Week 5 Suzuka
Its not my first time here in Japan. I raced here in a Ford GT 40 a couple of years ago. Its a fantastic track that I know pretty well. It was still very tough to get through the Esses and the Spoon without loosing to much time. After not alot of practice realy, we managed to put together a good car with decent speed. I did some laps in practice, but it wasnt untill qualifying that I was going to shine. I put down a lap over half a second quicker than my previous best! This put my all the way up into P3!! What a fantastic start!
Then it was race time, and nerves started to realy build with the pressure.
Off we go!
I had a horrible start! I was way to slow on the throttle, this made me realy ealy slow and alot of cars got past me before T1.
Luckily I wasnt to rattled by this and got back to speed quickly.
Then the next corner I see Mark Pickford flying of the track!
Does this picture seem familliar to anyone? :D
After a lap or so a couple of people had run of the track and I was hunting down John G Hill for P2.
Man this old man is quick! Im thinking to myself, aint he gone make a mistake soon?!
I was a little bit faster than him but not enough to get past him.Its amazing how a man in his age can concentrate that hard for that long! Pluss being pressured.
We started to hunt down Marek Glab. Slowly gaining on him.
Then he lost his car going over the curbes before the hairpin.
Both me and John got by him.
Now I was the one getting pressured. I wasnt as strong as John and I started to buckle after a few short laps. Loosing the car got full opposit lock through T1.
We went side by side through almost all of the Esses!
Then after some laps I missed the exit of spoon and Marek got a run on me going down the straight towards 130R.
But then sadly, a couple of laps later Marek lost it on the xit of 130R and went of going hard into the wall!
It was a pretty scary sight from my car.
I was now five second behind John and there was no point in trying to catch him and I had over 15 seconds down to the next car. So there was no point in pushing and I just walked home for my first podium finish in the F1 serries! What a thrill! To think I got P2 after such a horrible start.
Thanks to Jägermaister and all the support from the fans!
See you at Montreal next week!!!
Too many times I've backed off if the car in front is too far ahead and it's near the end of the race. Last missed opportunity was at Mosport. Near the end, the guy in front was about 10 seconds ahead. Last lap I noticed it was 5 seconds. He had gone off track and had damaged the car. By that time I was just driving very slow, because I had about 20 seconds on the car behind. I drove real hard in the end, but missed the position and the 20 extra points that I would have won. Just 2 seconds behind at the flag.
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