Arunam Mugello GP

Congratulations to Renato Dornelles on the win and to Marcel Grevelt on his podium position. I can´t believe that this series is not more popular. It was disappointing to see this event not well supported.

PRE RACE

I had run twice here in the past in the BMW E90 series so I kind of knew more or less what to expect from the track. As usual, I ended up running a large number of laps in preparation where my first test session ended me with running in the 1m28´s and before I went into the race, I could run 1m24´s - 1m25´s. I find these cars to have very little front end grip and I was adjusting the setup of the car all the time, trying to get maximum grip with minimum down-force and trying to keep the tyre temperatures in a good range.

QUALI

There were only two flying laps in the short 10m session. Renato and I set times close to each other, swapping the lead with the same qualifying strategy, which saw us close together, on track, and pitting at the same time. The quali time went between each other, where Renato had it before the last lap. I concentrated hard and tried to hit the brake markers and apex´s perfectly. Renato bettered his time on his last run but I was just up on his time through the first sector. I did not dare look away from the track again and concentrated on the road from that point which saw me starting the race from pole.

RACE

The start of the race was always going to be tough as the tyres in this mod take time to come up to temperature. Renato passed me on lap two and I retook the lead into T1 on lap 3. I hit the kerbing a little hard in the fast right hander, mid track, and I knew this was very dangerous as this mistake could spit you into the wall. I completely lifted and gathered myself and treated those turns with more respect from that point.

I could see that Renato was way quicker through that section from that point in the race, but I was not going to risk the kerbs of death again. I pitted before Renato and managed to regain the lead after his first stop. I held on to that position for 11 laps until I out broke myself, and slotted in behind the leader.

I knew I had to make a great out lap in case I stood a chance of jumping Renato on his cold tyres and managed a timed out lap of some 2 seconds better than my first stop. Renato saw me pitting and pitted the very next lap in order to mitigate the advantage I may have had by being on fresher rubber.

I closed right up behind him following very closely, in order to try and take advantage of any situation. We made light contact on T2, as I could did not slow for the turn as much as Renato did. This was my fault as I was behind but it looked as if Renato slowed up for me to take the position. I also lifted as I thought this was not necessary, especially since I was the following car.

I lost some time by going wide in some turns which kind of ¨sucked¨ you off track a number of times in the race. It was very hot and humid in Buenos Aires and I never use my air conditioner so the race took it´s toll on me from that stand point too.

It was great to race closely with one of R2P´s best drivers and a real thrill to compete in a really fast open wheeler mod.

I look forward to the next round and I will post a video of the race highlights, later in the week.

Just started getting a nice feel for the car then on lap 5 pushed too hard and said hello too the tire wall sideways at 140mph... Tried fixing it but only ended up crashing more eventually taking my self out.

I'll stay away from these for the time being ;=)

On the 1st races I just pitted once and I thought this would be the same. I started with 133L and when Steve pitted I still had 50L. Then the car became really hard to drive and I pitted for tires. Since I lost time with worn tires I lost 1st position and I had to use boost on the straight to get closer and put psychological pressure in steve. It worked and after a while he did same mistake and I overcame him. Excellent result since I just practice before qualy with the same setup from the other races and started the race with the wrong strategy.

Congrats steve for a fair battle!!