In qualifying I was very lucky to get 10th with a time that was almost a second faster than my hot lap. This was odd because I hadn't raced in over a week but somehow I was now faster? I guess this got my hopes up that I might have a good race even though I would be racing on a different setup and one which I hadn't used before.
Once we were racing I made it up to 6th by the end of the first lap but I knew right away I didn't have a good race pace. In the practise before the race I received a copy of sambo's setup from Threeps because I only had a qualifying setup at the time. The new setup was easy to drive and seemed to look after the tyres very well. But once I had completed a few laps of the race I realised I was going much slower than I had expected. I was hoping that my times would improve from 2:29s-2:30s once I burnt some fuel, but to my surprise they didn't. I then tried to push the car a bit harder which only caused me to spin out and overheat my tyres.
Once they were at a good temperature again I started to push, only to spun off at almost the same place but this time I hit the wall. I thought the car was ok at first so I didn't pull into the pits at the end of that lap. If I was going to complete the race with only 2 stops I knew I needed to complete at least one more lap. This however was a mistake because by the time I made it to the first split on the next lap I found that the car was uncontrollable. I almost took a few people out as I was sliding around trying to control it.
After my pit stop to fix the damage I had lost all confidence in the car and Threeps was on my tail. I didn't want to push to hard because of the threat of a spin. This meant that Threeps was easily faster than me and after a long battle he found a way past. He then started to pull away and I thought I'd never see him again.
Coming into the pits for the second time I wasn't to sure where I should be braking on the entry. The only time I had actually entered the pits was on my first stop when I was damaged and going slow. Maybe next time I'll remember to try a pit entry before the race starts. Anyway I managed to brake as late as I think was possible for me which was a good sign and I had a clean stop. As I was driving past Threeps in pit lane he finished his stop and pulled out next to me which meant we were side by side. When we reached the exit I had my nose just in front and Threeps backed off to pull in behind me. I knew that he was faster than me before so the only thing I could do is start pushing hard and hope I don't spin. Otherwise he would just pass me again and that would be then end of it.
After the pit stop I pulled away from Threeps mostly because he was caught in a battle with PS13t. I was also starting to catch StanDaam and by the time I was on his tail he had caught Doso. This turned into a three way battle which gave me an opportunity to get past StanDaam. Now I was behind Doso and on the up hill left hander Doso and I were side by side. This caused us to be slower on the straight where StanDaam was catching us quickly. I had Doso to my left and StanDaam coming past on the right when he had a moment and slid across the track in front of us. This left Doso and I side by side going into the first chicane where I managed to just get in front.
From then on I didn't see anyone else and managed to pull away from StanDaam who had also gotten past Doso. I did start to catch kwijibo at the end of the race making up 10 seconds to finish 2 seconds behind him. But catching someone is one thing getting past is another so in the end I was more than happy with 7th.
4 comments:
Yeah sure mate, I'm sure that's exactly how it happened.
Don't make me come over there...
You wish.
No I don't.
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