Lohen at Donington Park Time Attack Round 6

25 July 2024

All's well that ends well.

Hmm, well, kind of, sometimes. For MINI 227 at Donnington park, spoiler alert, this was not the case. All of the fun was had very much before the end of the day. Everything was going well, there were impressive builds on display for Tunerfest (including a few MINIs), the drifters were creating the atmosphere turning tyres into smoke, and none of the mechanical gremlins that had been an issue at previous rounds for Connor in the R56 were present. Connor having been without ABS for the previous couple of rounds, had dialed in his braking skills without so with Donnington warm up about to commence, he had all the confidence he needed to push the car towards the goal of beating last year's lap time; 1:19.2.

By the end of the warm-up session Connor had achieved a 1:19.3. Straight away going sub 1:20s was a great start and with a few ideas of how to get more from the setup of the car, he took it back into the pits to work on the R56. High speed corners at Donington were giving him too much lean on the tyres so with stiffened front dampers, the R56 was prepared for faster cornering and therefore we expected to see tumbling lap times during the practice session.

And tumble they did. Connor pulled out three personal best laps in a row beating last years lap time with a 1.18.9 followed by two 1:18.7s positioning him in 3rd place. With only 0.66 seconds separating him from 2nd place and 1.2 seconds from first, it looked like a close battle for championship points was in order over the next two sessions.

It was the first few minutes of the qualifying session. Connor set out on lap one to warm up the tyres and prepare for his flying lap. The car was feeling good and Connor was ready to put in a lap. Connor powered through Redgate the first corner and fired round the right hand bend to Crainer Curves. Going flat out down the hill towards Old Hairpin at about 120 miles per hour turning into the high speed bend the car lost traction. A trip over the grass and through the gravel ended with the front end in the tyre barrier. An unwelcome and abrupt end to the session with all the hope of points and podiums gone with it. Connor went straight to the medical centre where he was checked over but fortunately wasn't hurt. The car however had suffered. Once extracted from the barrier the extent of the damage was revealed. When the marshalls were unable to turn the wheels and called for the flatbed truck to load it we knew it wasn't going to be pretty. The bonnet and front bumper were collected from the gravel and looking across from the infield hill, you could see it wasn't exactly going to polish out...

Back in the scrutineering bay where the car had been dropped off, we got a clearer picture of the damage and it was the chassis that had taken the brunt of the impact. The suspension top mounts were visably out of line and it later became apparent that the chassis was both crumpled and twisted.

Everything had been looking promising and the car had the pace to compete. Connor was disappointed with how it had ended particularly when he later found out that someone had spun at the same location on the previous lap and left over dirt and gravel from that incident could have potentially contributed to his loss of traction. This also unfortunately means the Time Attack championship ends here for Connor. There's no reward without risk and that's what makes motorsport the exciting sport we love. Needless to say though, when it doesn't go your way it's difficult to take but it's never long before a racing driver has fresh ideas about racing again. Watch this space. Let's see what happens.

This may be the end of the season for MINI 227 but you'll still see Lohen at the remainder of the Time Attack events, Brands Hatch on the 8th of September and Snetterton on the 20th of October. The Blue R56 Lohen built track car which you can read more about here will be with us along with one or two of our demonstrator cars. It's always good to see MINI drivers at the events so do come and say Hi. If you're part of a MINI club, give us a shout and we'll make sure to get a photo or two of your club. For a run down on the performance parts Connor has been using on his R56 John Cooper Works MINI for Time Attack, take a look through the specifications below.