Nathan Freke was again competing in the Ginetta G50 Cup series, as it moved to the Norfolk circuit, Snetterton, after a summer break and all the drivers were keen to get back on track.

Nathan did get a podium finish in the last race but was disappointed in the other two races, particularly after Friday’s free practice things had been looking good. As Nathan commented “With a new engine in for Friday I was uncertain about how quick we would be but things soon sorted themselves out and I ended up quickest on the Friday - things were looking great until the last lap of the test where i had an electrical issue…. at first it seemed to be a niggle but after further investigation the problem appeared to be far more severe than first thought.After no success in pin pointing the problem the decision was made to run the car without any warnings on the dash and more importantly no flat shift.” 

There were two races on the Saturday and in race 1 Nathan battled up to 4^th position but the lack of his normal flat shift, meant he had to briefly come off the throttle with changing gear. This meant he was losing momentum down the straights, but his race craft kept him ahead of some of his rivals at the flag.

In the 2^nd of two races he had a great start off his grid position of 4^th to be on the tail of his main rival (Breeze) by the 1^st corner and he battled to stay in that position for the majority of the race. Keeping ahead of his rivals with great positioning of his car at both the Esses and Russell Chicane, until late in the race when he had a broken rear suspension bush which put him off in a spin, resulting in a dissapointing 9^th place finish, and not the podium his superior driving had deserved. As Nathan commented “A bad finish to a bad day!”

Sunday was only scheduled for one race - with the same issue still hounding us the team moral was low. After a fuel consumption test of the Saturday race we discovered that the car had used 7 gallons of fuel over 18 laps, some 3 gallons more than it should have. The electrical problem has worsened and was causing the engine to massively over fuel. Not only was this adding to my lack of pace it was also putting the engine at risk of failure due to fuel contaminated oil. The Ginetta support crew were on hand all weekend to assist the best they could with the problem and taking into account our budget restrictions very kindly offered to help me out for the final race. With a new ECU and wiring loom on the car the problem was solved and suddenly the 3rd race was looking a little more promising! starting 5th once more I managed to get another good start and grabbed 3rd at the first possible opportunity - unfortunately I couldn’t make any inroads into the leaders gap and had a pretty solo race but was glad to be back on the podium and to get back down to some good pace. At the end of the weekend Nathan said “With the issue we were faced with on Friday I think that we did well to get the results we did - the championship lead I had has been greatly reduced but I’m still positive and know that now all the problems are sorted I can get back to winning ways at Knockhill. I would like to thank the support of my team, main sponsors EOS Productions, and Hows My Driving” Picture and words by Chris Roberts / WiderViewPhoto