oli Bailey & Demi Belt for all the hard work and support throughout the weekend!
Yorumlar