It was good to be back racing on a Wednesday and my first adventure in the Abarth.
I was pleased with my pace in qualifying P6, behind the experienced Ernie, Han and Fulvio in similar equipment. A good start and I was ahead of Ernie then something happened with Arne and I was up to P4. A poor exit out of the fast T8 for me and Ernie and Arne went by but I was happy to settle into a rhythm and go at my own pace and try to stay way from those walls.
I managed this apart from one excursion onto the path after clipping the wall on the exit of T12 and Raul and Colin went by. Time for a pit stop and I came out just behind Ernie. Ernie was faster but we had a bit of a battle as first he went off and then I clipped the wall again letting him by again. Ernie predicted that he would go off again, and he did giving me some air but I could see him closing in but I guess he must have had another off as suddenly I was on my own and looking at a P6 finish with a couple of laps to go.
But as Raul and Colin have described above, they had an incident and I squeezed by to take the flag with an inherited P4 and third in class.
Despite it’s nature, I do like the Luccaring as it is very satisfying when you do get a clean lap but man, it does punish you hard when you make a small mistake, just like real street circuits.
As for the Abarth, well like Carsten, I do prefer the engine up front driving the rear wheels but after a while I did warm to this little FWD skateboard and when I learnt to not overdrive it, I quite enjoyed it.
Well done to the podiums and thanks to Han for organising. I think these cars are a good match as I could keep up with Raul here who usually is about my pace when I jump in the Mazda, and even with multi class set up it was good fun.