Wow, after how much I struggled with this bloody track for the last fortnight, if anyone said I would finish 2nd, I'd have laughed! Super happy with last nights result and a good way to bounce back after a few races in the wilderness. A last minute setup change gave me a new injection of confidence. I was a lucky boy to get back in after my game froze, sadly this meant running Magnussen's helmet...
However I do believe I lost this race during qualifying, having made a complete meal of the final corner, I lost about 4 tenths there. As a result I started behind Sam and really lost the chance to try and control the event.
The start was uniformly poor, however I think my lights were delayed the more I look at the footage. I somehow lost no positions until Deadman did his best Nick Heidfeld and Takuma Sato 2002 impression at the hairpin, felt bad for my new teammate Razor, who keep in mind only got the game a week ago and only reassured the fact he is the controller god of ROOZ. 4th on debut is a spectacular effort.
I was holding onto 4th before I passed Spectre who had a terrible run out of the final corner, but unfortunately Seth and Sam were far into the distance. Still, I was comfortably keeping Beau and Zharvs behind. I thought I made a big mistake staying out a lap longer on SS's but it worked a treat, I lost no places (apart from Spectre who was on a 3 stop) and had the tyre advantage with fresher S's. Spectre did a Gerhard Berger and held me up a treat before pitting on the same lap!
Once Beau detonated, the race turned on its head for me and suddenly I was in with a chance, I took the lead when the leaders pitted, but I was no match for Sam on his new SS's but surely he had to stop again. Seth was on my tail on his new S's. I didn't particularly want to waste time racing him so I tried letting him through but only succeeded in causing him to crash into the back of me, furthering the damage to his wing. Embarrassingly I was screaming at him that I was waving him through but my mic was muted. Oops.
That cost me about 4 seconds, but I was in prime position to take 2nd as Zharvs needed to pit again and Seth needed a new wing. But Sam didn't pit, surely 16 laps on SS's wouldn't be possible... I was taking roughly 3 seconds a lap out of him, but somehow he didn't puncture his tyres in a superb piece of tyre saving, but even still I'm over the moon with 2nd place, considering the predicament I was in, to dig deep in the crisis I would definitely rank that as my best performance of the season.
Well done Sam on the fine win, I must wonder what kind of shape those tyres were in. Onto Silverstone next week and boy oh boy am I looking forward to this one. 52 laps! The British GP and DOTD threads will go up later today.
Cheers, Jono.
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