Panoz: Osterreichring

I do not normally race the Panoz, usually leave that to Nick, but since he was on holiday I was covering. What great fun it was.

I was never going to be on the leaders pace but ran my own race to see where it would take me. Pretty pleased with 6th I have to say and had a great battle with Dan for the last couple of laps. Nice one :)

Admin bit - Any issues please PM. Thanks

Mark's List of Errors:

Turn 1 Spin.
Turn 1 Spin.
Flipping the car up (and off) the banking.
Speeding in pitlane and having to take a Stop/Go.
Turn 1 Spin nearly wiping out Simon (sorry).

Mark's List of Successes:

.... finishing?

lol Mark!!

Well, it was a nice race for me. Maybe I could have done better, but you need luck also.

Had the second time in qualy and I am pretty satisfied with that.
Jan was so far quicker, so I decided to change my pit strategy. I put lot of fuel and mid/soft tires on, trying to do only a quick pit stop just for fuel. Started great and took the lead, thinking that I could keep Jan behind me for a few laps in my pace, but we had a side-by-side contact and my car spun.

From 10th place I started to push, I knew that I would have tire wear issues at the end of the race, but couldn't do differently. I had great battles with many drivers throughout the whole race and everybody were behaving perfectly on track.

I read a lot of threads recently about lapped cars and offensive driving and bad attitudes and I believe a good series is made from good drivers and the guys that race in this chapter showed that for one more time. It's all about sense of responsibility methinks.

At the end of the race I was trying to catch Mike for 3rd position, but my tires worn out.

Great race Jan, congrats to Kieron and Mike for podium.

Really happy to come away with 2nd. I didn't have time to get much practice in, maybe 45 mins tops and in Practice and qualiy it showed with me lapping around 7th position.

Got a good start and I moved up from 7th to 4th in the opening lap, then a couple of laps later I was up to 3rd. Jan was pulling away in forst and I was right on Samets rear bumper.

For the first half hour it was pretty much nose to tail with Samet with also quite a few door to door moments thrown in too. Managed to sneak by him a couple of times but his low wing setup always saw him getting back past on the next straight. Really good fun. Our constant battling did mean that Mike in 4th was able to close us down a little though.

On the in lap Samet got it slightly wrong alowing me past and also costing him a couple of seconds. The stop went well and I rejoined in 5th place. Moved up to 3rd after the other guys made there stop. Samet was leading and yet to stop and I was just watching Jan catch him on the leader board and eventually pass him. Samets gap to me then dropped by a good 10 seconds, and I saw someones rear wing on the floor at the long right hander and I figured it was Samet's. Got past him as he was going down pitlane and he was there for a while.

So I was now in 2nd with the pressure off from Samet now. Jan was a good 30 seconds up the road but Mike was only around 10 seconds behind but that gap was pretty much holding up. Last lap though and coming up to a lapped car at T2, it spun straight infront of me and slowly made it's way onto my line. I hit the brakes and just managed to miss it but the gap to Mike was now 5 seconds. But with about half a lap to go it was more than enough.

So yeah another great race, and I'm soooo happy to come away with 2nd. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more practice in for the next one to get me a little closer to Jan. Although I get the feeling he's found the sweet spot in his setup and he'll be flying from now on.

Grtas Jan, and Mike for getting 3rd. Thanks to to Samet for another great race. Really great racing, hard racing but always fair just like it should be.

Cya all at the next one.

All was going well until nearing the end when Samet and Jan were coming up behind me fast. Having taken a corner wrong, I decided to stay out of the way as they went past me, but this must have put Samet off line as he spun on the very next corner right infront of me leaving me nowhere to go but straight into him. Thankfully we both made it back to pits but I fear this ruined Samet's chances of a good finish.

Overall, I managed to creep up to 13th (due to 'mechanical failures' of others) and grab a point.

New goal is now to score points due to actually overtaking people.

Well, what can I say.........

Took a well publicised flight on lap 1. Thankfully it landed back in its wheels (with minimal damage), however I was well adrift of the field.

Decided to run at my own pace and get to the end of the race. Had to make 2 pitstops, due to not putting enough fuel in the first time, but thanks to a few retirements I finished the race in 12th.

Great to score my first points in this car. Loving this mod, hope it stays next season.