Late report, but better late than never.
Mixed race from me this week.
I felt I had an ok pace and I enjoyed the track rhythm quite a lot.
Then race begun and I was collected on T1 by a spinning Mazda, putting me at the back of the pack.
I knew I had pace so I pushed, and in not time I had caught up to 3 fighting Mazdas and threw myself into the mix. Good fun but I felt the fighting was holding me back so after hearing Jim mention something about pit window I decided on the last minute to pull into an early pit stop to try undercutting. That was not smart... the pit window was not yet open and the message from Jim was probably something like "X minutes for pit window". Pitted the very next lap and I was once again in the back.
A few laps later had a nice fight with Steve, then kept pushing until I caught up with Raul.
After getting close I made a mistake which cost me the recently gained position and overheated my tires, so I kept making mistakes for a full lap.
Then in the last laps I finally caught up again, and when I decided to make my move I ended-up a bit more off-line that expected and did not give the room I should've. Once again apologies Raul.
And finally it ended with a stressed defense from Bouke, who was getting bigger and bigger in my rear-view mirrors.
Overall I am happy with the pace, I feel I am improving week after week. I feel quite connected with the Swift and that gives me more confidence to go faster. I think there is still room to improve the set-up but that will come with time.
On the other hand I made a few silly mistakes in this race which cost me a lot of time. Between the early pit and a couple of momentary lack of focus there is still a lot of room to improve.
Thanks Han for hosting another great event, congrats to the podiums and I will see you next week!
- Ricardo