I had another dream run in qualifying last night, setting two PB's which were 0.4 faster than anything I'd done previously. I still wasn't comfortable though because I knew Anth had gone even faster. Luckily for me (and unluckily for him) though he encountered traffic during the session and I snagged pole.
I got away from the line well and hoped that I wouldn't cop a shunt into turn 1, luckily we had no major nonsense again this week. Anth kept the gap well for the first few laps but I noticed it grow a little so I assumed he'd gotten some cut-track penalties. I saw ranok3n jump into P2 after a while, I had a feeling he'd have good pace again this week. My tyres were lasting really well in the first stint so I revised my pit strategy and decided to head in at the end of lap 16 instead of 15, allowing me to push a little harder in the second stint. Ranok3n went in on lap 15 and Anth stayed out longer so he gained the lead when I pitted.
When Anth pitted a couple of laps later he came out about 13 seconds behind me. I decided to push for FL a few laps after pitting, trying to hit the sweet spot between tyre degradation and fuel load, I managed a 32.1xx on lap 21 and decided that was as fast as I could go. At this time Anth was taking bulk time out of me though, in only a couple of laps he'd gotten the gap down to 10 seconds so I knew he was making a big push. Knowing he was a bit faster than me around Zolder it was crucial not to make any errors.
During all this I was lapping some back-markers, everyone did a great job of observing blue flags this week. I had a little incident with Max, I saw him across the track at turn 8 and he tried to spin the car around the right way but span it a bit too far and we had a bit of a coming together. It was a little scary but it didn't affect me too badly so all good Max, no harm no foul.
Meanwhile Anth had received a couple more penalties and the gap grew a little wider in the few remaining laps we had. All in all I had a pretty lonely race but the pressure was always on with Anth not very far behind me the whole time. I'm ecstatic to be able to clinch the championship before heading to Dubai. Thanks to everyone for racing and giving us another huge grid.
Here's some highlights:
Last edited: May 29, 2017