10-06-2013, 05:49 PM
Because there wasn't a topic for race reports, I will post it here ;-) (Hope it's Ok)
Qualifying:
I was quite confident that I could do a good qualifying, which was also the case. I did a 1.31.420, could maybe have found about 0.2secs in the middle sector. But it would never have been enough to beat David’s time. So I was pleased with my results and my first front row ever. ;-)
Race:
I had a bad start, lots of wheel spin and the banking made me almost spin out. Lost 2 places already, but wasn’t too worried because I would have time enough to overtake them (if I was faster). But in the first lap somebody had a different braking point or a lost it under braking and bumped into the back of me and I ended on my roof. Now I was in last place and had a lot of work to do if I wanted to get back to the front.
Overtook quite a few people and then at lap 8, I had an incident with John Cook. He ran wide and I was trying to take advantage of this situation to overtake him quickly and I was trying to leave him space enough to be able to go through the corner. But at the corner exit I had a small amount of oversteer and had to correct it which made me go a bit further to the right hand side of the track and therefore collided with John. I lost about 20 seconds in that crash.
![[Image: 6zvo6u.jpg]](http://i40.tinypic.com/6zvo6u.jpg)
Next lap a battle ended badly and there was a lot of smoke, so I couldn’t see anything and hit a car in front and flipped my car. I lost a lot of time there as well. At this point I was very upset and I was driving very angry. Because of my angry driving style at that stage I made a mistake at turn 1 and lost again a lot of time.
![[Image: 2nak8wo.jpg]](http://i40.tinypic.com/2nak8wo.jpg)
Then finally things started to work out. At this stage I was a long way behind the leaders and the top runners. But started to lap consistent at low 1.33’s. Did a long first stint because it was the first time I didn’t have traffic so went as far as I could with the tires. I think I passed a lot of people during the pitstops, because I gained probably about 2-4 places in 10 laps. At lap 22 I pitted was a 25 seconds pitstop. Came out of the pits at 5th place Mel Fisk was 14 seconds in front of me in 4th place.
Thinks were turning around , started to average lap times of 1.32,6 and was catching Mel Fisk at 2 seconds a lap. Caught him up quite fast and he just made a mistake when I was approaching him. So went to 4th position. This was at lap 28. David Coyne was 20 seconds ahead of me, but with few laps left I really started pushing. Gained roughly 1,5 seconds a lap. Decreased the gap to 12 seconds but at lap 32, made a small mistake and lost ground to him again and at this point I knew I was never going to catch him before the end of the race. So I cruised to the end in 4th place.
Overall a good ending position, unfortunately a bit unlucky at times but overall a great race. It was a very difficult track and car, if you made a mistake you would hit those massive curbs which almost always ended in tears.
Thanks to SR4L for the race and all the participants for the clean racing!
Kind regards,
Thomas Vandenberghe
Qualifying:
I was quite confident that I could do a good qualifying, which was also the case. I did a 1.31.420, could maybe have found about 0.2secs in the middle sector. But it would never have been enough to beat David’s time. So I was pleased with my results and my first front row ever. ;-)
Race:
I had a bad start, lots of wheel spin and the banking made me almost spin out. Lost 2 places already, but wasn’t too worried because I would have time enough to overtake them (if I was faster). But in the first lap somebody had a different braking point or a lost it under braking and bumped into the back of me and I ended on my roof. Now I was in last place and had a lot of work to do if I wanted to get back to the front.
Overtook quite a few people and then at lap 8, I had an incident with John Cook. He ran wide and I was trying to take advantage of this situation to overtake him quickly and I was trying to leave him space enough to be able to go through the corner. But at the corner exit I had a small amount of oversteer and had to correct it which made me go a bit further to the right hand side of the track and therefore collided with John. I lost about 20 seconds in that crash.
Next lap a battle ended badly and there was a lot of smoke, so I couldn’t see anything and hit a car in front and flipped my car. I lost a lot of time there as well. At this point I was very upset and I was driving very angry. Because of my angry driving style at that stage I made a mistake at turn 1 and lost again a lot of time.
Then finally things started to work out. At this stage I was a long way behind the leaders and the top runners. But started to lap consistent at low 1.33’s. Did a long first stint because it was the first time I didn’t have traffic so went as far as I could with the tires. I think I passed a lot of people during the pitstops, because I gained probably about 2-4 places in 10 laps. At lap 22 I pitted was a 25 seconds pitstop. Came out of the pits at 5th place Mel Fisk was 14 seconds in front of me in 4th place.
Thinks were turning around , started to average lap times of 1.32,6 and was catching Mel Fisk at 2 seconds a lap. Caught him up quite fast and he just made a mistake when I was approaching him. So went to 4th position. This was at lap 28. David Coyne was 20 seconds ahead of me, but with few laps left I really started pushing. Gained roughly 1,5 seconds a lap. Decreased the gap to 12 seconds but at lap 32, made a small mistake and lost ground to him again and at this point I knew I was never going to catch him before the end of the race. So I cruised to the end in 4th place.
Overall a good ending position, unfortunately a bit unlucky at times but overall a great race. It was a very difficult track and car, if you made a mistake you would hit those massive curbs which almost always ended in tears.
Thanks to SR4L for the race and all the participants for the clean racing!
Kind regards,
Thomas Vandenberghe