I see I wasn't the only one making a debut today, which is nice and only makes me smile even more.
This was pretty much the perfect race as far "perfect" goes, I have never really enjoyed much success at Catalunya and I will probably never find the two seconds left to hit a 1'20 like Shaggy and DarkPSI do. But I do somewhat enjoying driving it and I do enjoy a good level of consistencey generally, even if my pace is not the best, its ok.
First of all, I practiced a fair bit for this one as I know from past experience that trying to run Catalunya with no practice is an excercise in frustration. After the short practice the previous weekend, I didn't like the consistency I was getting and I was making far too many mistakes.
I spent the week basically working on setups and finding a good balance of consistencey. I ended up with a very conservative setup with a 7/7 aero balance that could net me a 1'22 in qualifying, which I proceeded to do so in a practice race yesterday with Shaggy and Dark. But after the race it was interesting to hear that Dark was using a surprising aero setup, something more like I've run at Australia, so I decided to try that out and see if I could find some more speed while keeping the stability. The end result was a setup that produces 1'21 in qualifying if I hit a sweet lap but still keeping a fairly stable setup although I had to be careful on the power and with my steering inputs.
Then came today where the first race was cancelled after several people got disconnected - I managed to set one of my best times of a 1'22.2xx (or something like that) in the brief dry qualifying session before we restarted. So I was already a little gutted that we had to restart especially as I set the time on my first lap so I could have saved the tyres after that!
Imagine my dismay when we restarted with a wet qualifying session and a forecast for light rain in the race! I decided to not bother trying to find a wet setup and simply went out to see how my setup was with intermediates. I didn't find it too bad really, I was still 2 seconds off the ultimate pace but the car was stable enough and trying the full wet tyres also seemed promising. Fortunately my lap (1'25.0xx I think) was good enough for 6th on the grid which was boosted to 5th after pipeslice's grid penalty. I only had one tiny incident with Mikethehockeyfan when I caught him at the end of the lap and attempted to overtake on the start/finish straight. It seems there was a misunderstanding here because he moved to the inside line and I assumed he was letting me past but when we got to the braking zone for turn 1, he was still right there when I turned in which took me by surprise and led to a small spin for both of us. No harm done though.
The race start went ok, seemed everyone in the top 6 ran wide in turn 1 and I ended up just driving along the kurb on the inside of turn 2. I was then behind Mutu for the rest of the 1st lap and decided to make the most of his cautious driving and overtake on the brakes into turn 10. After that it was mostly following my teammate Baumi and waiting for a mistake. Around lap 3 or 4 I think it was, Pipeslice was very quickly gaining on me as he had fought through the field and had got past Mutu. I made a mistake or two and he soon caught me and got past at turn 5 when I ran wide. Again, it was simply a matter of following until eventually I had to pit on lap 10 as my soft tyres had begun to wear. By this time Pipeslice had got disconnected and Mutu was on a long run on hards, so I was back down in 5th. Pretty much nothing happened until Mutu finally pitted putting me back up to 4th and I begun to catch Baumi again. Eventually Baumi too pitted and it was just me and Mutu who had caught up with me on his fresher tyres and got past after I made a few mistakes.
At the end of the race, it was pretty close between me and Mutu, I did catch him again after he seemed to make several mistakes and I got past back into 3rd but we started to catch backmarkers at this point. First I got completely confused when Ali weaved all over the place in front of me before turn 7 and then spun out and then I caught tombrooks at the final chicane and had a slight moment of distraction which caused me to light up the rears a little too much in the last turn and slide, handing 3rd back to Mutu. I was then pretty much looking after 4th watching the gap to Baumi and I again caught Mutu finally on the last lap but with no time left to get past.
I'm a little gutted to miss out on a potential 3rd but as always its a case of "ifs". While I made several mistakes, so did Mutu, so it was clear I was always going to be fighting him. I'm happy it ended so close with a 0.8s or something margin as at least it demonstrates how close it was! I'm extremely happy with 4th in the circumstances, I really can't complain for a debut race on one of my least favourite tracks. I'm also happy to pull off a clean overtake on lap 1
.
I was a little annoyed at the time with backmarkers, but they didn't really do anything wrong, it was just unfortunate I caught them at critical moments like the final chicane. I realise they have their own battles going on, so I'm not going to complain. I made my own mistakes elsewhere so it wouldn't have mattered.
Thanks to Mutu for seeing me coming into turn 10! 👍
Started: Quaiflied 6th/Started 5th
Finished: 4th
Average race laptime: 1'24.xxx
Biggest mistake: Spinning on the kerb at turn 5 (9 seconds), a few half-spins at turns 2 and 3 (1 second or so each time) and a big slide in the last corner behind tombrooks (lost position, a couple of seconds)
Favourite moment: Catching Mutu several seconds per lap in the last 4 or so laps.
