Qualifying: 2nd
With 86% chance of rain, I scurried out on options and was the first to set a lap of 1:37.9xx, putting me on provisional pole. It was the best lap I had done, and so I didn’t decide to do another, thinking it best to save the tyres. I went out later, but realised it was raining, and so I retired. This left me in second, 0.079 behind Ollie, and we locked out the front row 9 tenths in front of third place. A great start :)
Race: 2nd
No idea what happened at the start. I got a better start than Ollie, but was cautious as I was on the inside, and didn’t want to be swept across. Someone, I’m not sure who, came crashing in, taking me out, and this happened a couple of times, until I eventually got away in last, just behind ShyGuy. Pitted at the end of lap 2 for inters, though in hindsight, I should have stayed out.
Started struggling on inters in 6th I think I was, and so I came in for options on lap 7…I think. No-one else seemed to have made the gamble, but I was mightily fast, blasting passed all in my way, until before I realised what was going on, I had passed Iamsa8 for 2nd place, and Ollie pitted later that lap, and I was 3 seconds behind.
With fresher tyres, Ollie started pulling away, and eventually pulled a much bigger gap when a spinning (Mercedes?) drove back on to the track directly in front of me, losing me about 8-10 seconds, not to mention the time lost in the pits for having to change my nose cone.
Even with the rain on the way, I pitted at the end of lap 17, put on another set of options hoping to go to the end (Unless rain stopped me), turned up the engine and flew away, setting the fastest lap of the race. Ollie did the same a couple of laps later, but couldn’t beat my time.
The rain finally came and I pitted with 5-6 laps to go. I was again held up by back markers, causing me to spin again, this time it was a Ferrari. There was no catching Ollie after that, but I did pit on the penultimate lap, as it was too dry for inters, but as I came out on options, I realised that in some parts, it wasn’t dry enough for options, leading @Alfie to believe he was as quick as me ;) Though it was actually a mixture of a drying track and cold tyres :P
To come from last, and finish second, 40?+ seconds in front of third was pretty special. Had it not been for the first lap incident, or some of the other mishaps, then I definitely could have challenged Ollie, especially given that I was faster in sector 1 than he was. But nevertheless, I can’t change it now, and second is still a great result in such a hectic race. Kept my Championship lead, though now I believe it has fallen to 3 points, and Caterham begin their domination of the Constructor’s :D
Congrats to @Olliekart for a good, clean drive and a well deserved win.
