Potrero de los funes EuroCup

Whoa! Great race and, thanks to the retirements, a pretty good result, both on the race and on the series!

I didn't have a chance against the front pack at all (several seconds off pace) and settled myself for the second pack. Soon we were a group of 4 from 5th to 8th. Nice battles, especially with Suto. He was always fast (and much faster than me) but it's been great to see at each and every race he gets so much better at fighting for positions.

After the pits I could come back in 4th with a 9s gap to Suto (who pitted late) and was only administering it. I was feeling *very* proud of my first race with only very minor mistakes (one of them a small slide when dicing with Suto) only to at 3 laps to finish I powerslide out of T2 and hit the wall.

Thankfully I didn't spin, the gap still remained in 6s and I could bring the car with suspension damage to finish some 3s in front of him. Just!

With that I could finish 3rd on the series by just one point! A very nice surprise, especially considering I only ran 4 out of 6 events. Sweet!

Well, this was a challenging race but overall quite good.

Started toward the back of the grid as usual and made a descent start. I was waiting for a mess in T1 or T2 but again, as is more often the case on R2P, all cleanly through. Tommy had a spin exiting T2 but that was all I saw as I helped bring the rear thru.

Lap 1 completed without incident and I got into a rhythm behind Miklos and over the next lap or two, I kinda
thought I was catching him in places only for him to pull away on the next section on track. He had a sudden off which opened up the track for me.

Up til then, was shaping up to be a nice little group of paced racers between Miklos, Colin, Gabor, Rich and myself.

I'd reach 9th by lap3 but Rich would pass Gabor on that lap. I was sure I could control that gap .. my pace was good enough to match him.

Rich closed a little on me and I determined to hold him off. On lap 5 he had a moment and I got some gap. I felt I was doing OK ... Nico was closing on me. On lap 7 Nico would pass me after I spun at the first Chicane ....lesson learned there ... not concentration on the corner enough!

I'd have to watch Rich drive past before I could rejoin ..... ah man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I even waved to my screen [LOL]

ARRRRRRRR!!!!!!! I got back on it and didn't loose too much time. I could see Rich corner ahead of me. I tried to stay with him. It was clear Mr Dozier was my main competition on this race and our pace was similar!

My pit stop was lap 8 and I could see Rich enter before me. Great minds eh? "Mind the speed in the pits and take don't mess this up" I thought on the way in. I elected not to change tyres and only load 8 laps of fuel. I had no damage. 7.5 sec stationary and I was able to jump Rich in the pits. Nice .... that was real!!

I emerged 9th from the pit I think [?]. Just as I exited, Rich left is box. It was on I thought! Lovin' it! I would spin on the first corner grabbing too much kerb. What!!!!! I recovered quickly and was still in front. I could just see Rich in my rear view as the laps ticked by. He was gaining on me little by little though. Maybe my older tires and certainly a little bit of sloppy driving weren't helping.

Mr Dozier would repeat his pass on me at practically the same point in the track and with me obliging in almost the same way !!!!

He must have been smiling to himself! His consistency payed off ... my lack of it cost me. Perhaps without my clumsy driving, he'd have caught me anyway and we'd have fought it out. That would have been preferred. Well not this time!

With some more retirements ahead, I was able to clich my first top 10 finish so far with a 9th position.

The 2 spins were bad but I also had an off on the second but last corner on Lap 14 ... another lapse of concentration biting me again.

I was able to recover and had enough of a gap to Colin behind me to nurse the car for the last laps and across the finish line. It was lucky that it was last lap as Colin was getting bigger in my rear view over the last lap!

Overall, a great race and nice driving again from everyone.

In fairness, self judged I know ... I've improved my pace and consistency but room still for getting better! The race was very good overall and given how unforgiving these cars can be, I was pleased enough.

I just loved the track by the way.

Nice result Luiz by the way too! And good patience by the leaders also as they passed through. Appreciated!

JW

Made a lightning start from 15th to get to 9th by turn 3 before spinning right back again, was involved in a few battles but was mostly just getting mileage in these cars.

Was great fun though, cars can snap on you at a moments notice so 100% concentration required.

Congratulations Zak on your race win and Zak and Mike on your joint 1st overall :).

Grats Zak on your win and another driverschampionship. :-)

Very amusing race for me. Knew I had to first to have a chance of beating Mike in the tie-break for the champiosnhip (figuring that Mike would be 2nd and me needing to level up on wins). Managed a good lap in qualifying to get pole and then settled into the 4 way battle at the front. Mike was running about 3rd or 4th for most of the stint so knew I was winning on points at that stage of the race when I came in for my pit stop.

Leaving my pit stop I realised I hadn't got enough fuel to make it to the end and figured that I would need to save quite a bit to make the end so had to really drop off my lap times. I thought that 'Ruebens' would be catching me up and passing me for the win based on pre-pit stop pace which would have given Michael the championship on a number of wins tie break, however, Ruebens backed off for a convinient last lap pass by Michael for 2nd which allowed me to coast home for the win and championship on a Top 3, Poles or Qualifying position tie break :-)

This was a great race. My qualy was really horrible and I started last. Then I had a great race, very consistent. But for the last weeks I had some runtime errors, I thought that I had fixed it but with 2 minutes to go I got it again.