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Tuesday, 27 June 2006 |
BMW ace takes step forward at Oulton
Martyn Bell and the Geoff Steele Racing team are confident they have made a step forward with the BMW 320i after a successful test session at Oulton Park.
With a six-week break in racing action in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship for the World Cup, the team elected to go testing with the car to try and dial out some of the issues that have slowed progress in the opening half of the year, with the Barrow-upon-Humber driver pleased with the way the day long session had progressed.
Running on the short Fosters lay-out of the Cheshire circuit, Bell and his team were able to work on the balance of the car and made improvements every time they went out on track – both driver and team happy with the way things had gone.
“It was the first dry testing we have had all year and the car is
transformed,” Bell explained. “We found 4.8seconds from the start of
the session to the end and we are really pleased with that. It’s a big
injection of confidence, the team was happy and smiling and the time on
the watches said it all. While it was on a layout that the BTCC hasn’t
raced on for a while, you can take your times from the start of the
session and times from the end and know it is working.
“The main problem we have had with the car so far has been the balance.
At Brands Hatch, the guys from Dunlop said it looked like the tyres on
the front and the rear were from a different car as the balance was so
far out, but the graining on the tyres now is almost perfect.
“We are now able to make the car work and it is doing what we want it
to do. For example we can induce understeer and oversteer and that is
something that we couldn’t do before. If we have one more session like
that, then we will be a lot happier on race weekends.”
The test also allowed Bell to do more running with his new sequential
gearbox and the improvement over the old H-pattern box was again
obvious.
“We had chance to work on the gearing as that was a bit of a guess at
Thruxton,” he said, “but I’ve told the team that they will take that
gearbox out of the car at their own peril as it’s marvellous. Putting
it in the car is the best thing we ever did. The car is more in-line
weight wise, and now hopefully we can start scratching at the edge of
the top ten. This is all a confidence building exercise and I’m feeling
much more positive looking forward.”
The team now plans to test once more before the resumption of racing at Croft on 15/16 July.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 January 2007 )
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