Dan Cammish:
“It was a real struggle from start to finish. We were fast on Wednesday, and I wish that was it. We were faster on Wednesday morning, after a half an hour of being here, than we were ever since. We’ve fought car issues, we fought probably some driver issues and, to be honest, I think many of our problems are compounded by the fact that we are so slow in a straight line it is laughable. I looked at the data and I blamed myself and there comes a point where you have to think, ‘am I really worse than getting off corners than the amateurs on this grid, when I’ve driven everything under the sun?’
“You start to think maybe not and in race two it was quite clear that we’ve got some serious issues. I’ve just been speaking to my mechanic, and I think we’ve got some kind of failure developing at the rear end, whether it is gearbox related or something. I’m glad I finished, and I got some points, because this weekend was a shocker, so to come away five points behind in the standings and still in it after what could have been, I have got to be happy with that.
“We worked on the car all weekend; the car finished the best it’s been since we got here. We’re doing a great job now through the corner bits, except we are shockingly slow down the straight, and I guarantee if I look at the split sectors, I bet I’m almost slowest over the start / finish, if not the slowest, despite being one of the faster ones around the whole lap. So, there’s something amiss somewhere, and if we can get it sorted, I think we can find our speed again.
“At the end of the day Lorcan Hanafin is the fastest man in this championship right now. Harry King is the best at overtaking and can come forward, Hanafin is the best over one lap and for going off the front, and I’m a little bit of both. I’m not so bad at coming forward and I’m not so bad over the one lap bit. I feel like I am kind of in between right now.
“I think we’ve been up against it. I’ve not come away with a win or too many points and trophies, but I’ve steadied the ship and on your bad days, you got to steady the ship. I’m racking up points, I’m right there, and this championship still has got a long way to go.”
Dan Cammish scored a strong haul of points to keep his Porsche Carrera Cup GB championship aspirations on track, despite battling a developing mechanical fault all weekend at Knockhill in Scotland.
Ahead of the visit north, the Duckhams Oils and Porsche Centre Preston-backed driver sat joint second in the championship standings, just one point behind leader Kiern Jewiss and level with Lorcan Hanafin, with more than half the season still to run.
Dan and his Redline Racing team had a day’s test at the venue on Wednesday, August 11th, where he was second quickest. However, during practice on Friday, Dan was only sixth and seventh fastest in the two sessions, leaving him and the team wondering where they were losing time.
Qualifying a disappointing sixth, he got ahead of Will Martin in the opening 32-lap contest but was frustratingly stuck behind Jewiss, finally making his way past with a solid move on lap 17 to gain fourth place, though ran out of time to catch Lewis Plato ahead for the podium.
Lining up third on the partially reversed grid for race two, Dan slotted held his position, once again behind Jewiss, before losing a spot to Plato when trying to claim second and then to Harry King.
With the Safety Car called when Nathan Harrison’s machine spectacularly dropped oil and caught on fire out of the chicane, Jewiss retired with damage, promoting Dan to fourth and he made an excellent late, opportunist pass on Plato for third, when he was trying to get past Martin.
Post-race investigations indicate that there is a problem, possibly in the gearbox of his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car, underlining what a good job he did to finish with a strong haul of points, especially on a weekend where his title rivals faltered.
There is now a five-week break in Porsche Carrera Cup GB action, before the series enters a busy second half, starting at Croft in Yorkshire over the weekend of September 18/19, kicking off a run of eight races across four meetings in five weeks, before the 2021 champion is crowned.