My normal teammate was away for this race, so Eight-Six had our reserve driver, Justin Meister, drive instead.
Qualifying
Overall, I was rather disappointed with how quali went. I had pretty good pace, but my exits were lacking when compared to everyone else, especially out of turns 4, 7 and 10. Justin capitalised on this, using low traction control to really punch the car out of those corners.
He went quickest by a long way, while I qualified a lowly P4. I had the pace for P2 but I just couldn't nail a lap down to get me there.
Race
As per what appears to be a tradition, both Eight-Six cars started well, and I shot up the middle of Szymon and Edijs on the run into turn 1. However, I had not warmed my fronts up nearly enough, and as a result I was slow through turn 1, getting passed round the outside by Szymon Kuzcyk, and getting hit up the rear by Massimiliano Ribolli.
Massi tried a move up the inside of turn 2 and the move continued round the corner to turn 3, where I was able to hold the position round the outside. I tried a move on the inside of Szymon in turn 5, but I got pushed right up to the wall, allowing both Massi and Jakub Kalbarczyk to breeze round the outside of me. Going into the hairpin, Edijs began lining up a move and a bad exit from me helped him to go past into P5. I started 4th, but by the end of the lap, I was 6th and I appeared to be dropping back. A disastrous start.
A few laps later, however, Jakub was ahead of his Croussette GP teammate Szymon. He didn't slow enough for the final chicane and went straight into the barrier on the inside of turn 14. He spun across the track, and collected Szymon on the way, tipping them both round. Jakub lost his front wing but, as far as I know, Szymon got away with very little damage. This whole incident allowed Edijs and me to overtake into P3 and P4 respectively. Our battle just became one for the podium!
I was still behind Edijs when I pitted, but this time I had such a quick stop that I was nose-to-tail on pit with Massi, who had been ahead of Edijs and had pitted the same lap as me. We began a battle that would last until the end of the race, with constant place-trading.
When Edijs finally pitted, he came out ahead of both me and Massi, and promptly vanished into the distance. This allowed a quick-moving Szymon to join in our battle, and we fought for laps on end. We eventually crossed the line with me in the final podium place, Massi in P4 behind, Szymon in P5. A well fought battle and my first podium of 2020! I have to say a massive thank you and well done to both Massi and Szymon for giving me one of the best battles I've had in a long time. However, the biggest thanks and well done has to go to my super-sub teammate, Justin Meister, who led from lights-to-flag and won by a substantial distance.
Thank you all for reading all the way through, this was a long one! I won't be racing in this series next race, I'm away for that race so no blog post unfortunately.
Thanks,
Peter J.
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