Dijon - Sunday

Another lovely morning at Dijon, although when my brother got up to run two laps of the circuit I decided that lovely as it might be I didn't need to 'tire myself out before my race'! Iain went with him but only did one lap - lightweight! About the time David would have been starting his second lap I put the croissants and pains au chocolate in the oven to warm up!

Our race was early today, so we were in the assembly area before ten. Lots of banter, especially after such a jolly night in the paddock! With John Chisholm getting called up out of the reserves all four of the FJs in Camp Delta were ready for action. To remind you of the situation, in my class I was lying in second position, and had 'fluked' a whole lap's advantage over Kim. Kim's gearbox had been out and in again so they could sort his clutch issue. Charles was out of the running for a result having retired after just one lap yesterday, but he was sorted again and ready to give chase to John Delane for class honours in today's race. Kim should be quicker than me, but basically I just needed to keep an eye on the gap to him and ensure we finished close enough together.

Another shambolic gridding up, I'm not sure why some people find it hard to work out where they should be going ... And the marshals were there to point us all in the right direction anyway. It was so shambolic that they ended up with 'Start Delayed' and a whole new start procedure, with a second green flag lap, although some obviously didn't see the safety car pull back out of the pitlane to lead us around, so they thought this was the race start and set off like scalded rabbits, only to fall back into line some time later when they realised their error! I thought the second attempt was about to go the same way, but they put the lights out and we all floored it!

Interesting first lap, which had me up onto Kim's tail, but then the faster cars started to pull away, and Kim just eased out a lead on me. I'd asked the chaps to give me a pitboard indicating the gap to Kim so that I would know what was going on, and over the next few laps he eased a few seconds ahead, but not at a rate that was concerning me. I had a fun chase behind Eric Justesen in his U2 in Class B2, I was a touch quicker round the twisty back of the circuit, but he had more horsepower to draw away each time on the straight. Sadly he ended up ploughing headlong into the gravel eventually, which I gathered later was as a result of his differential locking up - rather pleased that didn't happen in different circumstances as we'd been pretty close together at times...

After maybe 9 or 10 laps Manfredo Rossi the race leader came up to lap me, usually the front of FJ races is pretty well contested, but he was alone and I let him by quickly, if he was going to lap me, I wanted him to get up the road and also lap Kim, otherwise the tables could be turned on me! It became irrelevant as my pitboard told me that I was closing on Kim now, I assumed that the traffic lapping him was slowing him down, but when I got on his tail with about half a lap to the finish he put up no resistance and I swept by. Yee haa - chequered flag, second in class again. Turns out that Kim had a recurrence of yesterday's slipping clutch. My car has been great, although I've had to manage my desire to chuck it around after the earlier gearbox issue, but I love this circuit, more power would be great, but it's huge fun.

Second in class gives me 8 more points, taking my total to 32 from the 4 rounds so far. 3 more rounds to go, but only the best 6 results count. John Delane had a good battle with Charles today, taking several laps to re-take the lead, but he had an easy class win overall, so he's now just 2 points behind me. Andrew Tart won Class B2 again, so he too is now just 2 points behind. Beyond that I haven't worked out what the points table will look like, but with 4 different winners from 4 races in the most competitive and highly populated Class E1 no-one will be running away with it. For the record, Manfredo Rossi took the win, with John Fyda second and Tommasso Gelmini third.

As you know I had expected to leave here no longer leading the championship, but when we roll on to the Nurburgring after a seven week break I will still be out front! In between now and then, Iain will give the car a major strip down, the bodywork will be painted, the engine will go to Swiftune for a refresh, and the gearbox will go some place too. Got to keep him and the boys at Delta busy, they have nothing else to work on (err, dear reader, you won't pick up the irony there, his whole team is flat out, but he assured me this work can and will get done in time!)

Been a great weekend, I love the circuit and the atmosphere it generates in the paddock, all very social, exactly what European racing is all about. Many thanks to Iain and Mike Bell for their work on the car, to my brother for lots of stuff, and all those that helped out with the BBQ on Friday, or in some way contributed to my enjoyment of the weekend. Great to catch up with loads of people or meet new ones and actually have a chance to chat for a change.

Oh, and did I mention that I met Brian Johnson!