UWR Supporter update for weekend 11/12 August

Thank you for your continuing support of the UWR team. August has continued to be a busy time for the students and staff of the University racing team, with two sets of Morgan events and the F3 team heading to Snetterton looking to catch up on the championship leader.

AR Morgan Challenge Despite the best efforts of Craig Hamilton-Smith at Silverstone and Mallory Park, Tony Hirst continues to dominate the class with P1’s in all three races across the two weekends. However, it’s much more nip-tuck than the points table would indicate, with just 0.25 of a second separating Hirst and Hamilton-Smith in qualifying at Silverstone. Rich Woollard, Head Student Engineer on the UWR Morgan team recently joked about needing to issue team orders, but there’s no doubt that the battle between the two drivers and their student teams is getting closer with every round.

Race 1 at Silverstone hinged around traffic, with Hirst evading a group of slower cars to take the P1 in class (12th overall) while Hamilton-Smith got bogged down in the group, hindering his progress and leading to that P2 in class (15th overall).

Race 2 at Silverstone, the Techniques Trophy, meant a very tight turnaround for the student engineers as they raced against the clock to prepare both cars for the grid. The result was much closer, with Hirst finishing P1 in class (11th overall) to Hamilton-Smith’s P2 in class (12th overall) by just eight tenths of a second. Despite placing second to Hirst once again, Hamilton-Smith had something to celebrate – he’d set the fastest lap in class by 0.01 of a second! Well done Craig.

At Mallory Park the following weekend, the student engineers wrestled with mechanical issues with HamiltonSmith’s car, but the problems were minor and both Club Sports completed a solid qualifying session. 

Another close race ensued, with Hamilton-Smith once again setting the fastest lap in class, this time by a much more comfortable margin of half a second, but Hirst held on to take P1 in class (8th overall), fractionally ahead of HamiltonSmith’s P2 in class (9th overall). Despite Hirst’s championship dominance, Hamilton-Smith is improving with every race and we look forward to the final races of the season at Snetterton in September!

British Hillclimb After some early season engine trouble, it’s great to see Hillclimb driver Graham Wynn back in action, supported by the students and staff of UWR. Graham and his 700bhp Gould were in action at Shelsey Walsh, with the help of engineering students Jack and Dan. Over two days of Hillclimb action, Graham took 1st in Class on Saturday and Sunday, setting the fastest time of the weekend in the process. It’s great to have you back Graham.

F3 Cup After some mechanical issues at Silverstone, Oulton park had gotten the racing wolves back in the hunt for their first driver championship. The team, lead by chief student engineer Katie, travelled the 150+ miles to Snetterton and got stuck into testing for the coming three races. Weather conditions were variable, going from warm and dry to wet every few hours, but driver and team responded well to the variables and headed into qualifying feeling good.

Sadly, a battery failure meant that during qualifying the Dallara F308 lost significant power and Shane Kelly was forced to retire from the session, traffic and time preventing him from putting in the hot laps needed to qualify at the front of the grid. Starting from 6th for Race 1 and 2 would be a challenge, but every point counts when the championship is so tightly contested.

Despite good pace, with a replaced battery fixing the mechanical issue from qualifying, the UWR team weren’t able to make much of the first two races, with 5th place finishes keeping the team in the points. But at no stage did the team’s head’s drop, remaining focussed for the final race of the weekend.

Starting from 5th on the grid, Kelly made a brave move off the line, attempting to slip between wall and drivers, gaining one place and challenging for 3rd, before running out of room. Despite a gap of only 0.2s between Kelly and
3rd placed man Bishop, the racing adage of passing being much harder than catching proved true once again as the UWR team had to settle for 4th place.

To add to the frustrations of Snetterton, Kelly has again slipped into 3rd place in the drivers championship, but only by 5 points, and the racing wolves are only 32 points behind the leader, Cian Carey. With some luck and some hard work (and an extra testing session at Rockingham!) there’s still time for our students to claim the championship.

Other UWR news New Sponsors supporting UWR We are delighted to welcome two new sponsors to UWR. Thank you so much for all of your support. We can only compete, and provide fantastic “real world” experience for our students with your help.

ActionPlas Welcome to Chris Wray and ActionPlas Ltd. Based in Leeds, ActionPlas is one fo the UK’s leading speciality machinists and suppliers of plastics using CNC and conventional machinery to supply plastic components to the food & drink, automotive, pharmaceutical and print industries.

Specsavers Telford Welcome too to Riz Makda and Specsavers Telford. Based in the Southwater Shopping Centre, Riz and his team of opticians and audiologists are all set to look after our students and keep them sharp through their studies and at the track.

Zuri Coffee Welcome too to Sham Sharma and Zuri Coffee. Serving great coffee and Indian street food in the heart of Wolverhampton, Zuri is a great place to go for a caffeine recharge on a long day.

UWR on tour The cars aren’t only for racing, they’re a vital part of our recruitment to the School of Engineering. We’re always looking out for places we can meet the public to promote the STEM and WISE agendas, as well as ensure your logos are seen by even more people. To drive awareness in the local area, we’re visiting the Southwater Shopping Centre in Telford. If you know of a place that might benefit from a visit from UWR, please do let us know.