Congrats Tim and Helder for completing the podium! Well done guys!
Also very well done by everyone who finished! I'm especially happy for our new comers Bob and Jonas, who finished there first race. That's a good way to start in a season.
Qualify (1st):
Because of the long preparation time I did some more hot lapping just for fun. So I had a good feeling for the car and the track. I decided to attack but in a controlled way, if that's even possible. That seemed to be a good decision, because it made me drive each corner clean but not too agressive. When finishing the lap, I expected a 1:21:8xx or so. To my big surprise, the clean driving resulted in a 1:21:455 (my second best lap time ever
)
Race (1st):
1st stint: 17 laps, 65 liters, medium compound
2nd stint: 17 laps, 65 liters, medium compound
3rd stint: 13 laps, 50 liters, soft compound
I had an average start and maybe Helders start was a bit better but T1 comes early so the inside line was still mine and I could defend the lead. Through the next corners I was very nervous and careful. So I may have been a little bit too slow for Helder. Thank you for not pushing me out there like many would have done on a public server.
Some corners later I had a small gap and I was able to calm down. One or two laps later I saw Helder missing T1, so from that time on David chased me very well. So the gap between us increased only very slowly, for a long time it was only aproximately 2 seconds or so.
Because of my "late" stop most drivers stopped earlier and I did my first stop very well at the end of lap 17. At this time my gap to David was ~ 9 seconds. The second stint was relatively uneventful. I only remember that a short time before my late second stop, immediately Tim was in second position and already had stopped twice. So the gap was big but my stop was still waiting.
My second stop in the end of lap 34 went very well and I think I enterd the track with a 20 seconds lead to Tim and Helder. For the first time in the race I was on softs now so I enjoyed to drive the last 13 laps close to qualy style. To my surprise the gap to Tim didn't increase much until the end of the race, so he must have been very quick too (chased by Helder).
Finally I'm very happy to win this race, because I had some bad mistakes in the end of the last season.
A big thank you to all guys, who made lapping very easy for me!!!
(Sometiems a bit too easy! I can wait some corners
)
As allways the biggest "Thank You!" goes to Nico for making all this possible and to RD and MMG!
I can't wait the next races and I'm sure there'll be closer fights for the victory.
