Congratulations to Helder and Dino for a podium finish and all who participated. Great feeling to win the season opener
New season, new car, some new competitors. I was glad to see so many drivers in this event, and I hope we can get even more for coming rounds. I did not really know what to expect with new car, but good pre-season tests gave me some confidence to look for a good result here.
Qualifying: 1:38.213 (1st)
Ok lap that did not really feel that quick as it was. I was surprised and really happy to catch the pole finally. This was my first ever pole position in Presto league
Race: (1st)
I decided to go with one stop at exactly at the half way of the race. I also decided to change all tyres, so that in case I would have to battle for the positions at the end of the race, I would have well performing car then.
Helder at P2 got a better start than I did and made it first to T1, but I was right behind him. In the opening laps Helder at P1 seemed to be really quick, driving with a little bit risk too, but his car seemed not as fast as mine in the long straights. I followed him closely trying to sniff all the possibilities to overtake, and those were abundant in the braking zones after long straights. For four laps I tried to overtake at the end of back straight, but Helder was defending well and able to turn all the side-by-side situations on his advantage, until at the end of lap 4 I got a perfect slipstream for start/finish straight and was able to brake past Helder for T1. There was a slight touch, but no harm to anyone. After that my plan was to drop Helder from my pace, but he persistently kept on following closely. On lap 10, the gap was still only 1.8 secs and growing around 0.3 secs/lap. On lap 20, when it was time for my scheduled pit stop, Helder was around 6 seconds behind. This time everything went fine with my pit stop, and I got back to the track at P3 some 30 secs behind Helder and Dino, who had not pitted yet. They pitted in laps 21 and 22 respectively and I was able to pass both during their pit stops. After that I was in the lead again, but this time I could see Reik behind me and he was catching rapidly (~0.8 sec/lap). I was a bit confused about his pace as I did not know, if he was still going to pit or not. If he was going to pit one more time, I should let him pass, so that I would lose as little time as possible (Helder was very close too, and he had pitted like I), but if he (Reik) was not going to pit anymore, then it would be a battle for P1, and I should defend my position. Finally I ended up doing something like defending half-hearted, and as a consequence we both lost some time. Finally Reik overtook me at the end of lap 27 and went to pits right after that. At this point, Helder was 4.5 secs behind, so I had a comfortable lead for the last 13 laps with a car that had great performance (thanks to fresh set of tyres). At the end, I finished first and the gap between me and Helder was around 11 seconds. After the race I heard that Helder had spun on lap 20, exactly at the same time as I was pitting. I checked that he lost around 5 seconds because of the spin. Had he not spun, he had come out of the pits around 3 seconds in front of me instead of 2 seconds behind. This had made the battle for the win pretty fierce, considering how well he defended his position with heavier car in the opening laps of the race
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Conclusion: Great feeling to win for the second time at Presto league (first time was season 8 Shanghai)
This was a perfect start for this season, and I am looking forward to continue strongly in coming races.
Thanks to Presto GP, RaceDepartment, SimBin, and all the competitors.