Photo: Fotospeedy
Back to fine and warm conditions for Sunday in Barcelona.
Qualifying didn’t quite come together for me. On the first set of tyres I made an error in the final chicane on what to that point had been my fastest lap, but I was pushing through for the best time I could post which is what you need to do at this level. As a result I aborted the lap to come into the pits to save the tyres.
On the second set of tyres I was bawked in the final sector by two cars pulling up near the end of their laps, however I was able to put in a quicker lap following to put me up to around P6 or 7 on the sheets.
Unfortunately I couldn’t connect all the sectors together in my last lap, and with the majority of the field going quicker again I ended up qualifying P14.
Barcelona is not the easiest track to overtake on, but there are certainly opportunities to do so, so I was ready for the challenge to push up into the points.
I have been very pleased with my starting and opening laps this year, and again I got away well off the line and made up 2 positions in the opening lap.
Photo: Fotospeedy
From here I was pleased to drive a very consistent race with close to identical lap times throughout in very hot and demanding conditions. However, we just didn’t have the pace to be able to make progress up the field and in the end I finished in P13.
Photo: Fotospeedy
Not the weekend we were expecting here, but we will have a close look at everything we can find to build on and prepare for Monza next. However, over the week I completed over 880kms of the challenging Barcelona circuit, had my first two races there and competed in possibly the most challenging wet racing any of us could be likely to race in ever.
All invaluable experience for me moving forward.
It is not easy for the team competing as a sole car against two teams in the field with 5 cars, but all of a Fortec worked exceptionally hard over the week and I am proud to be a part of this team. We are all 100% committed and we look forward to a strong performance together at Monza.
We were very competitive there last year, so I am very much looking forward to it.
Thank you to the team Mick, Tom, Dave, Caleb, Emma, Ed, Andreas, Scott and Richard at Fortec for all they put in to my racing.
Thank you to all my amazing sponsors Lazersafe, High Energy Service, Online Logistics Solutions, The Wealth Designers, Edith Cowan University, Grand Toyota, Fullworks Firesafety, Inspired Insurance Services, Signarama, Rvend, Walker Wayland, F45 Hillary’s and Trizone.
Thank you to my team of investors in my racing back home, who I can never thank enough.
Photo: Fotospeedy