wheey a hat-trick!

Think I put in a little bit more practice here than previously this season as I have a bit of an unbeaten record to protect at this track.

Knew I had quite good pace so didn't show it til quite late in pre-race practice.

Quali: Managed to find plenty of clear space but made mistakes on my first 2 flying laps which left me a few tenths off my PB albeit still just holding provisional pole. Went back out and found the .4s and then better it by a few hundredths right at the end and that was good enough!

Race: I HATE the grid here. Pole never works out well for me and my infamous snail like starts. Sasa got the jump on me off the line and I know the outside of T1 rarely works so I jumped on to his rear bumper and held on to 2nd place. Behind us it seemed to be an epic battle and I saw some great racing going on back there but this meant I could sit in 2nd and wait for us to pull clear early on. Once we had a bit of a gap and I'd worked out where I was stronger I started to crank up the pressure slightly and I eventually got enough of a run coming out of the final corner to nip up the inside of T1 after a really enjuyoable first third of the race! From there I managed to slowly edge away after fending off the initial comeback attempts and eventually built my lead up to around 3 seconds. I seemed to have slightly better tyre wear as the gap increased a little more towards the end until traffic came along.
All well behaved but a scary moment when someone got on the grass trying to let me through and span across towards the inside which gave me a bit of a fright but all was okay!

Cheers for a good race all.

this is still one of my best combos then it seems!

didn't get much practice in but I've raced a slightly different version of the car/track combo elsewhere recently and I've raced this here before so I knew I should be ok. Didn't get time to test if tyres would hold up til the end so went for 2 stops.

Quali went pretty well with a near PB.

Race wise...got a decent start and held the lead. Got my head down and starting edging out the gap I'd need to make sure my 2 stopped worked! As it happened my tyre wear was really good and I could have easily 1 stopped but I stuck to my planned 2.
Came out after my first stop in P6 or so and on the fresh rubber picked my way back to the lead within a few laps which was important. Then just monitored the gap once the 1 stoppers had pitted to make sure I still had a pit stop gap + safety net when I came to pit.
Pretty hassle free! Was surprised by my pace in the end!
Backmarkers were in general very helpful so thanks for that, few scary moments but that's always going to happen here.
Grats to rest of the podium

Wasn't expecting a very strong night here due to a heavy league schedule elsewhere meaning I hadn't turned a wheel until 40 minutes or so before!

Luckily I've run the combo sometime previously and found something close to pace in time for qualifying.

Quali: After managing to avoid some racing going on the out lap I managed to get myself a decent spot and hit a 46.9 which was good for provisional pole and as half way point progressed this was still the case which surprised me as there had been faster times in practice! Mr Nannen then pipped me whilst I was already on my out lap for the next run and I got the first sector right this time and it was enough to edge clear by a tenth or so again, slightly improvement on my previous quali best here.

Race: Was expecting this to be a close battle for most of the race having seen practice times and such. Lights dropped and I got a really good start which is unusual for me! Coming in to T1 it meant I could take my own normal line whilst others squabbled behind me and I got my head down on the first lap, crossing the line about 2 seconds clear of Nannen in 2nd and 6 ahead of the battle for 3rd! At this point I decided to keep it cool and just make sure I saved the tyres. David had good enough pace to make sure I didn't relax too much and was nailing me in the first sector each time but then I'd edge back out over the rest of the lap and the gap was slowly creeping up. That was pretty much how the race went! Making sure I was not making mistakes whilst running a pace that'd just about cover David and count down the laps. Didn't come across much traffic but those I did were very helpful so thanks for that.
Slowed down on the line to give the lap back to Bates I believe in case anyone retired on the last lap.
Shame a few had to pull out of this but happy with another pole and win!

Cracking race to kick start the season with! I chose this track as I'd had a previous epic 3 way battle here before and thought the same may happen.

Quali:
Didn't hook up my first lap and was only around 4th and 3 tenths off what i had been doing on race fuel so knew I needed to improve but came across too much traffic. Returned to pits for another go and luckily I hooked up a lap that was good enough for pole.

Race:
Knew it wasn't going to be easy even though my race pace was pretty strong because how much the slipstream can play a part here.
Got what was a reasonable start until Joco cruised past from a row back and I settled in. Had a few little looks early on but didn't want to press too much as I was hoping we could break away from the pack. I believe it was Ricardo and Massimo directly behind who then caught us back up and for a time I think we were all within less than 2 seconds. Me and Joco kept getting a little bit of a break then Ricardo would be right on my bumper again as soon as I considered having a look so I was being patient and staying close to Joco in the hope I might get an opportunity if he made a mistake. Finally he got a bit too much of a drift on and I was just able to squeeze through without losing any momentum which combined with nailing the rest of that lap was enough to get me out of slipstream range and away. I then edged out the gap whilst those behind battled and from the timing screen it seems to have carried on just as close as it had been previously!
Happy with the win! happier with how good some of the racing was. Really good stuff.