LOTUS SPORT UK - CAR No 49
Since the last race the team have worked flat out to really bring the car on, they had done a fantastic job and the car was so much better.
The weekend got off to a brilliant start with me being quickest throughout all of the free practice sessions which is always a nice way to start a race weekend. After all the sessions had finished I was half a second quicker than the other three drivers in the team.
As qualifying came I was the driver who was put on the optimum set up to go and achieve the lap time we needed to grab pole position, and I was really determined to do it. After posting a lap fast enough to put us second on the grid I really pushed the car to a new limit and it showed. I had gone faster than any other car had achieved in both sectors 1 & 2 and was on for the pole position time, when the Ginneta that was just in front of me blew its gearbox all over the track which I unfortunately hit and span off into the dirt and ruined our qualifying tyres. The KTM also managed to post a slightly faster time than previous pushing us to third on the grid, but it was a long race so we weren't too bothered.
I started the race and got the start of a lifetime overtaking all of the GT4 cars and five of the GT3 cars on the first lap shortly losing out to the GT3 cars who were much faster in a straight line than us. I led the race for ten laps and then a Ferrari who had already spun made a ridiculous lunge in front of me and then decided to stamp on his brakes leaving me nowhere to go but into the back of him with him coming off worse and the incident ending his race. I lost the lead from this but managed to hold second position all the way through to the pit stop.
When my team mate Freddy took over I told him to push as hard as was humanly possible, and he did just that, but pushed just a touch too hard and straight into the back of the KTM, doing a slight bit of damage to the cars steering which was costing us about three seconds a lap. Freddy just could not keep up with the KTM with this damage despite it getting a thirty second stop and go penalty for missing their pit window, we had made a mistake and we were now paying for it.
Despite the troubles we had we still managed to finish second in class and tenth overall which was a great result for us and the team and we are thoroughly looking forward to the next race at Brands Hatch.
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