15-05-2022, 10:41 PM
I was surprised my early qualifying time stood to P6 all the way to the end, and even more surprised to stick it P4 on the final run.
I learned early in the race that I went into the hairpin hotter than others, giving DJC a little tap, but we continued on OK. Sorry about that! As the race went on and I was chased by the Eagles, I realized that I was making a lot of time up with my deep left-side entry, hard braking and pitching the car sideways to get a launch out of the hairpin. Of course I'd lose all the time on the front and back straights.
Still, managed to hold onto 5th position for a while with two Eagles behind me, but a little too much Colton-Herta'ing* overheated the tyres and when I was trying to cool them off I caught Bruce at a bad moment and the Eagles caught me at Spoon where usually I had built a gap since the Hairpin. I did my typical thing of giving too much room and driving myself right off the track. I spun back to 8th. I pitted two laps after halfway and Nauman had undercut me, so I was in 9th. I could catch up a bit here and there in the twisty bits sometimes, but I had to wait for a mistake, which eventually did happen. A couple more mistakes ahead of me (and Tim having a late pitstop) netted me 6th place, only about three seconds out of a battle for 4th and 5th. That spin certainly cost me, but P6 is a good result regardless!
* Reference: [MEDIA=twitter]1525566383484030976[/MEDIA]
I learned early in the race that I went into the hairpin hotter than others, giving DJC a little tap, but we continued on OK. Sorry about that! As the race went on and I was chased by the Eagles, I realized that I was making a lot of time up with my deep left-side entry, hard braking and pitching the car sideways to get a launch out of the hairpin. Of course I'd lose all the time on the front and back straights.
Still, managed to hold onto 5th position for a while with two Eagles behind me, but a little too much Colton-Herta'ing* overheated the tyres and when I was trying to cool them off I caught Bruce at a bad moment and the Eagles caught me at Spoon where usually I had built a gap since the Hairpin. I did my typical thing of giving too much room and driving myself right off the track. I spun back to 8th. I pitted two laps after halfway and Nauman had undercut me, so I was in 9th. I could catch up a bit here and there in the twisty bits sometimes, but I had to wait for a mistake, which eventually did happen. A couple more mistakes ahead of me (and Tim having a late pitstop) netted me 6th place, only about three seconds out of a battle for 4th and 5th. That spin certainly cost me, but P6 is a good result regardless!
* Reference: [MEDIA=twitter]1525566383484030976[/MEDIA]