Zolder Masters

Thank you.

Two drivers penalized 1 lap for not serving mandatory drive-thru penalty for a first lap punt.

I apologize .. hope you accept them
i wasn't even thinking of trying a pass
i was surprised by the early braking .. tried to avoid it but just clipped the corner of the car

rest of the race was intense .. large groups of cars on zolder isn't a such a good idea .. but it's sure fun .. even when you don't win the battle

The start of zolder is always crazy. My view was full of cars smoke and sand. that got in the sand and ended up 13th. Not sure if I hit anyone on the first lap.

I figured alot of guys would take soft fronts so I stayed on medium medium. For a no tire stop. I started catching people cycling thru pits.

That last 10 laps were intense. People dooring each other left and right. I had plenty of front tires but more than half the rears gone and had a hard time getting off the corners. So I just tried to pase myself taking advantage of the some of you guys spining and getting stuck in the dirt.

Then I had no fuel so I pitting not realizing the race ended, lol. Gave up 3 spots for no reason. Oh well. I am going to stick to my plan of always taking more than enough fuel, screw that one gallon last lap deal.

Had fun, lets hope the endurance race start is much better.

Damn I wanted to make this but the race start time said 7pm start but when I came to race, the race had started an hour previous. Have the time zones changed, because I had to change mine to put it right.

Oke ... a few hours later I had a good look at the replay and it confirmed what I already thought. Imho Mr. Polilli should have been black flagged after his stunts. First on me and later on on Sam (which caused me to crash into Sam ending my race).

The start was great. From 10th to 4th into T2. Managed to pass Heinz a few laps later and then got dropped back to 4th again by Sam. All without any paintswopping ... just good, hard but clean racing. Then Mr. Polilli messed up the first chicane causing him and Sam to slow down a lot. I went full speed through the chicane and had the left side of the track to myself into the next left turn and would have been able to pass both if Mr. Polilli hadn't decided to pull left and ruthlessly putting me into the wall. I lost two places there. The end came on the straight before the last chicane when Sam had more speed than Mr. Polilli. But again he moved to the left to block Sam which caused him to go on the grass and into a spin. I chose the wrong side trying to avoid Sam and just hit him which killed both my suspension and engine.

I do hope that the right steps will be taken by the stewards after reviewing the replay. That guy doesn't belong on a track but on a fair in bumpercars.

File a *proper* protest or nothing will be done.

2nd to 11th were strung out in a line for the early part of the race and I was near the back of that group behind Allen and in front of Jan. I had a battle to keep Jan behind and struggled to hang on to Allen, eventually Jan made a good move through turns 1 and 2 and then Allen had a problem so I was 10th behind Jan. We caught back up to a group of about 4 cars, then the pit stops came and I decided that I didn't need tyres, I needed 20 seconds more. I had a good stop and came out about 5 seconds behind Heinz. I moved up to 5th after the stops were done and Jan came out right behind me after his stop. I held him off until he was caught by Martin and Conduruta, they then started to mix it up and I got away. Martin was next to catch up to me with just over 10 minutes to go. He was alot faster into corners than me in the Viper on slightly off tyres and unfortunately he didn't account for that and took me out. He waited but that cost us both the gap that we had to the cars behind. Then a few laps later into the same corner I got an even bigger punt and was dropped back to 9th. Very disappointed at that point seeing the chance of a top 5 in the Viper disappear.
At the end I caught back up to Jan who was struggling with a damaged looking 550, he was even slower than I was into turns 2 and 3, I managed not to hit him but couldn't pass him. I thought I'd still have a chance on the last lap but tried a bit too hard and nearly lost the back end so Jan held on.
Grats to podium, well done in the C5 Heinz.

Yeah, my 550 was plenty damaged after lots of contact with other cars. Got punted off 2 or 3 times, then made the error of not changing tires (had soft front) and lost lots of pace. Tried to hold cars back, but it was a loosing battle.
Got 6th which was more than i could hop for frankly.

A race to forget for me.

Was late back from work, PC straight on and joined a few minutes into quali. Chose the Maserati which felt good when i tested it on Thursday. In quali it felt nothing like it did on Thursday, only managed one lap which was bad enough for 19th.

In the race i got up to 13Th early on but after that i was a sitting duck, no pace at all, making lots of mistakes, over driving, car handling like crap and ppl passing with ease.

After my pit stop i think i stopped over driving the car and started to lap quicker and more consistently and just when i things were looking up my engine went bang, a miserable way to end a miserable race...

Congrats to podium