We are currently already back from Silverstone, but all did not go without an awkward moment preceding our trip. Last Monday night, the evening before the truck left for Silverstone, we did a final inspection of the car. Here we discovered the first mechanical failure of the year: our sprocket adapter, the aluminium part connecting the rear sprocket to the differential, had been ruptured.

This part is difficult to produce and we did not have a spare. As it was already 10 o’clock in the evening, we decided to go for two possible solutions. A new sprocket adapter was hand-milled overnight, and several companies near Delft were called in the morning to ask if they could cut the spline. Our second bet was to send 3 team members to our differential supplier, Drexler Motorsport, which is located near the 3-border point of Germany/Austria/Czech Republic.

24 hours later, both solutions had worked out. Machinefabriek Krimpen (MFK), a company specialized in designing and manufacturing drivetrain components, has cut a spline in our hand-milled sprocket adapter the morning we called them. Meanwhile, Drexler had aluminium blanks on stock with the spline already cut, and have turned and milled a new custom sprocket adapter on our request.

The new parts were taken to Silverstone on Wednesday and the entire drivetrain was re-assembled that evening. Thanks to the extraordinary help of MFK and Drexler and a good show of what team work means, we got the car ready for scrutineering just as planned and were able to compete in all dynamic events!