Thanks for a great race guys and congratulations to the podium - particularly Reik for handling that Porsche all the way to P2! Thanks again to Markus for organising this fascinating series.
It was an interesting one, this track - those first few corners were so insanely bumpy that I had to soften my Praga considerably just to make it through in one piece, and I was definitely losing some time. The two tight sections and the very wide corners at the end of 2 of the straights made passing rather difficult, but I had some great fights throughout.
I'd only practiced on the medium and hard tyres - the hards were like a set of ice skates and the mediums started to wear quite quickly in my limited testing, so my plan was to run 2 sets of mediums. In the end, they lasted much longer than I'd anticipated (possibly as a result of the cool surface temperature).
Quali
I don't have much raw pace and I often join sessions right as practice is ending due to finishing work at 8pm, so I'm usually happy to qualify at/near the back and run some last-minute testing. However, tonight I somehow ended up a dizzying (by my standards) 5th on mediums with a race-load of fuel onboard.
Race
I was humbled immediately with a sluggish start and a few hairy moments in the opening lap, ultimately having to regroup from about 9th.
A good fight with Markus in the early part of the race ended suddenly when he pulled to one side with an issue (sorry to hear about the VR hiccup!), and a few laps later I found myself behind Robert's Audi. I didn't have the pace to get past and my front was starting to complain a bit, so with about 15 minutes to go I opted to come in for softs to try an undercut. I was instantly 1s/lap better than my previous best, so I thundered around in clear air, but what I hadn't realised is that Robert had already pitted early on! My thrilling attempt at strategy deployment was in vain
I was quite happy to keep things relatively tidy and ultimately finish back where I started in 5th. A small part of me is thinking about what could have been, though, if I'd gone with the right setups for quali and the race. The softs also seemed to last longer than I'd predicted, so running soft/soft instead of med/soft could have been worth a good chunk, and I'd also have been better equipped to deal with the slippy first lap.
Next up for me is that bloody Porsche in the last round. As long as I don't get lapped twice, I'll be happy
