Chamrousse: Week-end du Drift!

I can’t quite get my head round how quickly this year’s gone by, and finding myself at Chamrousse it really struck me that 2017 has literally been non stop. It’s been an incredible summer, alongside the CFM I’ve been to Pikes Peak, Goodwood FOS, Silverstone for British GT, competing on ITV’s Ninja Warrior UK and training at Formula Medicine in Italy, as well as here there & everywhere around the UK.

Thinking about it, since the end of March I’ve had one full weekend at home, somehow that makes 23 and I’m away all of September too…

Having only driven here once in 2015, Chamrousse is a race that I was really looking forward to – I missed it off the calendar last year after I had the chance to race a Norma for the first time at St-Ursanne. High up in the Alps, the views are just something else – I’ve been to a few circuits this year and each time I come back out here is reminds me why hillclimbing is so unique. Friday evening in the paddock, with sun setting over the mountains in the distance, makes you realise you’re pretty lucky to be racing somewhere like this.

Saturday morning saw us taking an untimed practice (not the usual here), which I took fairly steady. Conversely the run that followed it started out a little quicker than I’d anticipated, I arrived at the first hairpin a bit faster than I’d first thought and had to brake very hard. I tried to keep the car straight for as long as possible but inevitably had to start winding on some lock at which point the the inevitable happened and I lost the back end. It’s the first spin I’ve had all year and I finished the run without any problems, it was frustrating to though.

The final practice went better, I posted 2:26:131 which wasn’t bad, but I was playing catch-up against the rest of the field who were on low or even sub 2:20’s. We changed the setup to make the car a bit more pliant over Chamrousse’s weather beaten tarmac and I worked over my onboard & pace notes before taking an early night in the hope of nailing a good time first thing. The forecast was good and chances were that by midday the track could be too hot – the first run may well be the decider.

Sure enough I went a lot quicker and felt more settled allowing me to get on the throttle a bit earlier out of corners. I set a 2:22:529 – 3.5 secs quicker to put me in 9th, a good start. Sadly the camera didn’t capture it so I had to go off recall when thinking what I could have done differently. I took the offer of a ride in Marc Fleury’s BMW drift car at lunch time (it was my birthday in the week), something that made me grin from ear to ear and gave me a newfound respect for drifters.

Sadly run number 2 saw my second spin of the season, I’d started really well and knew I was up the morning’s run after carrying more speed through the bus stop and the section that followed. Everything was going well and I was taking third into a big wide hairpin, I came in pretty hot and it might just have held had I let the car run out a bit more or just left the throttle well alone. My frustration was the highest it’s been all year at this point, since Saturday morning I’d felt as though I was dragging behind and needed to get my foot down…

The final run was ok but I knew I was holding back at the hairpins, I made a big mistake coming through a fast/technical sector after midway and completely lost my rhythm, putting the car off line. I knew I’d fluffed it before I saw the board, I’d lost a second and finished on a 2:23:700, not a bad time but I felt pretty deflated. I guess that’s one of the other unique aspects of hillclimbing, you can’t make up for your mistakes on the next lap, sometimes it just isn’t your weekend.

Sometimes it’s wrong to view these things in isolation, truth be told I’d really enjoyed myself at Chamrousse – the weather had been perfect, the atmosphere in the paddock was fantastic too and I love spending time with the whole team at Schatz Competition.

I’ve had some of my best ever times racing with them this year, the whole team is one huge family and on Saturday afternoon we had a big flatscreen set up in the garage so we could all watch Nicolas Schatz race the LMP3 Ligier in the ELMS round at Castellet.

The next morning I had a couple of hours spare before I needed to drive to Lyon. Being as it was a nice day and the builders were clanging away on the scaffolding outside my balcony, I thought I’d walk up into the mountains. Back in 2015 I was here for a nearly a whole week of hiking, so I had a rough idea where I was going and abandoned the foot path. I saw one guy running and another in a pickup, but other than that the only noise was the occasional insect or a helicopter buzzing past below in the valley. At this point I knew I’d let all the frustration go, and counted myself lucky to be up here in such a beautiful place.