Starting out from base at 5am, the weather was mild and dry and the journey to Longcross was uneventful until we got within five miles of the venue when the dawn was split open by a huge fork of lightning. Then it started to rain..and rain...and rain! By the time we had scrutineered the car, everything, including all the team were soaked to the skin.
Undeterred and buoyed from the previous weeks test, we started Stage 1 in three or four inches of standing water. After about a mile third gear decided to lunch itself, game over.
The cause could be one of several things but the end result is that a sequential gearbox with a missing gear means retire or risk putting the pieces through the casing and for the Renault, the casing is the only thing that is no longer available.
This was the first time that we had used our paddle shift gearchange in anger and on our test day and on the rolling road it had been superb. Theories abound but on previous occasions we had been changing gear at max revs and down-changing with the engine singing. In the rain we were much more circumspect and we were often aquaplaning making the engine pick up revs, just when we didn't want to. Maybe it didn't like the hesitation and rev changes. Alternatively, we were not convinced that the engine cut on the up-change and "blip" on the downchange have been timed correctly, so a sensor has been installed to measure the exact point of engagement and we have slowed the paddle action down within the MoTeC dash until we get our heads around the cause.
Maybe the 'box just wanted to break but the result was the same and we went home wet and cheesed off.
Don't believe it was wet? Try this:
Or this:
Photos on this one courtesy of John Houghton
Next up is Rockingham for a pre-Xmas blast but "engine-out" is first - again!
Malcolm, (my Financial Controller) says I can afford this rallying lark - but not if I keep breaking gearboxes!