Will Aspin satisfied with pace and performance after tricky Knockhill weekend
Will Aspin headed to Knockhill in Scotland at the weekend (August 11-13) to open the second half of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB season, showing strong pace in challenging weather conditions.
The Italian/British teenager built up the speed and performance in his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car through an official test at the 1.3-mile circuit on Wednesday, before two more practice sessions on Friday, ahead of qualifying.
Qualifying itself was a short-lived affair as far as the grid order went, as after around ten minutes of dry running, rain moved back in and ensured no drivers would improve their lap times. Unfortunately for Will, traffic was an issue, meaning he wasn’t able to set a representative time, finishing seventh in the Pro-Am class.
Starting race one well in dry conditions on Sunday morning, he was having a solid contest, but lost his front splitter which, while a small part of the car, provides lots of front downforce and grip. With that hampering his performance on the undulating track, he did well to maintain position, finishing where he started.
Ahead of race two, the heavens opened once again, but with the track then quickly drying out, it proved a challenge for all the field as they found their wet tyres fading on the drying tarmac. Will had a strong start, moving his way forward and into a battle for the Pro-Am podium spots.
Coming out on top, he moved into second place and was looking comfortable for some silverware, before he was caught up in an unfortunate moment at the hairpin. Running behind teammate and Pro class competitor Hugo Ellis, the pair came on a backmarker who lost control, collected Hugo, and left Will with nowhere to go. Able to get going again, sadly he fell down the order and crossed the line tenth at the flag.
There will be a chance to bounce right back for Will in his Attis Sport Division liveried Porsche, as he will head to the Donington Park Grand Prix circuit in two weeks’ time, for rounds 11 and 12 of the season.
Will Aspin
G1 – 7, R1 – 7
G2 – 7, R2 – 10
Championship: 5 (36 points)
“On Wednesday we were building up to it, getting faster every session. Going into Friday, I had a lot of confidence in the car and myself. Practice one, considering we were on old tyres, was good. Practice two was really good – we finished seventh, two tenths off Adam [Smalley - Team Parker Racing teammate], which was a comparable time because everything was similar setup - and tyre-wise.
“Coming into qualifying I had good confidence. It started off dry and we were on slicks, so we only had three push laps, and all those except one I was blocked by traffic. That was a 'what could have been,' session, as I certainly could have gone a lot better than 15th overall. In the wet in qualifying, we were strong, second fastest, and just a tenth off Adam, which was good.
“In race one we just needed to make our way forwards and unfortunately, I lost the splitter. I'm disappointed with that but you can't really do much without it as it gives you a lot of downforce. Race two was very good. I had a slight bit of contact because the field bunched up and it was very, very hard to stop the car.
“After that we were going well, and I managed to get up to P2 in Pro-Am. Unfortunately, Hugo Ellis was trying to overtake an Am and the Am lit up his wheels, hit Hugo, and I went into both. It's unfortunate, but these things happen. It showed how good our performance is and we can leave confident in what we've done and move onto the next race at Donington. We can't think about the championship, we've just got to do our best and finish as high as we can every race.”