Round 11 - Thruxton [June 19th]

Can't be there tonight, sorry.

rushed home from work (worked overtime monday and tuesday so i could be off early today), qual went great, start was horrible, but was having a decent race. most on here get it, we are racing real people that have put time effort into this to prepare and to make the race. some are just over the top aggressive. not just today, not just one race, over the whole series and other races at hso you can notice the different approaches. personally i don't see the fun in blocking down the straight and turning into people trying to cut them off. maybe its hard racing, but its racing that is more likely than not to end in a wreck when its done in that kind of way. too much aggression, not enough respect. why not give an extra inch or two and race back and forth to the finish?

rant over, please free my car for the rest of the series.

I think I'll withdraw from today's event. I don't feel 100% fit...

Sorry Juha again, i ruined your race, that was my fault, i feel bad...

Well for sure this was my worst raceweekend ever at HSO and it was all myself to blame

1st race after a chaotic first half I was comfortably running 2nd while with 4 laps to go I went off on the grass and unable to slow down hit the wall which destroyed my engine  

2nd race wasn't doing too bad either. I was hit a few times but after that I was chasing Richard Wilks for 2nd but 3 laps before the end I picked up a drive through. Tried to go into the pit but of course Jonathan didn't know my intentions so got hit up the ass (can only blame myself I was too slow). After I entered the pit I had a brain fart: Instead of fulfilling my drive through I stopped at my pitbox and had about 50 secs repair damage. Tried to tell my pitcrew to f*ck off but they don't understand Dutch swearing so they kept on repairing      
After that I found out that I still did not fulfill my drive through so I had to come in again!

0 points...  

Gratz to Jonathan and Grant for the race wins, and good to see some others on the podium as well.

Yeah, what an evening.

Race 1 went really well, had very nice fights, all clean on my point of view.
Got hit 2 time before the last chicane, which cost me some time and a position, but also very lucky, because many guys in front of me made mistakes.
So P3 at the end was nice to see.  

Race 2 startet very good, gained some positions at the beginnen, realising at lap 2, that i didn't adjust race fuel (and no fresh tires...)
Had to pit for fuel, but didn't realsie that i had damage after some small contact with Peter - so 41 Seconds added.
In that contact with Peter i got a cut-warning and added some idiotic additional cuts to my account, so with 2 additional drive-throughs at the end a disappointing result with no points.   (although my speed was much better than in Race 1...)

So 2 events left, hope i can take part on both.

Big thanks to the admins for your work, see you next time!

Thanks for superb racing- that's a HSO trademark. In R1 I lost 6th to Honza at the last yards of the last lap

At the R2 I'd like to apologize Michael and Honza for a tap from behind- I've started braking earlier, but couldn't avoid Michael's car and pushing Honza's Peugeot wide- thankfully that didn't ruined your race, I hope
At the end I was chasing Oyvind for last points scoring position, hoping that will find some gap or window to pass, but Oyvind's experience resulted in flawless lap- no way to overtake

Well, I have to say I'm dumbfounded by the amount of good fortune I had last night.


Practice:
Since this is a track I don't particularly like nor have had any previous success at, I only practiced yesterday as I work shorter days.

Decided to revert back to what I had used at Brands Hatch earlier this season and work from there and completely scrap my previous setup attempts for this circuit.
What came of it was a very decent setup. It was very consistent as long as I stayed on the correct line but it would cause me a lot of time-loss would I end up anywhere else.

Also, thanks should go to Grant who allowed me a sneak-peak at his setup so I could borrow his Caster settings (went halfway between his and mine) which helped quite a bit to get the car further to where it needed to be.

Q1:

Qualifying 1 came and I was struggling. I was sitting in the top7 which isn't a massively bad thing but I could see my championship rivals in David and Peter romping away in the race by starting further up the field and leaving me in their dust.
But I soldiered on and, through pure luck of nailing a lap, I managed a PB for the circuit at a 13,6 and realized I had pole at that point.
Could only sit and wait for the others to complete their laps and David put in an amazing drive to get a 13,5 (or was it even a ,4?), awesome job mate.

R1:

So 2nd on the grid and with the fast starting Audi of Grant right behind me and David...
That was a difficult proposition but I tried to plan ahead so parked the car on a slight angle to try and close Grant off if I got a good enough start and thankfully I did while David, unfortunately for him, had a lackluster start, meaning we created a wall in front of Grant.

I was first into T1 and needed a few laps to get the tires up to temperature and, thankfully for me, Grant and Peter were busy fighting between each other which allowed me to generally keep a small gap early.
A few laps into the race I understand that Peter and Grant came together which gave me a near 5 second gap to the guys behind and I was allowed to drive to the car and keep the tires on while everyone else battled away.

So in the end it was an easy race in terms of the lead (17 seconds I think I won by in the end) but I was constantly worried of making a mistake, which was one of the reasons I took it so careful lapping Simon (thanks for leaving me so much room, just didn't want to lap you going into Church, that's why it took some time for me to make my way by ).

Q2:

After R1 I was actually a tad bit tired (partly due to still working as well, one more week and then my summer holidays start, happy days and from the race as well) which showed with me struggling to get myself back into Qualifying gear (although I very rarely manage that even when fully there hehe).
Finally got it together and, it felt like, lucked myself onto 3rd on the grid, behind Peter and a flying Grant.

R2:

My start was decent but decided to stay behind and just wanted to keep it safe going into T3 but sadly misjudged the braking and made contact with Peter, terribly sorry mate, I hope it didn't damage your car

After getting back on it I was sitting in P5 I think, right behind Peter and Matthias. Matthias was driving well but soon had to pit due to previously mentioned pit-crew mistakes.

Tried to stick with Peter but that Pug was working really well around here mate.
After a few laps we both caught up to Richard W in his Accord.

While both Peter and me were probably quicker than Richard but he did a great job of keeping ahead and since I had gained 15 points on Peter in R1 I was happy to sit behind and wait for the spills to fall from the table.

In the end Peter had bad luck with the cutting stuff and recieved a drive-through and since he didn't let me know, I sadly made contact with his bumper. Sorry for that one mate.

After that it was just a question of making sure to stay on the grey stuff to pick up 3rd and another, very solid, 10 points for the championship.


So, considering my usual results at Thruxton in the past has been somewhere between horrible and abysmal, I'm chuffed to get a race win and a 3rd place last night.

I'm sorry for Peter to have a complete 0 point this round but it's nice for the championship that it gets at least a little bit closer, just too bad I need another 2 non-points for Peter and then beat him in the other two, to have a chance to take the championship away, but I'll give it my best at Donington to do what I can for the championship battle.

So, unless I decide to race at Silverstone on Sunday, I hope you all will have a great couple of weeks and see you all at Donington

NO problem Cezariusz, it was ok

My best race to date with Monde, on, sorry for Miller for the T3 Race 1 hit, but looking at the reaplay that I am being pushed behind, but wasn't quite sure I was dropping past Miller for a while in the race.
But I thought the drivers had to get better and not block other drivers on qval, when you drove off the track, it happened to me twice and I lost my best result on it