Italian Grand Prix - Race Report

Qualifying - 1st
Not too bad of a Qualifying session, I didn't post my best time of the week but it was good enough to get me pole. JUST! The gap between Me & DarkPSI (2nd) was only 0.012 and the gap between Me & Vernon was only 0.032. Only 0.032 covering the Top 3. Awesome!

Race - 2nd
I cant remember that much of the race I was concentrating so much! I knew this would be a weak track for Me as I don't particularly like this track. Got off to a decent start, was able to keep 1st position. Had a few changes of position in the first stint but then I was able to keep hold of 1st near the end of the stint. Pitted on Lap 10 for Option tyres and went away trying to put good consistent lap time in. DarkPSI was 3 seconds behind me and was closing in all through the stint. It got down to 0.7 when I pitted for my last time. Pitted for Primes on Lap 19 and was pushing very hard to keep Dark behind me. Last few laps there was a few juggling for positions and on the straight before Parabolica on the last lap I got a really good run on Dark and was going to easily pass him through his slipstream. He covered the inside line really early so I couldn't go that way, So I went to the left hand side. Way before the corner, about 3/4 about 100-150 Metres before the DRS Detection Line he suddenly turns left back onto the racing line where I am (At this point we were almost wheel to wheel). He pushes me onto the grass straight into the barrier which prevented me from passing him, I could have been destroyed from the race if there had happened to be a glitched barrier there! If he hadn't have done that I would have passed him and won the race!

qually - 9th
race - 4th

nothing much to say about the qually run i did, i didnt post a good time. But was never able to set a real good time in practice eather. I knew that my strength would be the race-pace and keen pit strategy. A combination that worked out realy wel for me.

As the race started i emmidiatly moved up a place or two. the people in front of me had kind of a lousy start due to no grip or whatever and i were able to jumpstart my way past them. Corner one was a bit of a breath holder but eventually everybody came trough without eny bad incidents. now that's fair racing!The first stint was full of drama and excitment. After lap one i had to give my position to Demonracer who overtook me in corner one. i was back in P8 but the first 5 laps there were a lot of incidents in front of me. (I Saw Demon loose grip in Parabolica and hit the wall. a force India that was reversed i was just able to avoid, but no harm done) I knew i had to do a two stop strategy to make eny chance on some good points. I put the engine on lean to preserve as long as possible. i came in with my option tires on lap 8. one stop left to do and for the last stint i choose for the option tires again. i came out in 5 th about 3 seconds behind Mick. 8 laps to go and i had saved so much fuel conserving my tires that i were able to do a complete stint on fast engine settings. this way i was able to catch up with MICK who was loosing time because low on fuel. i overtook him for P4 in the DRS zone and after that i drove away from him. The fight i had with him for that position lasted for about 5 laps it were very clean and very close racing! The finish was in sight and P4 was a position i didnt think i was gonna geth this race. it was just a mather of bringing the car home.

thanks for a verry clean race. i'm impressed with the level of respect the drivers give eatch other in this league. i had some fun battles this race it all went as clean as a real F1 race.

grtzzz
dizzy

Q-10th
"Couldn't turn the tyres on...only fast enough for 10th !!"

R- 8th
" had a good start, some 'spinners down at 1, allowed me to gain a place or 2...

But lost the rear comming through 'Parabolica' on lap 1... now dead Last !!"

Had great fights through-out..but dissapionted with 8th place finish."

McLaren's NEED TO FIND SOME SPEED !!!

I had a very good qually. Managed to find a decent setup during qually and set a 1,18,9 which gave me p5.

The best race this season.... the first 8 laps. Then someone hit me from behind in corner 1 and i went from top to bottom, so it pretty much ruined my race ... I tried to catch up but i had suffered to big a loss.
Otherwise a pretty eventless race for me.
An appeal has been suggested. Mr.Brawn is considering. Will be back..

Qualy:
It was possible to beat the red bulls as I had a straight line speed advantage on this circuit cause of the renault power. Unfortunately I couldn't bring it together. First stint I had little traffic issue and second stint I got little problems in ascari.
So team was not happy with my qualy as there was more in the car


Race Report:
Had a good start and could hold my 2nd position. My Plan was to slipstream Cookster and to save some amount of fuel, which worked pretty well. Cookster realised that and also wasn't pushing to hard in the first rounds.
In Round 4 (5:00 in the video) Cookster made a mistake so I could pass him and Vernon did the same just behind me.
Vernon was in my slipstream now so I knew that he would go for passing me on start/finish line. You can see that I didn't use kers due to the fact that I thought it wouldn't be the worst to be in the red bull sandwich as it could perhaps bring their pit strategies into trouble (5:45).
Vernon had a massive oversteer moment (6:15), which gave me the chance to drive away, because I had a little gap to cookster. But I went wide in lesmo corner and you as you can hear at my reaction at (6:38) I wasn't happy to see that cookster was in my slipstream again. Cookster passed me on straight/finish again, and I tried to save fuel again.
I stayed one lap longer on my primes than cookster, which was a mistake, cause when i came out of pits I was around 4 seconds behind cookster and even vernon catched me (I think he hasn't pit already at this time).(15:55)
Luckily I had saved a lot of fuel, so switched engine on mapping level 3 and went for qualy rounds.
Could easily catch vernon (17:11), and it was also the first time I showed my full renault POWER YEAH!!!!
After that it was a tough job to catch cookster again, as he also seems to push hard and vernon felt 2seconds per lap behind. So no poker any more, just full throttle. I had some really tough moments, especially in lesmos but luckily it worked out and after about 5 rounds im qualy mode I was again behind cookster.(17:09-26:15)

Than round 19 cookster went for his last pitstop and I did one round later.
I came out of the pits ahead of cookster which i didn't expected.
I just couldn't get away and he slowly catched me, resulting in passing me in lap 25 (4:20 part2 video).
In Round 26 I did a little poker as I knew that he haven't seen my full engine power yet. (5:45 part 2 video).
My Plan was to surprise him just before the last round with FULL RENAULT POWER YIPPIE!!!
So I did and I'm pretty sure he was a little bit surprise of the topspeed (7:00 part 2 video)
In about (8:00 part 2 Video) the in the FIA discussed situation starts.
I don't want to say anything about it as there was enough discussion, only that it looks really different in my video compared to cooksters. Just wanted to repeat that it was not my intention to push him into barrier. For sure I was defending hard as it was the last round going for the last corner.

The Lotus Renault Team was really happy about the win, as we knew that it would be in the car that weekend cause of the superb straightline speed. So thanks goes to our engine engineers.

Keep Racing
Dark


Race Part 1:


Race Part 2:



keep racing

Dark

Qualifying- 3rd

Was very pleased with 3rd place as my confidence wasn't exactly high.

Race- 7th

The race just went downhill throughout the race. Started well and remained 3rd keeping up with Cookster and Dark without having to push too much. Having started on options i pitted on lap 8 for primes, after all the 1st stops had been made I was in 2nd after jumping Dark in the stops, but as he was on options and I believe in rich mode I had no answer when he steamed up behind me. After he passed me I was just focusing on getting through the long stint on primes. Started lap 19 (the lap i was going to pit), my fairly worn out tyres gave way underbraking into turn 1, ended up cutting the 2nd part of the first chicane but ended up cutting it too much and received a penalty. That ruined my race as I had to serve a penalty then pit for tyres a lap after. Came out 6th but having ran in rich mode for too long on my middle stint, i could only drive on standard and then lean towards the end meaning i had no answer when paulb caught me with 3 laps to go. ended up 7th and very unhappy with the result due to 1 mistake. could have ended up 3rd and possibly higher.