Q 8th: R 5th
Very pleased with that race. Besides picking up 2x 3sec penalties, it was one of my cleanest and most consistent races and happy to finish just 12 secs off the lead with no safety cars. Shout out to
@Worthingtonio for his great comeback drive to 3rd after being sent from 2nd to last in quali following an in-game DSQ. He also picked up no time penalties so very polished and how you recover from disappointment!
Quali
Finally put together a solid lap on my third attempt to jump up to 8th. Run 2 was looking good too but
@Philip_66 baulked my in S2 on his inlap.
Race
Decent start, focusing to stay out of wing smash territory. Took inside of t1 as a number ran wide, which got me past
@ShaunG123's Ferrari. At t2 a space opened on the outside so took that to find some clear space to avoid any smashy smashy. I did feel a push from the rear under braking but didn't seem any damage came from it. More chaos in t2 got me up to 6th.
@byGerjo shortly span off as well.
I was behind
@LUISO_1995. Lost touch of DRS after a few laps and eventually
@Paddy0h_ caught up. I decided not to fight hard, thinking it would be more in my interest to latch onto his DRS and save fuel and hopefully catch up to others. This worked well as I could stick with
@Paddy0h_ and it helped me pull further away from those behind.
Parcero/@Daviotero_38(?) went off at t3 in the middle of the first stint, giving
@Paddy0h_ and me another position. So I was 5th.
Lap 14 some of the leaders pitted. Race order was
@Psycodelic1a,
@Paddy0h_, me.
@Worthingtonio had moved up the field on his mediums too. Think he was 6 secs or so behind me.
VSC then came out midway round lap 15 and us top 3 pitted. Like Canada, I got lucky again. Defo gained some time but VSC ended as I entered my box so not as big a gain as could have been.
Although I was close behind
@Paddy0h_ when we pitted, the VSC allowed him to just jump ahead of
@LUISO_1995. I was under 2 secs back but just couldn't quite close the gap to get DRS. It was under 1.5s at one point. So that was annoying.
Picked up some penalties in the second stint. Most annoying was lap 31 when in little over a single lap I cut the last turn, then t1, then t1 next lap, pushing me up to 6 secs penalties! GRR!
At that point I became more worried about losing places from those behind catching up.
A recovering
@byGerjo caught up and I let him pass easily too; again thinking it'll be better for me to latch onto him and pull me towards the
@LUISO_1995-
@Paddy0h_ fight. But
@byGerjo's recovery was shortlived as he immediately span off exiting t4!!!
@LUISO_1995 had also now passed
@Paddy0h_.
Next up was
@Worthingtonio charging through on his softs. He passed
@Nuttcat then quickly caught me by lap 31. Again, I capitulated as knew it would only damage my race fighting him and my real fight now was with
@Nuttcat who was 3 secs behind but only had 3 sec pens to my 6 secs.
Lap 33, second VSC, at which point
@LUISO_1995-@SonicWPR gate happened. Up to 5th again as I passed him. Then a 2 lap dash to the line to stay ahead of
@Nuttcat.
@Worthingtonio's tyres (and fuel/ERS) looked utterly dead on the last lap, whereas I could still use Rich and some ERS, and I finished just 0.5 secs behind him with DRS over the line and I stayed ahead of
@Nuttcat by 0.1s! Phew!!!
A Note on @LUISO_1995-@SonicWPR gate
I've seen the video now and can understand
@LUISO_1995's anger given he's leading the championship through consistency (despite only one win) against arguably 2 or 3 faster drivers. Clearly
@SonicWPR has made errors. At t2 it looks like he was fighting with someone else and misjudged his braking, which spooked
@LUISO_1995. The takeout incident looks like
@SonicWPR clearly went into him at t1. The VSC had just come out so I dunno if he got caught out by this as dunno why he'd be trying to overtake under VSC.
Having said that,
@SonicWPR did apologise in his first message on the chat. The toxic in-fighting that followed, not helped by the hot-headed anger from
@LUISO_1995, leading to another driver wanting to quit, shouldn't have happened.
This was only
@SonicWPR's third race and, given this is F8 too, it's likely people will make mistakes as they blood in. People should be able to feel they can grow and learn from their mistakes and not made to feel uncomfortable to the extent they're getting no enjoyment from competing and want to quit.
I remember raging years back in F1 2013 or so. It was first race, Melbourne. Last lap I was 3rd when, with 3 corners to go, 4th place dived bombed me and spun me out, dropping me down the field while he claimed 3rd. I was apoplectic! Shouted afterwards it was unfair. That I deserved 3rd! I wouldn't let it go and told I was being immature. And they were right.
If aggrieved, nothing wrong with expressing that as natural to need to vent. But seek an apology and explanation for what happened. Put it in the Stewards and hope that person learns not to make the same mistake again. Then walk away and have a beer!
