Race #4, Imola: Post-Race Discussion

I had quite a problems on this track, so plan was to minimize losses. I had too big problems with tires there, what I dont understand after China where my wear was perfect from first practice. To get some proper wear, I was lossing about extra .7, so I knew that it´ll be very difficult.

In 1st stint I was equaly fast on softs, as on SS (cos of bigger sensitivity of SS in braking zones), so I had to try opposite strategy and try to start on softs.

Q1: I finally managed to get into Q2 without any nerves and with only little gap on leaders.
Q2: My race set was poor in Q, and I was on softs. Anyway, there was pace at least on 6th, put I was unnecessarily too carefully and lost few tenths resulting in 8th.

S1: My start was perfect once again, and after little contact in T2 it was 5th place - so I recovered these few tenths from quali immediately.
R1: I had good pace on softs from start and was close to Simon on 4th. But after few laps I did little mistake and NX behind me gained DRS. I was able to defend my position, and that was what I was doing basically whole first stint.
I wasnt sure, if Im able to save my SS in 2nd stint enough, in such a situation. So I chose stay on track 2 more laps after Simons pit. Even NX pitted lap earlier, but I defended my position after my pit anyway.

In 2nd stint I passed Gobbi and made a gap on NX. Simon was 5 secs ahead, and I wasnt much faster, so I was just looking on SS and managed to finish on 4th with comfortable gap behind me.

S2: I had good start again from P5, but I had place only on inside and Conti jumped between me and Jiri. Jiri was wider, Conti slowed down little bit and I touched him slightly. Then I was hitted from behind and spun - 19th.
R2: After first lap I didnt felt damage, but I was clearly little bit slower. Anyway I was able to attack drivers infront and using his mistakes to recover some points.
Biggest problem was NX cars. De Jong was way slower, but was defending hard and it was harder to get through, than I expected. At the end of the race I was stuck behind van der Niet. Few laps to go I was on the inside of T1, but got hit and spun into T2. Godek almost passed me, but I defended it once again and in last lap I used mistakes of Carlos, Danny and Norbert to get final 7th place, which wasnt bad after all.

I hope in Canada Ill be able to join my China´s pace and improve it little bit again.
 
I'd like to call out Norbert Leitner for retiring when Muhammed Patel pulled into the pit box. It was very good sportsmanlike conduct to retire instead of making another driver wait and ruin his race, especially when they are of different teams.

Thank you.

I really appreciate that Norbert is recognized by the Director and was also thanked privately by Muhammed himself.

Nowadays, in these forum threads we see people who are quick to criticize when a driver gets it even slightly wrong, but few are able to recognize drivers who have great sportsmanlike gestures like the one Norbert had, sacrificing his own race (and 10 points) to avoid ruining the one of the leader, when he obviously had no obligation to do so.

Really proud to have Norbert at FTS! He may have not had a great result in that race, but in another sense, he has also won the race yesterday. :)
 
I just saw these messages.

It's about thinking. I had hard suspension damage after meeting the wall and the crew wont fix that damage usually, So if i got repaired the rear wing i will struggled by the suspension damage. So there was no question i will retire, the question was when :)

I think i made a good decision :)
I think there are much other guys who do this if it happen again :)
(sry for the bad english)
 

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