09-12-2013, 08:55 AM
Finishing here was already a victory, such a difficult race... final lap was in big pain in my left ankle. Pedals are not perfectly placed and had to keep my left foot in quite a high position above the clutch pedal, definetly after 80 minutes that's not comfortable at all. At the christmas brake I'll take the time to do some cutting-resoldering to bring the pedals a little lower.
Qualy
--------
The idea was to do a 2x2lap attempts. First 2 laps weren't too good as avoiding a yellow car that had crashed made me hit a wall and have a little damage. Anyway reached a 7'19".
Went for my other 2 laps. Did a 7'16" in the outlap. Seing it wasn't a bad time tried to push harder at the flying lap, but made a litle mistake and hit the barriers so I gave up any more attempts.
At the final moments DjC did a superb lap at put me in 4th place and dirty side of track.
Race
------
Surprised by the man in fifth how quickly he started I saw how he overtook us both Marcel and I.
I decided to take this first laps very carefull. just wanted to finish anyway. Robert was close behind, but at the third lap something happened to him and I saw him dissapear.
It was the sixth lap and it was time to head for my pitstop
Then it was really wierd. As I was carefully approaching my pit spot I could see Cosimo in reverse coming straight to me and hitting my left front side. Checked my car status in the HUD and damaged appeared on the left front suspension. Just hoped it wouldn't make the car undriveable. Pit time was 51 seconds and while I was checking my car's status I heard a big crashing noise and saw a lot of smoke ahead and Marcel's car involved. Ouch, I thought, he must have crashed the quite narrow left gate.
I exited the pits through the middle gate to avoid Marcel and went back to race. Damage at my left front was not noticeable at all.
I saw DjC was 12 seconds ahead and with 5 laps to go and a fresh set of tires I decided to finally start pushing and see if I had a chance to reach him.
1 lap later the distance had reduced to 8 seconds, so I kept pushing. 5 turns to end of the next lap the gap was 5 seconds. But Nordschleife barriers quickly told me to calm down, slightly damaged my car so I gave up all chances of fighting for second.
As I calmed down I felt my left ankle was starting to hurt and the only place I could give it a brake was at the straight. Final lap was a bit of a hell in pain mainly at shifting down gears, but finally the race ended and I felt really happy of being in the podium.
The Green Hell was over and I survived it.
Qualy
--------
The idea was to do a 2x2lap attempts. First 2 laps weren't too good as avoiding a yellow car that had crashed made me hit a wall and have a little damage. Anyway reached a 7'19".
Went for my other 2 laps. Did a 7'16" in the outlap. Seing it wasn't a bad time tried to push harder at the flying lap, but made a litle mistake and hit the barriers so I gave up any more attempts.
At the final moments DjC did a superb lap at put me in 4th place and dirty side of track.
Race
------
Surprised by the man in fifth how quickly he started I saw how he overtook us both Marcel and I.
I decided to take this first laps very carefull. just wanted to finish anyway. Robert was close behind, but at the third lap something happened to him and I saw him dissapear.
It was the sixth lap and it was time to head for my pitstop
Then it was really wierd. As I was carefully approaching my pit spot I could see Cosimo in reverse coming straight to me and hitting my left front side. Checked my car status in the HUD and damaged appeared on the left front suspension. Just hoped it wouldn't make the car undriveable. Pit time was 51 seconds and while I was checking my car's status I heard a big crashing noise and saw a lot of smoke ahead and Marcel's car involved. Ouch, I thought, he must have crashed the quite narrow left gate.
I exited the pits through the middle gate to avoid Marcel and went back to race. Damage at my left front was not noticeable at all.
I saw DjC was 12 seconds ahead and with 5 laps to go and a fresh set of tires I decided to finally start pushing and see if I had a chance to reach him.
1 lap later the distance had reduced to 8 seconds, so I kept pushing. 5 turns to end of the next lap the gap was 5 seconds. But Nordschleife barriers quickly told me to calm down, slightly damaged my car so I gave up all chances of fighting for second.
As I calmed down I felt my left ankle was starting to hurt and the only place I could give it a brake was at the straight. Final lap was a bit of a hell in pain mainly at shifting down gears, but finally the race ended and I felt really happy of being in the podium.
The Green Hell was over and I survived it.
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