Team: Manor
Teammate: Pascal Wehrlein
Difficulty: Legend / No assists / 100% weekend / sim damage
Completed my Chinese GP earlier today. Qualified in 12th after I managed to get through to Q2 with brilliant lap
. I got out early in the session as rain was predicted, really shook up the order as several failed to set a lap in time before the rain began to fall.
Yet again I started from the back as due to the grid bug. By the end of lap one I was 17th and in a good position just behind Nasr. I had a brilliant battle for the entirety of the first stint with him and managed to start pulling out a gap as I was much quicker in the first and second sectors.
The tyres were going off faster than I had anticipated and I was failing to make the stint lengths last long enough for my strategy to work. I started the race on SS's, on lap 11 I was due to pit for Softs, and then on lap 33 I was to pit for mediums. But I could only manage to get 9 laps from the super Softs before they were utterly trashed. Really suffered with rear traction out of T13. The Softs were much better, but they too only lasted until about lap 22, which was much shorter than expected.
So I decided to change strategy and fit a fresh set of super Softs that were left over from qualifying. Surprisingly they lasted very well, and I managed to get 17 laps out of them. This was in part due to the falling track temps as rain was on the way, and the lighter fuel and rubbered in track.
Then the rain began to fall. I stayed out as long as I could on slicks before getting in the window for intermediates. I pitted a lap earlier than most of the rest of the grid and I gained quite a few places because of it. By the time it had all worked itself out, I was no longer battling with Saubers, but rather I was hunting down Grosjean. I suspect the AI are rather a lot slower in the in the wet than dry, but hey ho, I made do with what I had.
As Grosjean left the pitlane, he had 9 seconds on me. I managed to widdel that down over the course of the next 20 laps and made a pass on him for 12th place with 2 laps to go.
It was an utterly brilliant race. Great fun! The first stint was frustrating because the super Softs gave me all the grip of oiled oak, but after that it only got better
. Oh yeah and I've now officially beaten Wehrlein in our rivalry fight, 20-16.
Speak to you from (virtual) Sochi, a track I've never driven before
.