Thanks for everything!
Silverstone, England (November 7, 2010) – It was a good weekend and it ended really well. I qualified second for the heat race and finished third. I then started in P7 for the Semi Final race and finished third, which meant that for the final race I started fifth and ultimately ended up fourth. The car was the best it had ever been all weekend. It was unfortunate that the leaders had slipped away when I was trying to pass Mike Vergers, but once I got it done, they had already gained two or three seconds on me. I gained some time when I got past into fourth place, but not enough...
This has been one of the best months of my life. I really have enjoyed the time here in England. From the moment I walked out of the plane I knew I was going to have an amazing month. First off I would like to thank Jeremy Shaw and everyone involved in the Team USA scholarship for giving me this opportunity and Cliff Dempsey himself and everybody at Cliff Dempsey Racing. They truly have done the best job and are the best hosts for the Scholarship program. They have taken us in like family and I really enjoy spending time with everybody at Cliff Dempsey Racing. I’ve probably never laughed so much before! This has been an incredible experience. I am really grateful for this opportunity.
Felix
An amazing month
Silverstone (November 6, 2010) – My third week in England has been really fun. We have been touring around Lola Cars, iSport International, Jaguar (RIGHT, with a very cool XJ), Fortec Motorsports, McLaren, Status GP and Cosworth. It has been a truly amazing month and I am very fortunate to have had this opportunity.
My favorite highlight so far is to have toured the McLaren Technical Center and seeing my hero Ayrton Senna’s cars! I even got to touch his tire! hahaha...
We are here at Silverstone this week for the Walter Hayes Trophy. The conditions have been pretty tricky in testing but I think we have a chance to run at the front. The track is very different from Brands Hatch. It’s very slippy in the wet and it’s a really fast slipstream track.
My qualifying is up next this morning at 11:20-11:30 and the race is at 4:00.
We’ll see how it goes!
Felix
The education continues
Corby, England (October 29, 2010) – So far England has been a lot of fun. I have spent almost two weeks with Cliff Dempsey’s team helping out at the shop and with my car, which is finally back in one piece as of yesterday. Peter and Cliff have been really great trying to put it back together and I can hardly wait for the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone next weekend.
Yesterday we had a tour of Lola Cars and iSport International. They were both very interesting. I learned a lot about Lola and how they are also involved in aerospace, defense and other communication and advanced technology. Sam Smith gave us the our and showed us everything! Well, almost everything; there were a few secret projects that we weren’t allowed to see! haha. It was great to finally see what wind tunnel looks like but it was unfortunate that we didn’t get to see it working because they were doing some maintenance on the 45 percent-scale tunnel. Another cool thing we saw was the seven-post test rig! The engineers even demonstrated a lap around Silverstone, which was really cool.
Later that day we visited iSport International, a GP2 racing team that has won championships with Timo Glock and Davide Valsecchi. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the cars because they had already been packed up and sent away for the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi. Still, it was great to meet with Paul Jackson the team principal. He took us around the shop and showed us their simulator, some new parts of the 2011 car which had just been delivered and some of the crates that they use to transport the cars around the world. They were both great experiences and really gave us a good insight into the higher levels of the sport.
Felix
A different animal
Corby, England (October 22, 2010) – Today was the day that we got to drive the Duratec car and it was completely different to what I expected. The car has so much more power so it was very fast on the straightaways but it felt completely different when we got to the corners!
It was a perfect day for testing, with dry and sunny conditions, and we had no mechanical issues at all. The day was even better because Scott Malvern, the British Formula Ford Championship runner-up this year, came down to help us out. It was great to have him around.
I ran the first two morning sessions of the Brands Hatch open testing day, and I took my time to get used to the car because it felt completely different to the Kent car. It moved around a lot under braking and was very challenging in the fast corners like Paddock Hill Bend. I expected it would have more grip but to me it felt that the Kent car had better traction through the middle of the corner. I thought maybe it was just me who felt the difference between the grip levels of the Kent car and the Duratec, but Scott Malvern also believed that the Kent cars are better through the corners. So I wasn’t crazy!
The day went super well and had no “offs” or any scary moments. I’m really glad I got to drive the car, and I really want to thank Cliff Dempsey, our mechanic for the day Peter Dempsey and Jeremy Shaw for putting this together to let us test the Duratec car. Thank you all.
Felix
Next, the Duratec
Corby, England (October 20, 2010) – I have spent this week with Cliff, Michelle and Peter Dempsey, helping out at their shop. They are truly great people; I don’t think I have ever laughed so much in my life these past few days!
On Monday morning we finished loading up our bags and headed to Corby in the truck. When we arrived Cliff took me to the Best Western Hotel so I could check in and leave my bags, and the three of us went out for dinner. Tuesday morning me and Peter got picked up by Cliff and headed to their shop. We spent the whole day unpacking the truck and trailer and stripping my car that was badly damaged at the Festival. We first removed the engine, then all the suspension parts. After that we went more into detail removing all the body panels and the stainless steel floor. We cleaned the whole car with some petrol and removed all the left-over gravel stones. Later on we removed, cut and tie-wrapped all the cables that were loose to make it easier for Gavin, from RaySport, to work on the car.
On Thursday, after breakfast with Cliff, Michelle and Peter, we headed off to Croydon to take the Ray GR08 chassis to Gavin Ray’s shop so that it could be fixed. It was a great experience to get to see where the Ray cars are made! I learned some more information about the car and the new things they are planning to do for 2011. It was definitely worth the two-and-a-half-hour drive!
It was a long way but worth it. Tomorrow we are going to get the Duratec car ready for testing at Brands Hatch on Friday. I can’t wait to drive Scott Malvern’s car! I know its going to be great fun!
Felix
That's Racing!
Corby, England (October 18, 2010) – Well, it was a very unfortunate weekend for me, but that’s racing! You’re going to have good ones...and a lot of bad ones! But overall the experience has been great. Cliff Dempsey Racing has done an outstanding job and I have really enjoyed these past few days with them. I learned a whole lot in the races, the competition was incredible and you really have to earn your spot while passing others; they give no space to anybody!
After my unfortunate mistake in the first heat race, which I fully take blame for, I felt terribly sorry for Spencer. It was an honest mistake...
Cliff Dempsey supplied me with another car that arrived around 10:00pm that night, and I ended up staying late helping out all the crew strip my badly damaged car and prep the other car for the next morning. After a long night, the morning felt even longer, because we had to get signatures from all the drivers so that I would be allowed to use the new car and race. James Beckett helped out on all that and I really am grateful that he made it happen. So a BIG THANKS to him from me!
Once we got the all the signatures sorted it was right into the race. I only had about five minutes after the good news had come! I started in the back of the pack and by lap two I had already gotten up to 10th place and was catching the lead pack. Unfortunately, one of the plug leads slipped off and I was only running on three cylinders and fell back to 14th place which ended my chances of getting into the Final early on. Luckily, I had one more opportunity in the Last Chance race, which I ended up winning.
The Final only lasted half a lap, during which I got up to 15th before getting contact and ending my race. But I was really happy that I did make it to the Final; that was my main goal. Winning the Last Chance races was a bonus for me. I really want to thank Cliff Dempsey himself and ALL the mechanics, for all their help and for a great weekend, even though it was bad for me.
After a long day, I stayed over and helped all the mechanics load up the truck, which took about four hours. We finished up by 11:00pm and went off to the Kentagon to grab something to eat with all the crew.
After that we went to the Thistle – the hotel where Spencer and I were staying, right on the track – and spent the rest of the night with all the guys from Cliff Dempsey Racing and a couple of other drivers and crew members that I met from the Duratec class, including the Festival winner Dennis Lind.
Now I’m off with Cliff, Michelle and Peter Dempsey to Corby to spend the week helping out before testing the Duratec Formula Ford car this coming Friday.
Special Thanks to Cliff Dempsey Racing and James Beckett for everything!
Felix
Feeling Good!
Brands Hatch, England (October 15, 2010) -- The past couple of days have been amazing! I am really loving it here in England and Cliff Dempsey has done an incredible job.
The testing has been very productive and helpful for me. Every time that I have been out in practice, I just keep learning more and more about the car and the track. The track is very fun and tricky in some corners. My favorite corner by far is Paddock Hill. To me it sort of looks like Road Atlanta Turn One, but in the opposite direction! At first it was a little scary but after a couple laps around the track it just feels awesome when you get it just right; you can flow amazing speeds through there.
Everybody at Cliff Dempsey Racing is very friendly and fun to be around. I have definitely had some good laughs with everybody – they all feel like a family already! The other two drivers in the team running in the Duratec class are also very friendly – Cormac O’Neil and Scott Malvern. They’ve also been helping me out, giving me pointers and useful information about the track and the car.
Today was the last day of practice. It was a bit wet in the morning session but I still managed to put some fast times. It was good that we got to see how the track was in the wet line.
The last session we did was dry, but since the weekend has now officially started traffic has become a problem even though we were running with the Duratec cars. They always wanted to get by in the worst places, which hurt us trying to get a single clean fast lap. The day ended in a good note, though. I know I am fast and the car is good! Qualifying is tomorrow at 9:50am, and I’m feeling very comfortable with the car. I think I can qualify inside the top five. Hopefully all goes well!
Felix
First Impressions
Brands Hatch, England (October 12, 2010) – Ever since the announcement at Road Atlanta I could barely get to sleep at night because I was so excited and anxious to head over to England. It was a long flight here from Florida, and as soon as I stepped out of the plane I could already feel the weather, COLD!! And I only had a light sweater. [I warned him! - Jeremy]
After Spencer and I picked up all our luggage, Cliff Dempsey picked us up and my first view of England was from the back of Cliff's car in the trunk! Ha-ha! We had two big suitcases, so I had to scrunch up in the trunk with all the luggage while Cliff and Spencer sat all comfortable in the front of the car. I didn’t mind; I was so excited to be in England!
We then went to the Brands Hatch track and the British Touring cars were here among a lot of other series. This was just unbelievable; those cars are so fast! And while we were at the track, Spencer and I went around and met some people including Carl Breeze, who drives the No. 3 Ginetta G50 Cup car, and Colin Mann, who is the PR Manager for Brands Hatch. In all, it was an amazing day!
The next day, after we got to sleep in, both me and Spencer went to the gym and worked out for a while before the rest of the team arrived at the track with the truck and the race cars. We then met up with them and went to get our seat fitting and adjust the belts so we were comfortable in the cars.
Tuesday was our first day out on the track. The test session went green at around 9 am, and the first laps were very fun. The elevation changes are just incredible. Paddock Hill is my favorite corner at Brands Hatch! We got at least 100 or more laps in today [actually 195 each - Ed] and only had a few mechanical issues that were resolved easily and quickly. We still have three more testing days, so by the end of the week im pretty confident we will be running at the top of the charts!
This is a great opportunity and I am very grateful to have the chance to do this. Thanks to Jeremy Shaw, Cliff Dempsey, Team USA Scholarship and all the sponsors!
Felix Serralles
