The second race on the Sunday looked like it was going to be another dry one, until the very last minute. The weather had been threatening all day long, dark black clouds circling the track and about two minutes before the start of the race the heavens opened and the rain started to fall.
Some of the teams changed to wet tyres almost straight away. My initial thought was to stay on slicks as the track is prone to drying very quickly, the wind was also quite strong. As the rain continued to fall I could see the team making my wet tyres ready and then the car was plumbed into the airline and the air-jacks lifted the car ready for a change.
I still felt that the track was going to dry and, similar to the first race of the season if the track were to dry then slick tyres were going to be much faster by the end of the race.
Thankfully the team were never going to change the tyres as they also had the same plan.
Two minutes later the signal was given to make final decisions and head out onto the circuit for the formation lap. It just so happened that everyone made the same choice and the entire grid was on slicks.
We were given an extra lap to find out what the conditions were like and to get extra heat into the brakes and the tyres. As the track was wet it was unlikely to give the tyres enough friction to warm them sufficiently, heating the brakes up more then usual helped put some heat through the wheel and therefore into the tyre.
Just like the first race I started from the right hand side of the grid, on the racing line, so I had planned for a good start. All of the races so far in the day had been dry and that meant the racing line in the corners was likely to be very slippery due to plenty of rubber being put down onto the track from the other formulas, especially the touring cars.
As the lights changed, similar to the first race I got a great start and planned to go around the outside of the turn 1, off the racing line. I felt that there would be more grip there. Thankfully it was a good decision as the car on the inside of me spun and almost hit the safety wall. Being off the line allowed me to carry more speed towards the second corner and therefore make a further overtaking manouvre moving me into 5th place.
As I kept a tight line through the second corner I made an extra place. Everyone seemed to be taking it very carefully, but the car had so much grip and allowed for me to brake later and accelerate earlier. The rest of the lap was fraught with contact between a few of the cars and more overtaking. I managed to get into second place briefly before getting pushed onto the grass and dropping back to sixth by the end of the first lap.
On the second lap I got a good run onto the straight and through turn one to make it upto 5th again, and then completed exactly the same move to take fourth on the next lap.
Throughout the next few laps positions changed and I dropped back to 6th. I continued to make the places back at the end of the main straight in the braking area, being careful not to lock the brakes and spin.
On the 5th lap the I began to hear a noise coming from the rear of the car, it did sound a little like the suspension knocking as I cornered. What I didn't know was that the fire extinguisher had worked its way loose and was bumping the mount that held it in place.
As I made a move to go back into fifth the mount broke and the extinguisher flew to the front of the car and smashed into the bulkhead next to me, some what catching me by surprise. As this happened it distracted me enough to miss my breaking point and slide wide dropping dowen the field to 9th. for the rest of the race the extinguisher proceeded to smash itself around the car as I cornered, accelerated and braked. It was lucky that it didn't break the valve. as it broke most of the plastic electric switches in the car.
The race seemed to last for ever form that point onward and it ended up with me finishing in 9th position.
It wasn't exactly how I had planned the race to go, as I was fast enough in those conditions to be racing for a podium position. But at least the damage was only inside the car and easy to fix for the next outing.
No comments:
Post a Comment