Congratulations to
Helder for another win,
David for podium finish, and to all those who were able to finish!
I was confident with my pace at Monaco, based on practice races before official race. My goal for this race was to extend my lead in the points standings.
Qualifying: 1:21.668 (1st, PB)
Very close to perfect lap with no cutting. After the lap I was aware it was a good lap, but I was surprised to see that it was my PB. Even better was that Monaco is the track where pole position really matters.
Race: 3rd
I chose to start with heavy car with 115L of fuel onboard.
First stint: My start was pretty bad, and I dropped to 3rd before T1. At T1 we had a touch with
Helder, which slowed down my speed so that
David got past as well, and
Reik was also close to get by. So, I was driving 4th, behind
Sean,
Helder, and
David after the first lap. With the heavy car I could not keep up with the first three cars, but neither could
Reik behind me come close enough to try overtaking, so I just tried to keep good pace, and wait others to pit. Finally after 24 laps or so, everybody around me had pitted, and I was leading the race. Still having plenty of fuel left I decided to pit on lap 30.
Second stint: My pit stop was pretty fast, but I still wasn't able to overtake anyone and got back on track in P3 around 9 seconds behind
David, and some 2 seconds in front of
Reik. I knew I had advantage in fresher tyres, so I tried to make good lap times to check, if there was any chance of catching
David. It seemed I was able to catch him rapidly, so I just kept on lapping faster and faster, but I catched him a bit too late. At the finish line I was only 0.1 seconds behind.
Conclusion: There were lots of good aspects in this race from my perspective: excellent qualifying, fast and consistent driving in race, and extending lead in championship standings. Still it's easy to see that my tactics was not the best to maximize the result. All in all, good race for me though.
Thanks to
Nicolai, RaceDepartment, SimBin and
all PrestoGP members!
See you all in the past (Hockenheim 1999)!