Round Three: British Summer Time

Rockingham Motor Speedway, situated just outside Corby, a place not normally associated with violent storms, until today.

Many still fondly regard an English June as flaming, but when I arrive at the circuit on Friday morning, the reality of “summer” 2012 is a race paddock driven almost to chaos as heavy rain and high winds whip through the awnings. Rockingham is styled after the oval tracks popular in the American mid-West and aptly, this feels like the UK version of a “Kansan twister”.

It’s cold too, with the thermometer stuck on 12 and a wind chill factor sufficent to force the KPM technicians to abandon their Team issue shorts in favour of winter testing kit (note for racing fashion fans: grey woolly hats, hoodies and cargo pants in black, free choice of trainer). But style takes a back seat as right now they’re locked in a battle to secure the awning in the teeth of the gale.

They succeed, and in the afternoon we “enjoy” a wet test on what I’m certain is England’s slippiest track. The best we can say is that it has been good practice if it is to rain on Sunday...