Oke summary of yesterday.
Tested a setup of Geoff in the morning, positive was i know could take copse without lift off but afterwards in the Esses i spinned always if i put too much steering angle with full throttle. So took the changed the front wing and front ARB back to a more thrusty car.
Had a lot of nerves due to the big pack, never raced with more than 11/12 drivers, and espacially not if they are from the same level in open wheelers. So my intention was to take it easy and maybe start at the back.
At 1830
practice session started, and went out of the pits with fuel for 20min. First lap of the session was a stunning 1:53:8.. never had a timing under the 1:55 during testing (so was impressed of myself and thought that the clock of the officials was broken
), so i was already 1.5sec faster than normal.
In the 45min session never reached anymore my fastest lap
, and trained some overtake's on Martin and trained also the standing start and some piece of tarmac. Having problems with the start or i have a lot of wheel spin and sometimes spin to the left or right, or i start very slow.
Quali was only 15min, and started with the intention to do a no risk lap, due to i had no confidence in my start. Didn't succeed in that and the first lap was again the fastest lap, and qualified myself in P5. Martin qualified himself only in P16 with a 4sec gap between myself (so don't know what happend during quali with Martin)
Race 1Had a semi good start because i overtook the guy in P3, but was passed by 3 other cars. Also in the loop arena and luffield went on the outside lane to avoid collisions. So was now racing in P9, up to the point of Hangar straight where two cars crashed in too each other and just avoided the crash. In my mirror i could see the carnage due to other cars where also making a second crash (probably the crash of Martin). After the first lap i found myself in P7 after a guy called Popular. Had more pace i thought than him especially in the fast sweepers, because i needed to do a lot off lift off's. But didn't find a gap to overtake him. After 2 guys spinned out i was in P5, just behind a Ferrari coloured car and Popular. So fighting for third position, i saw Popular slightly losing contact with the Ferrari and after 8min i dared to overtake him on the inside of Luffield. went two wide on the old pit straight and had just overtook him in to copse. And focused myself to close the gap towards P3. Now i saw that i have a lot of pace in the fast corners but not on the straights. Because i won everytime almost a second in the fast corner sections, but the guy behind me could always close the gap on Wellington and Hangar straight.
After 11min we lapped some backmarkers, i saw a car making place for me, by going on the runoff area of Stowe. But in the exit the car rejoined the track and crashed in to my side (backmarker was racing without front wing). I tried to stabilize the car with my right wheels in the grass and could made the braking point in to Vale. Off course the guy behind me overtook me and was again in P5, but now with a car that has 50% suspension damage.
Was selecting a pitstop but after the fast Esses i could see i was only some tenths of my delta and remaing a 5sec gap with P6. So decided to nurse the car towards the end of the race. Every lap i looked to the gap and was losing +/- 6tenths each lap. Again backmarkers in front of me, now a car without a front left tire (where did we see that
). But i thought he would give me room. Nah just before copse he went on the racing line again so was stuck behind him in maggots/beckets but overtook him on the outside line of chapel. With 1 lap to go my gap was only 1.5sec with P6. But he couldn't catch me anymore. And with the last chicane in sight i saw the cars of P2 and P3 had contact with each other and P2 was stuck in the gravel. So finished in P4.
Was very lucky the suspension damage didn't had that much of an influence of my race pace, only some lift off's. Still happy with the result but without the lapped car i would be in a position to fight for second.
Results:
https://simresults.net/200807-gC8Race 2 will follow