That was a nice race for me.
I was not sure what to expect from BrandsHatch because it is always tough there, but this time it went really ok.
The quali at BrandsHatch is always important for a good result.
I struggled for the first run of fast laps, feeling the pressure for making a good lap to stay not that far down the order. After 4 flying laps i hit the reset button, took a fresh set of tyres and a deep, deep breath in the pits for the second run. In my penultimate lap i got a 1.24.7 i guess and managed P5 on the grid. Better than expected and promising for the race, if i could manage to stay out of troubles...
Ok, race time.
The start of the race went well, lost just 1 place but that was ok as i was looking at 45min of lapping around and hoped for getting my chance to climb 1, 2 places up again later in the race.
A quick note from my view for the first lap. Again, i think we had some fine and clean driving in the first corners, so well done guys!
I settled in P6 after lap 2 with some pressure from
@Nascentes behind me in the following laps. But i got a good rhythm and felt comfortable in the car and really focused on a consistent, steady pace. So i got some clean air behind, slowly, and as the race went on i felt good and decided for the long way in making a late stop.
Time for the stop was than 12min. before the end as the tyres felt dropping a bit.
Entering the pit in P1 and coming out in P3, after a good stop( for me ), was really unexpected.
Back on track i got pressure form Hardie in his MCL. He really showed his nose in the mirror and seemed to be way faster. He got a chance on the cooper straight inside to surtess and i decided to let him go instead of fighting and blocking. Better to secure a good 4th instead being caught in a fight for 3rd and maybe losing more because the 5th place was not far behind us. Fighting hard for position takes always a lot of pace away and sometimes its better to make a step back and take the silver instead looking for the golden swan.
After Hardie passed me i focused again on my pace and made it steady to the end. The 4th place is really encouraging, much more when i look at some races where i did a bad job.
In the end Brands Hatch was the best race of this series so far, hopefully i can build on this for the last 2 rounds.
Congrats to Chris for P1 and to the podium, as far as i saw i thing Chris was on its own for this race.
Also, thanks for organizing and hosting the series!
It was a bit disappointing to see just 12 cars on the grid.
Hopefully we get a larger field again for the last 2 races.