Euro MC: Oran Park

Discovered in the practice session that I was somewhat off the pace, although part of that was down to some competitors doing Q laps - I remained in my race setup throughout, fully fuelled up.

It was the same in qualfying (4 seconds off pole, with a 1:09.8 lap!), so as a result I was to start the race 16th out of the 18 starters.

Took it easy at the start of the race, and watched chaos in front of me, with cars spinning into the gravel. One of the cars drove back onto track in front of me, and I couldn't avoid making contact. I was perturbed, then, to see I'd been given a drive-thru penalty. With no chance to appeal, I served it at the end of my second lap, and came back out on track in 14th position.

This left me on track by myself, so the majority of the race was just like a practice session, interrupted only by seeing cars ahead of me binned into the gravel. I gradually moved up the order, getting into the Top 10. The two leaders lapped me with a few laps remaining, followed some laps later by the rest of the Top 5. But that's OK, 'cos I knew I wasn't fast and was fully expecting to be lapped.

No more dramas meant I crossed the line in 10th place - a Top 10 being exactly what I was looking for from my first Race2Play event. Yay!

Again poor start after pole in qual.
But somehow survived cold tyres first few laps and succesfuly passed Roberto for the lead in lap 6 though.
This track was so difficult for Meganes, I had some dangerous moments when passing people for a lap, or spunned car on the mid track.

Grats podium.