Great track this one. There's nothing like old tracks with height changes, different turns including long and fast ones, etc. Just fantastic. The race for me was about tyre management and avoid big crashes. Couldn't do both properly so fifth is all that I could do today. Anyway happy about that, I'm really starting to like this car, it's quite nice when tyres are green, a little bit nervous in yellow tyres and yeah, the problem is with red tyres. The car changes a lot and I just can't keep the car on track. Let's see the last two rounds where I never drove before.
Qualification In practice I saw Nikolay took half a second off of me in the first sector. I was taking T1 in 4th so began taking it in 5th and voila I was on Nikolay's pace. Always good to look at your opponents times. If I hadn't I wouldn't have got pole. Not quite a PB but close enough. Another pole that's 4 from 4 even though the stats don't show that because of the disco in the last event. Still peeved about that. Race Got a terrible start. Bogged down the revs so had to dip the clutch again. This meant Nikolay got into P1 by the first corner. Over the first few laps I had Jim pressing me. Nikolay pulled away a little bit but then he spun out. From there it was intense concentration. In practice I'd only done half a dozen laps before spinning out. I did have a slower more stable setup but knew if I was going to win I had to risk the more unstable setup. This track especially T1 is a tough one. The bumps over the top of T1 especially so. Kept my head down and pumped in the laps. After Jim disappeared didn't see what happened to him I had a 10 second gap first over Nikolay and then Ken. At the half way point my tyres were still good and I knew from there I could get them to the end. Tyre wear here wasn't as great as I thought it would be. I began to lower the pace making sure to keep that 10 second gap. Into T2 at one point I lost the backend and almost spun out but my quick reactions honed by doing a load of HistoricX racing recently. If you want to learn how to control a car then I highly recommend that mod. In my opinion the best rF1 mod. We must get some HistoricX racing here (Ken that's a big hint). That was the only incident I had. Another win 3 from 3 well happy with that as this car is difficult to drive consistently especially here. Well done to my team mate Ken for second. 6 points ahead in the team championship. Come on team BVR we can get yet another championship. Well done to Nikolay for 3rd and to the rest of you for driving these mean machines. Came into this event 3rd in the championship 16 points behind having had a 22 point lead. Thought the championship win was going to be very difficult considering the competition Jim and Fabricio are very fast drivers. But now I'm 2 points ahead. Real shame about Fabricio internet problems but hey I had that in the last round but it's a pig when it happens. I am going to put everything into winning the last 2 rounds. You guys have been warned. With 3 points separating the top 3 its all to play for. Bring it on!
A tough but fun track to drive for sure. I'm still not comfortable in driving consistently in this car, which is holding me back from pushing harder,as it bites unexpectedly even when you seem to drive the corners the same every time. There is a very fine margin in driving it at maximum or losing it easily. The rear wing with 12 settings seems particularly useless in helping rear-end stability. In practice and qualifying I was surprised to see Jim behind me, but when I had a slow getaway at the start, he seemed to be on the same pace as Paul and they slowly pulled away. I expected to stay in 4th, so when Nikolay and then Jim had moments of their own, I lucked into 2nd place. A lot of pressure from a very fast Nikolay had me fighting as hard as I dare, but he was clearly quicker and challenged a couple of times without success. I think the nature of the track helped me defend better than it would've been otherwise, so to hold onto 2nd at the end was a bonus for me. :
