Round 2 Winner!
The weekend started with Saturday practice: Practice would give the team and myself a great opportunity to work with the car to ensure we had the best set up moving forward for the rest of the weekend. Practice started on a wet but drying circuit, I manged 2 laps before pitting for dry tires. On my second lap on dry tires I was asked to return to the pit lane, unfortunately my car had developed an oil leak and this ended my session. The team worked hard to ensure we were ready to go for qualifying, I started the session confident and set a competitive lap time that would have been good enough for pole position, however the race director deleted my fastest lap and all the laps I did due to “Track Limits.” It was judged that I was using too much of the kerbs and therefore would start last for the race. I was on the back foot for the race having to start last but was determined to have a good race. I started well and gained a few place in the first two corners but while trying to overtake the Mercedes I was hit as the driver didn’t see me alongside him on the apex of the corner, I was forced to return to the pit lane and this was the end of my race.
On Sunday I would have a chance to put the nightmare that was Saturday behind me.
Strangely the rules for track limits were changed for Sunday, which means had the same rules been in place for Saturday I would have started race 1 from pole position. I looked forward towards practice where I worked well with the team and found a good setup for the car for both qualifying and the race with no issues, I managed to finish the session second fastest overall. During qualifying I was straight on the front running pace and on my first flying lap I set a time good enough for 2nd on the grid, I knew there was more time in both myself and the car and was very confident for the race. The race started and I managed to hold my 2nd position and even took a look at passing 1st place for the lead, I settled into 2nd and managed to hold a small 1 second gap to the car behind me. I kept following the 1st place Mercedes and knew I was quick enough to attempt to take the lead, the race leader made a small mistake and I was now right behind him, I made my move on the inside of the corner and took the lead of the race. I was able to pull a small gap ahead of about 2 seconds and kept the gap at the distance while protecting the car and tires for the duration of the race. As the chequered flag waved I took the victory of the race! Overall I was pleased with the weekend, the team worked very well and I had a great Sunday after a difficult Saturday. I am now even more determined to have a good weekend at the next round of the Championship in Lausitzring in German in 3 weeks!