Challenging conditions for qualifying with a very wet track to contend with. However the car felt fantastic and I was very pleased to be able to end the session with at 1:00.9 for P6, which was in fact only 3 thousandths of a second from being P4.
Photo: Toyota Racing Series
For Race 1 the conditions were exceptionally wet. In the roll up laps it was evident that there was standing water on some of the apexes, and also that visibility would be a challenge.
At the start I got a good launch off the line, however Kotaka in front of me was slow to get away. On the other side of the grid, Liam Lawson looked like he had almost stalled so there was little room to go. I had to back out of my start completely and to avoid contact had to move off on to the grass. As a result, with the inside lane getting a better run, I was shuffled down to 12th by turn 1.
Visibility was very poor at the race start. Photo: Toyota Racing Series
I made a good move into turn 5 to be 11th by the end of lap one, and then through the race fought my way up to 9th including an intense battle with my team mate Petru Florescu.
With 6 laps to go there was a Safety Car which meant a 3 lap dash to the line.
On the restart I got away well, and was able to make another move at turn 5 on Brendan Leitch to get into 8th place and I picked up another position on the last lap to finish in 7th.
Overall another very good day, and my engineer David, Thomas, Harry and the team at MTEC gave me a great car to drive.
Q2, and Races 2 and 3 tomorrow. Expecting more wild weather!
Photo: Toyota Racing Series
