WTM Season 2 Mid-Season Round Up

By Benjamin Crooks | Mar 18, 2011 02:22 UTC | 406 Views

Round 1 - Spa-Francorchamps

During the qualyfying session I felt i did not get the most out of the car in the final sector and each lap lost a lot of time. My first and middle sectors were definatley good enough for pole position but in losing 7 tenths to the pole lap time in the final sector alone i could only manage 4th place.

My race had a mixed start. I had a poor get away off the line dropping from 4th to 5th and almost 6th. However Hellen got caught up on the exit of La Source and i managed to get back into 4th place. The race from then saw Myself and Davis Battling for 3rd position while Duivelaar and Degreef were up ahead fighting for the lead. After a few laps of battling Davis I managed to get by going into the Bus Stop chicane at the end of the lap. From there on Davis still kept on my tail as my tyres were not as fresh as earlier and my pace was not as good. The battle continued until Davis' had tyre problems and pitted, at the same time Duivelaar also pitted and came out just behind me. We battled breifly for 2nd place but it was an easy overtake in the end due to him being on fresher rubber than myself. I then had to try to get the car to the end of the race without letting Toby back by who was around 15 seconds behind. I managed to keep it on track until the end and secured 3rd place to start off my season.

Round 2 - Suzuka

During qualifying i maxed myself out, but i had around 3 tenths left in me but just couldn't get hooked up and had to settle for another 4th place.

At the start of the race i had a problem, i pulled the shifter but it didn't change for a small moment. Possibly due to FPS drops which were abnormally low. This meant i dropped from 4th down to 7th place heading into turn 1.

I managed to hitch up behind Hellen and Van Der Linde while they had a great battle and i just managed to sneak through when they touched at 130R after that i set about chasing Butcher. I managed to get him on the inside of degner 1 after a few tries at different places on the track. I had spotted that as his weakest point so took advantage on the next lap by. Then i set about chasing after Davis who pitted with me just 6 seconds behind him. I decided to drive till i had 8 laps left then put medium tyres on until the finish, however I didn't expect to lose so much time to Davis and Butcher as the tyres wore off quite rapidly. This mean I couldn't quite catch up to Davis before the race finished and came in at 4th place after what was mostly a recovery drive from a poor start.

Round 3 - Vitus Park

Qualifying was not great, my first few laps I couldn't get a decent or clean lap in. I was down in 13.3 territory which I could do on hard race tyres. I finally managed to get an almost clean lap then had a run in with Davis out of the final corner, I was a bit annoyed by this but no harm was done as i beat the splits on the next hotlap i did and got into 6th which was for me a poor result.

Race 1: I made a silly error in the first race which meant i dropped from 6th down to 20th position after 2 laps. I then set about recovering my race. A few times i got by driver only to have run ins with incidents that happened just ahead of me. this meant i dropped back to 18th position twice. Finally however i broke through the incidents and managed to fight up to 11th place which put me back in the hunt for a top 5 in race 2.

Race 2: I managed to get passed Degreef and Duivelaar fairly early on which gave me a shot at going for the top guys a bit earlier than i though i would have been able to as I was already up to 4th place. Then I got passed Ojala for 3rd only to find Duivelaar on my case. Duivelaar passed me and then Hellen so i was back down to 4th but managed to get back passed Hellen in some lapping confusion for 3rd place. I made a small error on the last lap but saved it and managed to take it home for a podium and gain some decent points for the championship fight.

Round 4 - Laguna Seca

Again i had a very poor quallifying. I had another 3 tenths at least in me but my lap got blocked and I couldn't set another lap within the same types of splits so ended up in 8th as opposed to a possible 3rd.

Race 1: I had a good start however contact in Turn 3 sent me flying into the wall. This meant i had massive damage and was dead last while i had to pit for damage repairs. My race from then consisted of catching the back end of the field as they got lapped with me and keeping out of the way of the drivers battling for top 5 positions. I also attempted medium tyres as it was a night race however this did not pay off and again tyres wear was too high for it to be a success. In the end I managed to get up to 25th position which would be my grid slot for race 2.

Race 2: I changed to hard tyres for race 2 where i started in 25th place and the mission was to get into the top 10. I knew it would be pretty hard to do after my attempts at Vitus but i had hope. By the end of lap 1 i got up to 19th, by lap 3 i was in 15th. then it came down to a few people making mistakes and then picking the rest off as they came. I had a nice little fight with Duivelaar for a bit, especially going into the corkscrew side by side then managed to get Jay adgie on the final lap, heading into the corkscrew again. I had another exciting race however it definately hurt my championship hopes.

Round 5 - Pukekohe Park

For once during qualifying i was happy with my pace, I really felt i could do a 58 in the rover but just missed out. Ended up in 2nd with a 59.1

Race 1: I got a fairly poor start again, the Sierra's just bolted passed me and with the two of them working together i knew it was going to be hard to get back by them, also a Holden on my tail was not the most comforting thought. I had to try to get between the two Sierras, i knew once i got them alone it was going to be a much easier job than trying to pass both of them at once. Luckily Butcher made a few errors which let me through with a bit more security which meant I was in with a shot at Davis. I managed to get passed Davis after a few laps and then maintained my lead to the end as i had better pace and tyre management to achieve my first win of the season!

Race 2: This race was much harder. I made my way through the pack cleanly and without too much fuss. Then had a nice battle with Butcher for a few laps. We had a few switcharoo moments which meant at one or 2 occasions I bumped him a little. One occasion was out of the final turn before overtaking him, I thought about it for a while then thought i should really give him the slot back and did so on the back straight. Then he started to pull away for a little bit so i was starting to regret that move. Finally I got up to him and passed then he spun out in the next few laps. I saw Anders was making his way up to me pretty quickly, I had no idea he was that close so just got my head down till the finish for the double!

I am now in 3rd place in the championship, 8 points behind Davis in second and 80 points behind Duivelaar in first.

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BenjiMC (1 year 64 days ago) oops, ye i meant 80.. Also updated it with the race highlights from pukekohe

v1rg0 (1 year 65 days ago) Nice report. Get that championship! Btw. It says you are 50pts behind but it's 80 in the table.