Started 18th. The start was messy. The double file didn't work well due to short last line; while front cars started speeding up, the backmarkers were still getting into two lines. And when in the back we somewhat were in two lines, the green flag waved. I also had a sort of "jumpstart", not as impressive as SRS's start but I also gained 3 places on the straight alone, simply by starting to speed up when green flag was waved. That's what you get for reading and understanding the rules
. Some spins in turn 1, closely avoided a car standing with it's nose in front of me. All going nice until turn 2... The wind was ****ing annoying. Was 15th on that moment.
My tyres were still a bit cold, didn't really warmed them up in that SC lap as I was being careful on the speeding-slowing down traffic in front (how hard is it to just drive the same speed...) and wanted to avoid the misshap as I experienced in Round 0. Got turn 2 a lot wrong because of that wind, tryed to push a bit more elsewhere on the track but it never worked out. Made one nice pass in the chikane, gained another spot as a car spun in the last turn by going on the grass. 12th position at this moment. Tyres got hot because of that and I started to lose places (not only by being slow but also by being hit two times by others, not very mint...), from 18th to 12th and back to 24th. I obviously could not get into my pace, not sure why... maybe the nerves, not enough experience with the car or other. It just all felt bad and obviously went bad. Also spun it once for giving too nicely a blue flag passage and getting for a bit into the grass. For the rest the race was okay. Shame of Paul his disconnects, we could have ended more midfield without those, oh well. Paul did a good job with little preparation, thanks for that Paul.
I do hate the S2 Blackwood GP.
The S1 Blackwood GP was so nice, this one is horrible.
Lets move on to Round 2. Thanks NDR for hosting and broadcast, good job as usual. I hope in Round 2 we can have a better start with a nice double lined up grid and that we have no wind in the race. Also; NO CHAT was given when the grid was being set up, yet lots of people chatted... no penalty. I have no objection at all to these harsh and little detail rules, in fact I love them (unlike Paul
), but go through with the penalties and keep everything fair and open for all. Saying that there won't be a penalty now because it's Round 1 is nonsense to me, we had the testrace for a reason!