Pukekohe 100k

Im surprised i got this one and i surely didnt expect it to be this easy...

I got home just in time for QUAL and i didnt practice 1 lap for this event. In 4 laps of qual i got pole somehow...

My start was great and i was opening the gap from lap to lap, so race was realy just crusing for me. Hope others will be like this too lol ;) Saw that races from 4th to 8th at some point were only 2sec apart... that must of been good! sry i missed that :)

Sry for asking tim during race if there are mendatory pitstops... I didnt wanna get +1 lap and i saw 4 ppl pit,... just wanted to make sure.. sry again

Cya @ next one

At the start I was slow off the line and also seemed to lose power in turn 1 and I dropped to 4th briefly before getting a run onto the straight and moving back into 3rd. My team mate John had a great start and he was in 2nd, I followed for a couple of laps then got a run onto the SF straight and got the inside of turn 1. I then pulled out a bit of a gap but Janko was long gone and going atleast 1/2 a sec a lap faster so there was no chance to challenge him. Nice podium finish John and great win Janko, unbelievable pace once again.

My first time in these cars and track. Obviously there isn't a lot to learn on the track :P

Tried the default setup in practice and made some more adjustments as qual started. Did my PB in qual and that was only good enough for 8th on the grid well off the front runners times.

Race session started and the first thing I noticed was how cramped the grid was, so I saw no reason to try and gain any positions on the start. Being new to the V8's I didn't want to be the guy that spun out and wrecked half the field. So I took it easy the first few turns and found myself in 9th heading down to the hairpin.

I broke real early and watched as the 3 cars ahead of me plowed into each other then at the apex someone ran into the guy behind me shoving him into me but we got through it okay.

I was relly struggling with slowing the car down for the hairpin and any gains I made on the rest of the track were given away there every lap. With a equal gap ahead and behind I made a small mistake into that hairpin and McClean closed right up on me and soon passed.

Later I made an even bigger error allowing the car behind me to get right up on me also. I tried to concentrate and managed to open up a little breathing room when people started pitting.

I didn't know the rule because I was stupid and didn't read them :( So running 5th and about the same pace as the car ahead I checked my tire wear which was great, except for the front left which was at 26% with 10 laps to go so I dove in for fresh front only. Unfortunately the setup was set to fuel me so I had to take extra time to fix that.

Rejoined in 15th but now I really like the way the car felt, fresh fronts and worn rears :) Finally the thing was turning a little. Worked my way up to the battle for 3-4 with 12th just ahead of them. Coming down the front straight David Fridley got his tires on the grass and I was able to make the pass as we headed into the final lap and finished 12th.

To bad I wasn't familiar with these cars and rules, I think I could have nursed it home for a top 5 but oh well maybe next time.

Grats to Janko on another win.

Congrats podium.

I was one of the guy's who pitted, went from 4th to 17th and well, there you have it.

My lack of experience with race strategy really shinned in this one!

Until next time.

-m

As Kent said it was so tight thru the first section of the track but everyone managed to hold their lines well enough and so there was no carnage. I was behind Goran and Tom at the start and at the hairpin i was able to take the outside line around it and jump them which left me on Kents bootlid, stayed close to him for some laps and got a good slipstream from him down the back straight and was able to get him under braking.

Caught up to Rory and Joco and was following thinking about where i could pass, But some laps later Rory got a wheel on the grass at the start/finish straight and i could pull along side and had the line into T1. Next on the list was Joco but at the hairpin i got too close and forgot to go back to 1st gear which meant i was very slow exiting and Rory was able to take his place back. Rory and i would swap places again in a carbon copy of the pass earlier at T1. Then got close to Joco up the start/finish straight but he gave me a little squeeze and we touched so i backed off, but exiting T3 heading down the back stretch i was able to make the pass underbraking.

This was a great race right up to the dud pitstops lol. I must read these bloody rules.

Mark

Was really looking foward to a battle with Janko. Our times looked pretty even. Unfortunatly, with seconds to go in warmup, my driver list got weird and everyone was called "Ys". Looked weird but I couldn't do anything about it. After that I clicked the tv view button and game decided, you ain't racing this afternoon and ctd. Sucks, but what can ya do. On to the next race.

Pitty sucking is not awarded, cause this race I really SUCKED ! I had the worst race on R2P, not a little bit of feel on the car, braking points all wrong .. grrrr

Hope I did not interfere with pretty much everyone lapping me ... got a punctured tire at some point, had to pit. After that I didn't push , there was really nothing more to do. It's even more suprising for me, as in Adelaide , even with a bad 1 stop strategy, I still made it to finish and felt really good with the car ....

Bad dream this race .. :(