Thanks to Darren Mills for his report of his Anglesey experience

Friday

Heavy rain was expected for our second Ferrari Club Competizione event, and our very first outing at Anglesey. Last year’s event at Croft Circuit was a great success with some very enjoyable racing but having watched the weather all week it was beginning to look inevitable that we were going to have a very damp weekend this time.

This year, I decided to take full advantage of the Friday test session.  Two new tracks to learn and not much race time this year due to various mechanical gremlins meant I needed to grab all the track time I could.

Raceday
Arriving early Friday morning things were looking quite promising and although I had driven through a little bit of weather on the way there, the sun was trying to break through, it was quite warm and the track was dry so things were looking really positive.

Learning the track in the morning session was fun and although I was off the pace of the other 355s I was eating into my lap times with each session and getting closer to them. I was expecting by the end of the afternoon session that I could really narrow the gap and have a good chance of keeping within sight of the when the racing started however 15 minutes into the first session of the afternoon on the coastal track my diff decided that it’s weekend was over and I was unceremoniously towed back to the paddock where the all-too-familiar job this season of dismantling the whole back of my car at the track began again.

Luckily there was a spare gearbox on the truck, It wasn’t a straight swap and needed a lot of work to get going which Craig at RnR did an amazing job of,  with that and a clutch release bearing that someone had to bring over from Telford in the middle of the night, I was back up and running!

Unfortunately I missed the morning practice session but did manage to make qualifying. This was the opportunity for anybody that missed the Friday sessions to learn the track at least in some form before qualifying started and just like the day before times started slow but then began to tumble as confidence grew throughout the session.

Race 1 – International Circuit

I made the third row of the grid for the first race starting in fifth place ahead of the 328s of Richard Dougal, Jim Cartwright and Chris Butler but although a dry qualifying had put me up the grid for the start, the wet conditions enabled the 328’s and Colin Sowter in his 348 to quickly swamp me at the start, In the blink of an eye I found myself down from 5th place to 8th place, but in a race that had worsening conditions throughout, the leading pack was a large one led by Tris Simpson for the first four laps before Wayne Marrs made his move at the Bus Stop and led the way to the end of the race.  The front pack did stay together with the top eight cars all finishing within sight of each other …a rare event in this series.

Race two started in the rain again but that eased off over the course of the race and the track began to dry out. Wayne was unlucky with a problem on the green flag lap promoting Chris Compton-Goddard to pole position.  The start was slippery and I made it hard for myself again by allowing myself to be swamped by the 328s. this time however with the track drying out I was able to claw my way back through some of them including fantastic battles with Pete Fisk and Andy Riddoch, finally finishing the race with an overtake on Chris Butler at the very last corner.

After a great barbecue hosted by the club on a very wet evening, qualifying on the coastal track arrived on a much drier morning. The short track seemed to be everyone’s favourite and talk around the paddock was that this track would favour the 328s a lot more due to the lack of long straights. Wayne didn’t manage to get a full qualifying lap in and had to start at the back for both races although electrical problems saw to it that he didn’t get to the finish in either race and had a somewhat disappointing day.

Race 3 Coastal Circuit
Front row for Race 3 was Tris Simpson and Chris Compton Goddard, With me just behind Chris on the 2nd row. A position I would fail to capitalise on as yet again the 328s and the 348 were all over me.  Chris Compton Goddard had a bad start and was the one car I was able to pass off the line.  He soon took the place back but eventually retired with an electrical fault elevating me to a third place in group despite the terrible race I was having.  The action in the race and the group to watch, came in the battle between Jim Cartwright, Chris Butler and Richard Dougal who were swapping places lap after lap.

Race 4

Dry weather for the final race didn’t help my start like I had hoped and it was a familiar story off the line for me. An unfortunate coming together between Chris Compton-Goddard and Nicky Paul-Barron at Peel brought out the safety car for around six laps, cutting down the race considerably. Tris led away at the restart and stayed in front for the remainder of the race as a now familiar and exciting battle between Jim, Richard and Chris continued on.  I gained in confidence through the last few laps and did manage to start clawing my way back but with a number of laps reduced I couldn’t catch them in time and had to settle for 5th place overall, 2nd in class.

A great weekend for me after an annoying mechanical failure on Friday although I never really managed to get my elbows out in the end, despite planning to at the start of each race. The 328s shot past me off the start line every single time, and whilst my times improved over the weekend it was persistence and a little bit of attrition that got me on the podium in the end.

The club put on an amazing weekend, the weather didn’t really cause any problems and it was certainly one of the weekends I’ll remember for a long time.  I’m sure I’m not the only one that hopes to be visiting Anglesey again in a future season’s race calendar.   For now, its onward to Brands Hatch for Festival Italia… a firm favourite of the series.