Brendan's Blog from M-Sport, 12 March, 2011

Brendan's Blog from M-Sport, 12 March, 2011

The past two days Rhi and I have taken part in the first WRC Academy training camp. The first day covered much of what we learnt back in Spain in October 2010 but I still found it very valuable refreshing our minds and being able to work more in the areas of media, sports science, goals and career plans. The sessions were split into modules and developed by Elite Sports Performance. Robert Reid, 2001 World Rally Champion Co-Driver was excellent in teaching goals and career plans as he has already done what Rhi and I are working towards achieving.

Today (Friday) was all about learning our new team with M-Sport and also the R2 cars inside and out. We first went to Kirkbride airport where there were two new Fiesta R2’s waiting for us to have a drive of. Niall McShea, former PWRC Champion, was our instructor and I got 20 minutes driving with him on the tarmac stage. It was a very simple stage with long straights and two tight turns but was a quick shake down and another chance of driving and feeling the car. I was a little anxious with the gear changing at the start as it’s a sequential box and if you rest your hand on the gear stick it's very touchy. By the end, though, I was changing very positively and selecting up and down very smoothly. The change light in the R2 is set at 8,300rpm so the cars do rev hard but when changing down, if you go too quick once on the brakes, you can easily over rev.

 

In the afternoon we went back to M-Sport headquarters and went through a technical briefing about the R2 Fiestas. This was great as each time I have driven the cars it's been a rush and I've just jumped in to drive when I didn’t really know all the details of the car. We got a booklet that I can now study before my test next week in Spain that has all the finer details and that will allow for quick thinking in my first rally in Portugal when things are really heating up!
We finished the day off with a tyre changing competition. We could only use a wheel brace and had to start in the car belted up and with both hands on the steering wheel. We planned our change well with Rhi operating the jack and myself on the wheel brace. We were back in the car in 2m45, the second quickest time of the 19 crews.

Now we are back in our motel about to go out for a quick bite to eat. We have an early flight to London then it's off to Finland for our Snow School.  Oh I forgot to say it snowed today!

Cheers, Brendo