Halfords Yuasa Racing’s Dan Cammish set the fastest time in the first free practice session at Donington Park, but believes there is still lots of learning for him and the team to do if they are to stay at the top.
The two-time Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion has shown flashes of pace in the new Honda Civic Type R FK8, but had mixed fortunes at Brands Hatch last time out.
He topped a wet opening practice session at Leicestershire’s Donington Park with a time of 1:19.925, just 0.027 ahead of Josh Cook’s Vauxhall Astra.
“It is only FP1 and it is wet,” Cammish told TouringCars.Net. “It’s not a bad start. Obviously to top a session is still nice, as a team we’re still learning – it’s a new car to all of us, not just myself.
“We’re just learning the way, and understanding what works for us. I’m in a great place with Dynamics, these guys have seen it all and done it all.
“So I’m pretty sure that we’ll turn a corner with the car and get it where we need to be. It’s a strong start and we’re going to have to improve on that if we want to stay there for the end of the day.”
With the weather looking consistently wet for the remainder of the day, Cammish believes more improvements must be made for him to stay at the sharp end.
“We’ve obviously got a bit of a baseline that we know works, we tried a few things that maybe didn’t work,” said Cammish. “We’ve got to look at the data now and assess that, what those changes did and what effect they had.
“On the whole it was a positive session, it’s a good baseline starting point to work on. I think its going to be a pretty consistent day, it looks set for the day. So at least we can actually do some proper testing as opposed to throwing slicks on it.”
After a technical infringement stripped Cammish of a debut pole position at Brands Hatch three weeks ago, he is eager to show his pace in this afternoon’s qualifying session.
“It was a shame about Brands, but obviously here it’s wet,” he said. “If we can repeat it brilliant, if we can’t then we just learn. That’s all we can do. We’ve started well, obviously I’d like to be somewhere near the front like I always do. Doesn’t matter what it’s in I just want to be near the front.”
“Obviously qualifying is the part where it’s you against everybody else. Racing is something else, racing is a skillset, qualifying is a skillset. The qualifying skillset is something that I already have, it’s not something I really need to work on.
“It’s obviously part of the weekend that I enjoy because it’s quite pure in a way, it’s just can you get the best out of the car and it’s always been a buzz for me to do that.”