Well done Serg,
This week I ran the car in red with gold wheels to celebrate the Gold Leaf Team Lotus colours that Fittipaldi used at his first Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in 1970. He went on to win the 1970 USGP at his fifth start and came 5th at Monaco in 1971 in these colours.
My race here was mixed. I qualified 8th and was determined to survive the first lap. I held position all the way to the tunnel where because the guys ahead of me were delayed by a little rubbing out of the down hill hairpin the field bunched up massively. I went into the tunnel surrounded by a sea of mostly blue cars and kept to the outside dreading the chicane where I new it was going to get ugly.
Unfortunately I didn't get that far, a tap on the right rear corner turned me around at the tunnel exit and I was left last facing backwards against the outside wall. I was now a little deflated and slowly turned the car around knowing my race was done. Ad2 was waiting for me and even reversed back up the hill to redress, my brilliant deductive powers, honed by many episodes of Midsomer Murder led me quickly to the conclusion he was the culprit.
I pressed on in 10th place with Ad2 running a little way behind but there was a big gap to the guys ahead. After about 6 laps I started to gain on Stumbles and Overdrivve. I had come into the race with a plan to pit on lap 11 if there were cars ahead that I might undercut. A one lap undercut had got me ahead of Sparkles and Ad2 at the World Tour Monaco round and I thought maybe a two lap under cut here might get me some track position.
I was just trying to get close to Stumbles and Overdrivve when they had a little drama at the entry to the pool complex and I managed to slip ahead into 8th as they sorted themselves out. Evil and Disturboed were a little way ahead and I was trying to close up to them to see if my undercut plan would work on them. I had a tight bunch of cars nibbling my bumper however until I clouted the inside wall at the downhill chicane. This seemed to have worse effect on those behind me than it did on me as although I lost a little ground to those in front, those behind also fell back. I pitted on lap 11 and fell back to 11th but as I passed the pits on lap 13 I was uplifted by the site of all the name tags sticking up from the pit wall. I was now in 6th!!. The gap ahead was huge though and I knew I wouldn't be getting any further up the positions so I concentrated on keeping off the walls knowing that the last couple of laps were going to be fraught as I held off those behind on newer tyres.
Evil wanted his 6th spot back and was pressing hard. I eventually had a slow run onto the pitstraight and he loomed large in my mirror, I held to the inside forcing him to go around the outside of turn 1 if he wanted to pass, so he did!!.
I tried to stay with him in case he returned the favour, but even when he did have some little wiggles I was only able to close up, not really have a chance to pass. As the race ran to the end Disturbo loomed up and was threatening to pass but he had a pinball moment coming onto the pit straight and fell back. Stumbles was the next challenger and it took all my concentration to hold him off by about a half second at the flag.
It was a great race even though I couldn't even see my old adversary S_Close on the leader board, let alone the track.
The climb back from 10th to 6th and eventually 7th was very satisfying and I had some good clean battles along the way. Thanks everyone for a good race. Even though this is my worst result in a ROOZ race it was still a lot of fun. Looking forward to next week.
Last edited: Aug 26, 2013
