Bittersweet taste in this race for me. I tried to follow Csaba and Paul at the beginning but they were clearly faster than me, so I tried to save tyres for the last 10 minutes... just in case they drop his pace. Csaba was today on another league but my strategy looked good because my distance to Paul was reduced in the last minutes from 13s to just 2s in the last lap. But at the end, my reaction was too late because had I started to attack a lap earlier, I think 2nd was possible for me. Just 0,5s behind Paul, a shame but races are like they are. Again great fun to drive the Mini so let's have fun in the next one!
Wasn't expecting much here as I had done very little practice. So P2 after qualy was encouraging. I knew from pre race practice that tyre wear here was worse than in round 1. I therefore started the race in full tyre saving mode. Braking earlier and trying to take each corner as wide as possible. This made absolutely no difference 5 laps in the tread on my tyres was about 50% and the tyres wear was in the orange. 20 minutes from the end the tyres were in the red and just about spent. I began thinking that I'd have to make a pitstop, hoping that Csaba would dive into the pits on each lap. I had to drop my pace with 4 laps to go as my front left tyre was completely black no red showing so it was right on the cusp of tearing itself apart. Ramon was coming up fast but I managed to keep the 2nd place but only just. I pushed the car for half a lap after the finish of the race and sure enough the tyre let go at the chicane. So the tyre saving was well worth it. Well done Csaba your pace was strong and it seems you had no problems with tyres Bad luck Ramon 1 more lap and you'd have had me. In fact the whole field would have got me These minis are a blast. A shame that others seem to be having steering problems. On to Singapore. What a great track with lots of tight turns to heat up the tyres. I think tyre wear will be a real problem there.
I'm starting to warm to this car after working on the limited setup options available and arriving at a handling solution for this race, which gave me much more confidence in knowing what the car was going to do on turn in. An early fight with Jens and then Philipp was a lot of fun and respect to both for showing an example of how to race close and clean. After slowly starting to edge away from Philipp when I was in 4th place, I had one of my current screen/audio freezes which dropped me back two places right into the battle that Jens/Jorge were having. After an unintentional hit from Jens, I lost touch with Jorge and it wasn't until the final couple of laps that I managed to catch him and wrestle 5th place from him before the flag. Tyres are definitely the story of this series and one the challenges to be conquered and it will be interesting, as Paul has said, to see how they go at Singapore.
From the overall picture it seems that Csaba, Paul and Ramon have found out how to drive these cars, which the others are struggling with. Somehow it was better for me than at Spielberg but still you three distanced the rest of the field by minimum two seconds each lap. Congrats to all of you but hopefully this will not stay until the end of this series My race was quite good, I had a good start and passes Jens but he and Ken got me by braking later for turn one. Passing is really difficult on this trak as well as with these cars. Therefore it was about keeping the pressure high and hoping for a bigger mistake. Jens lost all his momentum because his car wiggled out of turn three, that enabled to overtake him. But I was feeling uncofortable about the situation afterwards. I was in a sandwich between Jorge behind and Ken in front, therefore every mistake or trial to attack on Ken would have the consequence to loose fifth place. I was very careful and hoped that Ken was fast enough that we could clear Jorge, which worked but later he neither made a bigger mistake nor I was fast enough to pass him. So I was close to give up and just drive it home, because I did not want to end up like in Spielberg. But suddendly Kens freeze gifted my P4, very fortunate. My front tyres had 17 % (overall, the left front was in the last tenth of the red area) at the finish line. I did not thought about the tyres too much, that seems to me the best approach in Automobilista.
Good q and good race for me. I did not think i can win race in this series, because i did not feel this car in race 1. I do not know what happened, when i did see the laptimes, did hope be a good race. Paul was very close to me somettimes, but he could not catch me. Last 10 mins was very hard for tyres. I am happy for the win, and am happy i can race here with so many good drivers. And grats to other drivers who raced here. Thanks guys! Thanks Ken for hosting good races for us. See you soon!
I think tyre wear will be lower in Singapore, because usually street tracks have more smooth tarmac and also riding at night means lower temperature. Also I only raced there once many years ago in F1 but as far as I can remember, there aren't high speed turns, more or less are all slow corners so in theory, tyres will last better than in Hungary. Or at least that's my thoughts lol
In the RW Singapore is hotter at night than many other circuits around the world are during the day. But our rF series is using default temps so that's not an issue anyway.
