FROM THE DRIVER'S SEAT - CHRISTINE'S LAIR

REPAIRS BEGIN, AND IT TURNS OUT YOU CAN'T JUST POLISH THE LITTLE DENT OUT...

OK, so turn 1 flat out on a defensive line doesn't work. My bad. Video of it all going wrong can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdHRdwN57J0 I think.

The car's a mess, and it's upsetting because I did it, my mistake, nobody to blame, the car didn't break, nobody hit me, I just fell off. We've watched the video, and the rule whenever we have a crash is you don't get to say what went wrong, your team tell you what happened so you don't make excuses. Usually it's me getting to tell Andrew what he did, but this is the first time I've ever hit anything in a race so my turn!

I went defensive into a corner I take flat out, so I couldn't therefore have been overtaken on the brakes and was defending when I didn't have to, went off-line, and squish. It's fair enough, I know it, you know it, it's a mistake. That's gloomy.

Strangely he's not at all cross, even though he'll end up with most of the repair job, he's sent me to work on the secret fibreglass project - sssh! - and just said he'll sort it. We'd got a wing in stock and already repaired, filled and primed, so that's easy, but the car itself needs a lot of work because it's got structural damage.

The oil cooler broke, so the engine might have trouble, I drove the car about 300 yards after the crash to get it out of the way, I can only hope it didn't go anywhere with no oil in, because there's none in there now.

Step 1 was to remove and bypass the oil cooler, then refill with oil and run it. No nasty noises, but we'll have to see. We do a compression test too, check she's not brewed up and cooked anything. I've done 6 days running the car now, and we've not fitted any instruments but a rev counter so I can't monitor the engine, but my temperatures must have been near-critical because it has been losing water each session and I was worried it had done somethng bad. But the compression test showed the same values as Helen, so either they're both dead or we got away with it.

The camber gauge says both front wheels are still reading the same as before, and it's tracking fine, so the subframe seems to be where it started. Even though it was a 100mph+ crash the impact was more of a sideway slide than full-on front impact, the car sort of slid down the barrier rather than going into it, it's planed the front corner off and ripped off the already-damaged wing - I told Andrew he'd not put it on very well!

The top chassis rail was kinked, but well forward, we think the extra strength we put into the shell saved it from bending any further back, it's basically done the near side headlamp pod.

The bonnet is also broken - bugger - but I've been sent to make a bonnet mould, which I think is my punishment, and using that I remake the front corner that's missing.

I'm summoned to drive the crane, which is anchored to the front of the car and driven away to pull the front back into the right sort of shape. The idea is pulling it back into shape releases any tension in the shell caused by the impact. The shell is only damaged in this one specific location. Technically you don't need this part of the car at all, it's in front of the suspension and all mounting points, but it's all rigidity and stiffness and we like some of that.

I can't watch as Andrew takes a really, really big angle grinder to the car and cuts the front off. We saved the front of a V12 we broke last year, and we'll cut and shut it, with some extra strength while we're at it. I do watch as he chisels off the last of the radiator crossmember, misses, and hammers his hand into the car. It was really quite a lot of blood, but I think it was the car's revenge for what he'd just done to it.

Once he's been glued up we can assess the chassis, and the bottom rail is worse than it looks, the bottom edge hasn't moved, but there's a good 6 inch section that has rhombus-sed and is leaning by maybe half an inch at the top edge. With the use of a jack, a big crowbar and a sledgehammer this soon changes its mind about that. When you cut the front off the chassis rail is nothing more than box section, and it responds to heat and violence like any other piece of steel. We can do heat and violence very well.

That done smaller box is welded inside to add more strength to the cut and shut repair job, a simple butt-weld won't be good enough. Holes for plug welds drilled, but it would have been better if Andrew wasn't drinking heavily to ignore the mangled finger, got his welding terms wrong and told me he was going to do something to the chassis with a butt plug.

With box section welded inside the new piece of V12 bodyshell is cut down to class E specification - ie chopped down a lot! - and trimmed to fit up to the shell.

But that's the end of the week, you'll have to wait for the next installment to find out if we can weld neatly!