ROLEX 24 AT DAYTONA 2007
Thursday practice/qualifying - 25 January

"If you'd asked me at the start of the day whether it was good or bad, there would probably have only been one answer. Fortunately it wouldn't have been the same response 12 hours later.

"Thursday didn't start as well as it might due to heavy rain and very cold weather conditions - definitely not what we were expecting from Sunny Florida. On track, in the Howard Motorsports/Dyson Racing #16 car, we've been having electrical issues following the engine change from Pontiac to Porsche, especially with the gearshift and gear cut. By the end of the daylight running, neither Guy nor I had driven.

"Rob did a really good job in the rain this morning, coming 10th, so we're praying for rain! It's very slippery out there on these Hoosier tyres. Andy Wallace reckoned these particular ones for this weekend's race were made back in January 2006…if you get on the white lines on the banking your car will spin, no question.

"Rob did qualifying and, to be honest, we kind of hoped he wouldn't be in the top 20 so we can get some more track time tomorrow. That was how it turned out.

"This evening the circuit was dry and I started the session. The car was very driveable and user friendly which was a great start. The Pontiac engine, compared with the Porsche, are very different and the Pontiac has lots of torque and really pulls off the corners whereas the Porsche is higher revving, doesn't have as much torque but its power is far higher up in the rev range. You have to work the engine much harder to get the same performance.

"Balance wise the car hasn't got any really nasty traits and we just spent the session tuning the car, trying to improve the traction, and going up and down on the aero balance to see how much wing we need to run to be both comfortable but not too slow on the straight.

"As always traffic is a big issue here and for the race it's going to be hugely important to have a clean run. During my time in the car I had a wake up call for this. I came through the kink at full racing speed and a Porsche GT3 had just come out of the pits and was in the middle of the track, going slow, and I had to use the grass, hit some cones and I skimmed down the side of his car. When I got back to the pits Rob, or the Governor as he's known, came out and had a “bit of a chat” with me when he saw the marks down the side of the car! He just wanted to remind me that this was practice and not the last laps of the race.

"The really good thing by the end of today was that everybody who got in the car liked it, and that's so important for this race. We've got an engine change tonight and won't be out in the first practice tomorrow. We'll use the qualifying as a shake down for the race, and I'll let you know how things go."