This weekend was planned to be a challenge for Forster Motorsport and their chance to prove their paces with confident knowledge of the F1 Northampton based circuit.
With appreciation of some local support on set up, the team was hopeful this was going to be the weekend of the season. Which it was for a while. The team saw both Martin and Arthur get quicker on pace within Free Practice 1 with both hitting the 1.03’s .Free practice 2 was now targeted to get quicker. Arthur Forster now feeling assured and understanding his set up much better than before, started making impressive improvements consistently hitting the 1.02’s in FP2.
A spin from Martin though saw him suffer a hard impact from the tyre wall at Becketts, retiring him from FP2. The team worked immediately at speed for the next 1hr and 40mins to get him back out for qualifying, but agreed with the BTCC officials that for safety it was felt best to make sure time was taken to get this car back on track so qualifying was missed. Martin Depper was to start now on the back of the grid.
Arthur Forster now having identified some set up changes and had made some adjustments during qualifying, showed him much quicker than practice, when he achieved his fastest lap of the day on lap 12. He would start his Race in P18.
A long night and hard working from the team saw others show admiration that Forster Motorsport was able to get Martins car looking as new for the Sunday Race day.
Race 1 - With Martin not having near as most track time, sat apprehensive and motivated of what this race was going to entail. Lap after lap both cars mixed with fellow drivers Martin Johnson and John George, when Arthur pulled a brave manoeuvre to take place in front of George at Copse. Martin Depper closely behind on lap 16 took in front of Martin Johnson. Having now got to the last section of the race with tyres wearing and cars taking more to handle unfortunately took Arthur & Martin into finishing in P19 & P 20. Although this result both drivers enjoyed the battles and where now feeling the competitive streak.
Race 2 – Martin & Arthur took this race with great starts plummeting into the grips of the rest of this competitive field. The first corner saw carnage of avoidance when Rob Collard & Andy Neate took a hit. With every precaution the Forster Motorsport team was soon around the incident and on their way. Lap 21 saw the drivers up together in their best joint results so far in P14 & P15 when Arthur’s drive shalf broke on the last lap resulting him having to retire. Martin delighted with his result took the flag in P15.
Race 3 – And not such the start Martin would of hoped for, with P15 under his belt his aspirations were high to get into the top ten. When a stalled start from the Chevrolet car of Alex Macdowell saw Martin take extreme avoidance but it wasn’t enough, he crashed into the back of Macdowell which consequence in retirement. But luckily he escaped from this major impact unharmed.
Arthur now under Safety car, sat in the mix of the most experienced including Macdowells fellow team mate Jason Plato. The team having advised Arthur whom was behind him made caution that Jason would take a storm of a re-start. Which he did, and Arthur whilst trying to hold onto his top tenth place, and with grease on the track from the unfortunate retirement of Lea Woods, took a slide. This showed him lose power and time putting him back places whereby he achieved a result of P16.
Now the team after having a closer look at Martin Depper’s car, have identified a lot of repair work to do. This means the team will have unfortunately had to withdraw from competing at the forth coming round at Knockhill. Rest assured though this new team will be out fighting with hope to show improvement with pace and results at the remaining rounds thereafter.
