Hey, no sweat SteveB. That's racing, even though I did not think that when it happened, I had pretty much cooled down by the end of the race. Part of the reason was that the car was a definite bitch to drive for most of the race so I had to concentrate a lot on just driving the car if I wanted to make it to the end and scavenge some points from what I expected would be massive DNFs from the fast turns and close fences. As luck would have it, less than half of the field made it to the end, which was good for me in the circumstances.
Chronologically, my qualifying was quite ordinary, although my 2 stops strategy was not helping me, compared to other drivers going for 3 stops. Anyways, I have long lost the idea that qualification was important to my races. When I'm near the front, I usually do a mistake and screw myself on lap 1 or 2 and when I'm at the back, I can usually climb back to middle-front relatively easily, mostly due to other driver's mistakes.
Well, my race start was just ok, not too bad in comparison with the cars around but nothing to write home about either. As we got near to T1, I had Paul on my left while I was on the inside, so I knew I had to brake a bit more than usual so the car wouldn't drift to the outside (as I would normally do if I were alone) and hit Paul. Well, while I was thinking about being safe to another driver, I got hit hard from behind and was sent spinning up to the tyre wall at the end of the straight. While trying to get out of the sand trap, I saw we were at least 4 cars there and I thought it was all due to the same incident, which got me uncharacteristically angry. Looking at the replay, showed only SteveB and myself in the accident while the others got in the sand by themselves, but I did not know that at the time. Well, the car was not too bad, and hobbits have no problems driving a car with a damaged suspension (I did that often enough in my no aids "career" to finally have developped some ability
), so I decided I would take it easy and make it to the end to get some championship points.
As I got on my way, I was slowly starting to get my concentration back despite the car and actually catched up to Christian, whom I got a nice little fight with for about a lap and half, until I unknowingly hit a stray Super Aguri front wing that was on the racing line (only saw it on the replay as I was fighting Chris at the time) and that pretty much destroyed what was left of my suspension, although I was slow to realize it (not knowing I did hit something). The car would be (relatively) fine until I got to 150-175 km/h, at which time the whole front of the car would appear to get flat on the ground (can you say bigtime sparks?) and I'd be unable to steer. I probably lost over a minute because I did not go to the pits but went for an extra lap before I admitted I wouldn't be able to drive like that and finally pitted (for a surprisingly short 16 seconds pitstop). That was around lap 10. I decided to try to stay on my 2 stops strategy so I took fuel for 29 laps (roughly half of what remained of the race) but, due to parc ferme, I could not take hard tyres and had to stay on softs. Not to worry, I knew from practice that my tyres would start to get into "red wear" after ~24 laps so I was confident I could make it if I only took a bit of care. Other than spinning and lightly hitting a wall on my outlap (slightly damaging my brand new suspension in the process, sheesh), things went relatively well while I tried to not do too many of the usual "Barcelona spins".
As my car was getting lighter, I had another car catch me from behind around lap 32 and got distracted enough looking at my mirrors that I completely missed my braking at the SEAT turn and plowed my car in the tyre barrier, losing the front wing. Well, that meant it was time for my second and hopefully last pitstop, and a nice gamble to put in about 34 laps of fuel while still riding on soft tyres (36 seconds pitstop, go figure). I'm usually easier on my tyres than many drivers and I figured it was time to prove it. At this point, there was no point going for performance and pushing for nothing so I just drove as quick as possible while taking extra care of the tyre, which was made harder due to the heavy fuel load. I was going on my merry way for most of the remains of the race without major problem. At one point, I had Aaron that I knew was getting closer to lap me and, just as I decided to let him pass on the s2 straight (after the climbing fast right), I slowed, slowed, slowed and there was no Aaron around and his dot stopped moving althogether. I was feeling bad that maybe my draft made him miss the turn but it was his engine giving up (talk about bad luck). Later, I had SteveB far in front, with a relatively constant gap, but that gap would sometimes go down in chuncks of 5-10 seconds, so I started getting hope to be able to catch him as my car got lighter and maybe have some sembleance of a race but when I got to him, he was off track and going to the pits, and he stayed there for at least another lap. I was actually happy for once to be multi-lapped at the end because that checkered flag was really a deliverance from one of my most uninteresting races ever, as I was pretty much by myself and fighting a car that sucked due to damage and/or heavy fuel for roughly all the race. I'm still happy to have made it to the end, and 5 points is more than I could have expected after getting out of T1, which is my biggest consolation.
Sorry if this appears like a long description of my race, but it DID feel VERY long and almost boring while it happened. Congrats to all who made it to the end or were doing well until bad luck hit. That was not an easy track.
See you all in Turkey, and don't worry about the hit too much, SteveB!
its a record for me i never did so much consecutif pole in my life lolll
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