Definite low point of the season for me. Much as I appreciate them actually putting a road car round in, I feel things kind of fall apart when they're as slow as the Cappuccino. I've never been a fan of races where momentum is
that important because any kind of actual racing makes you lose huge amounts of time.
Qualified P11 after having the car bounce out of control on my first qualifying lap trying to take turn 3, then going for a frenzied dash out of the pits to get around in time to actually set something. That lap ended up being really scruffy as well.
I got a good launch off the line and moved up to P10, but was then back down in P12 trying to keep it clean through turn 1. That then rapidly dropped to P14 due to being caught on the left going two-wide through the Esses with a German, and having to slow down at turn 5 to leave racing room.
Back up to P11 at the start of lap 2 due to three people understeering off turn 1, and then managed to catch up with P9 and P10 at the start of the back straight. Everything started falling apart again after that though when an Italian who'd understeered at turn 1 and slid off kept his foot in over the grass and charged straight into turn 3 from the side, forcing me to brake early. I was kind of expecting him to get a penalty for that excursion but nothing given.
Being forced to slow down like that allowed the gap behind me to close, and when I got a run on the Italian down the back straight, he tried to block me, then force me off the left when I switched sides. I pushed too hard trying to catch up with the two I was chasing before, started sliding at the chicane and dropped the positions again trying to catch the car.
From there frustration set in, I got sloppy trying to push forward, picked up a track penalty and eventually dropped it at turn 1 on the last lap. Finished P13.
This being on a Wednesday only serves to frustrate me even more. I appreciate I'm going to start to sound like a broken record (if I don't already) but who came up with this time schedule for weekdays... This is exactly the kind of situation where I'd give it another shot, but absolutely can't because work prevents me from doing anything except the final slot when they start so early in the day. We're not all full-time streamers...
Bring on Saturday. The X2019 tends to be one of my stronger cars, so here's hoping for something good.