Qualifying
It had begun raining, a set of track conditions I had not had time to practice in, so I was very uncomfortable in the car. This was clearly shown in my performance, and I only ended up setting one lap without a spin in it, albeit incredibly slowly. I qualified a lowly 28th out of 32 cars. My teammate for this year, Andrew Quartley did an incredible job, placing his car in 10th on the grid.
Race 1
With two races in a round, and a random reverse grid number for race 2, I knew I had to nail race 1. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The start went well enough. I bogged down off the line, which sent me backwards slightly. However, as people slowed for turn 1, I saw a gap and managed to gain back a few positions there. Having gained confidence from that move, I began lining up a move on Massimiliano Riboli up the inside of turn 3. The spray was much more than I realised, and I ended up pushing us both wide. But on my re-entry to the track, me and Massi made contact again. This caused our cars to glitch into each other and roll across the track, collecting Dan Hurlock in the process. My race wasn't over, but it got close.
I was now a long way behind with damage to the front wing and right sidepod. I'm still not sure how much this affected me, but within the lap I had caught up to Rob Roosa in 28th and overtook him with relative ease. However, a spin into the wall at turn 8 put me behind again with even more damage to the right hand side. A spinning Daan Hut got me back up to 28th and I was again hunting down Rob Roosa. The positions rolled by; 27th, 26th, 25th, 24th, all from spinners ahead, all the while I was slowly catching Roosa. A half spin while overtaking a slow-moving Liam Rance knocked my confidence a bit, but by now I was P23.
Yet another spin pushed me down to 25th but no further damage done to my car. A few spins later and my position was fluctuating constantly, anywhere from P18 to P24 and by this stage I had been lapped. I ended up cruising home in 21st.
Race 2
The way that GPVWC determines the reverse grid race positions is by taking the results from race 1, choosing a random number from 10 to 15, and then whoever finished in that position in race 1 shall start from pole in race 2. This round, the number was 11, and so it was Alejandro Enamorado on pole. This time, I had a much better start, jumping from 21st to 17th by the end of turn 1. But on the straight after turn 2, there was an accident ahead. I moved out of the way and slowed. The cars behind didn't. I found myself being thrown around against the outside wall and once I'd come to a stop, my engine was off. An instant DNF.
It's taken me almost 2 weeks to post this, I'm sorry about that. I'll try to be a lot quicker at writing the report next round. Bahrain is next, on the 18th March.
Thanks,
Peter J.