Allright, that was an intense experience here... Did quite some laps in practice and managed to get to a decent pace early in the week. Then I did a couple of AI-races to get used to racing on this track with 20 cars around me. Start last, kill nobody and when the entire field was collected, wait in the pit for all and try again. Just to get a safe feel with cars around me. It worked. With the AI... they are predictable...
I did a nice PB in practice, couldn't get near Allan's mega pace offcourse. But I was quite happy with mine as well, was on a pretty close to Allan lap later on (when Omar let me fly by in a great way at a perfect place, thanks Omar!). Was still getting big green numbers, half a sec on Allan's time, but killed my lap on the first carousel. Bummer.
Qualy was okay, put in a safe banker lap first and then had one more to sharpen it. It went semi-smooth to some point. but not as sharp as in practice. Still happy with P2 though, first non-reversed grid front row
![Cool :cool: :cool:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
. Heart rate quite high at the start, haha
The race... got off the line a little too slow, but got through T1 fairly decent, Hank had past me and Jason on my tail. Scary shizzle for someone not used to being in that position. Jason caught me and later he caught Hank so I was on Hank's tail. I did my friggin' best not to kill him when I got close in the corners. Trying to react to the Abarth's earlier braking points. And during trying not to kill him, I killed myself not focussing on my own lines going up the first hill in lap two... bummer. Could get back on track just in front of Rico so he could watch my next mistakes from first row... Chasing Richard now. Again I had more pace at certain points and was even able to overtake after the le mans straight, felt great. But keeping it going without the little mistakes turned out to be pretty hard later on. Richard on my tail again and closing in, passing (somewhat) on the chicane up the hill, we touched, but luckily Richard could keep it going. Sorry Richard!! (I haven't seen the replay yet). Unfortunately in my spin I took out Rico, sorry man, couldn't go anywhere.
[Edit after watching the replay: In that uphill chicane I found a quick line during practice, so closed in rapidly, I touched Richard just enough from rear right to get his car out of balance and sending him into a spin, sorry mate! Then I slowed dpwn/waited for him to get underway again and when I was trying to get back up to speed again, Rico went past and we had a little paint scraper, again just enough for him to get the car out of balance and spin into the grass and I had to wait again. Sorry man, I guess it was just an unlucky situation.] Waited for Rico to get going again and we were on a rubber band for the rest of the lap, I had some quicker pace at some points, but Rico had/has the way more important steadyness to make way less mistakes. We pitted same time, but he gained a few secs in the pit.
Then, in the chase, I hit the bridge in carousel two... couldn't get out after trying too long and I had to eject with the rescue button. Dimnat! End of race offcourse, but followed Steve who just pitted with Rico (hi mate!) flying by on the straight. Somewhere up the road let him by because of the blue flag. So, Rico's tail again, but now not racing him, just staying close, watching him reel in Steve, great to see them going head to head and trading positions, nice racing there guys! Unfortunately, Steve had close encounters with the same bridge at carousel two... hard to get out of there.
For the last lap, decided to make a gap between Rico and myself and go for a decent laptime. Worked quite well, but not as quick as I wanted. Ah well...
I had a lot of fun the last week on this track with the Mazda. Feels great to hit them corners at high speed over there. Pretty intense! But racing real people in a real race still is a different game for me. It's a mental thing I guess. Working on it, but it's so friggin hard to slow myself down. Pace is allright, working on safety quite hard, but it's harder than the pace actually
Thanks Han, great championship on marvelous
@Fat-Alfie tracks, beauties to race these! Thanks guys for nice racing and congratz to the podium people, great job to keep it going safe and with pace. Still learning from that.
Bouke