Harrison impresses in wet conditions at Motorland, Aragon

Bart had never driven Motorland previously, apart from on the simulator, so it was really encouraging to see him achieve P3 in Qualifying 1 ( P5 for race two for his second fastest lap in Q1 ) and P7 in Q2 – this would have been P4 had he not been blocked by another car on his final lap.

Race one brought a frustrating retirement on the first lap when another car left the track and came back on in front of Bart, knocking off his front wing.

Race two on Sunday morning was wet, so Bart had to learn the wet lines during the race. He finished fifth after a reasonably uneventful race.

The consensus was that, despite the rain abating, race three would also be another wet race, but the track was drying, and everyone made a last-minute change to slick tyres on the grid. No sooner had the tyres been changed and the grid cleared of team personnel, than a shower made the track damp again. The cars headed off on the formation lap, tip toeing around and with a couple of cars spinning.

In conversation with his engineer over the radio, Bart decided to head into the pits to change back to wet tyres, rather than take his grid slot for the start. The race started and the field headed off with Bart still in the pits, joining the track almost a minute later. By the five minute mark he was leading the race and pulled out a lead of around thirty seconds. At around twenty minutes, and on a rapidly drying track, his wet tyres started to cry “enough”, and the tables were turned. Over the final few laps, he dropped from first to sixth, helpless to fight back with his rear tyres completely destroyed.

The gamble failed, but it was worth a try and another two or three minutes of drizzle would have brought victory, but it wasn’t to be. Nevertheless, a decent points haul over the event.