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POLE POSITION START PUTS GREEN IN CHAMPIONSHIP LEAD - FINISHES VICE CHAMPION
The weekend started with the usual Saturday practice sessions. Both practice sessions went well and I quickly found my feet with the car and circuit. Qualifying was always going to be tricky, earlier rain before the session meant qualifying would be a wet session with the circuit slowly drying. I qualified on wet tyres and managed to set a quick time, I was really pleased with my performance, this was definitely my best performance in qualifying this year. My team mate also set a good time and we secured pole position for the final race of the season.
I started the race, i managed to hold onto the lead into turn 1 and for the first 3 laps. It became clear that the #10 Mclaren behind had very good pace and started to pressure me, I allowed the #10 Mclaren past and managed to keep pulling clear of third place. We would have to serve a 15 seconds success penalty in the race due to recording a podium at the previous race at Brands Hatch so my aim for the race was to pull a 15 second gap to the other BMW which was leading the Championship. After 20 minutes I managed to gain the 15 seconds over the other BMW, however a safety car was called as an Aston Martin dropped its engine oil at turn one, this resulted in several cars running off circuit including the race leader, he fell down to 4th and I retook the lead. It was great to be back in the lead but my 15 seconds advantage over the other BMW was now gone, the clean up took 10 minutes and the safety car returned to the pit lane leaving me 25 minutes to again try to find the 15 second gap i needed over the #43 BMW. I made a good restart and again began to pull clear of my competitors, a couple of laps after the restart five GT3 cars came past me all together, two of them had contact ahead of me and spun across the track. I had to slow down to avoid them, while other competitors hardly lost any time avoiding the crash. I soon had the #10 Mclaren behind me again, the same Mclaren that earlier led the race but lost control and went off the circuit, re-passed the other cars and was again behind me, I allowed the Mclaren to pass again and managed to pull a 16 second lead over the other BMW. There was a lot of action but soon my stint was over, I returned to the pitlane to hand the car over to my team mate. After 10 minutes of my teammates stint we were given a 10 second stop/go penalty (including a drive through the pit lane) due to an earlier incident under the safety car during my stint. It was very disappointing to receive the penalty as I knew of the incident, I informed the team but could do nothing to correct the issue which gained us no advantage at all and was totally unavoidable. We took the penalty which lost us a total of 35 seconds, time that would be vital for our championship assault. We kept pushing and finished the race in 5th place. It was a challenging race and overall I was pleased with my performance. This is backed up by the fact that we finished 5th place after loosing 35 seconds due to a penalty which gained us no advantage and a further 15 seconds success penalty from the previous race as we finished 2nd.
This was the final race and overall we missed out on the championship by 1 point, missing the title by a single point is disappointing however overall I am very pleased with my performance in my first season in British GT and in the BMW M4 GT4. I've learnt an incredible amount and cannot wait to take this experience and skill into my plans for next seasons racing!
I’m really looking forward to what the future brings.
A big thanks goes to everyone who has supported me throughout 2018 - I wouldn't be here without your support!
I started the race, i managed to hold onto the lead into turn 1 and for the first 3 laps. It became clear that the #10 Mclaren behind had very good pace and started to pressure me, I allowed the #10 Mclaren past and managed to keep pulling clear of third place. We would have to serve a 15 seconds success penalty in the race due to recording a podium at the previous race at Brands Hatch so my aim for the race was to pull a 15 second gap to the other BMW which was leading the Championship. After 20 minutes I managed to gain the 15 seconds over the other BMW, however a safety car was called as an Aston Martin dropped its engine oil at turn one, this resulted in several cars running off circuit including the race leader, he fell down to 4th and I retook the lead. It was great to be back in the lead but my 15 seconds advantage over the other BMW was now gone, the clean up took 10 minutes and the safety car returned to the pit lane leaving me 25 minutes to again try to find the 15 second gap i needed over the #43 BMW. I made a good restart and again began to pull clear of my competitors, a couple of laps after the restart five GT3 cars came past me all together, two of them had contact ahead of me and spun across the track. I had to slow down to avoid them, while other competitors hardly lost any time avoiding the crash. I soon had the #10 Mclaren behind me again, the same Mclaren that earlier led the race but lost control and went off the circuit, re-passed the other cars and was again behind me, I allowed the Mclaren to pass again and managed to pull a 16 second lead over the other BMW. There was a lot of action but soon my stint was over, I returned to the pitlane to hand the car over to my team mate. After 10 minutes of my teammates stint we were given a 10 second stop/go penalty (including a drive through the pit lane) due to an earlier incident under the safety car during my stint. It was very disappointing to receive the penalty as I knew of the incident, I informed the team but could do nothing to correct the issue which gained us no advantage at all and was totally unavoidable. We took the penalty which lost us a total of 35 seconds, time that would be vital for our championship assault. We kept pushing and finished the race in 5th place. It was a challenging race and overall I was pleased with my performance. This is backed up by the fact that we finished 5th place after loosing 35 seconds due to a penalty which gained us no advantage and a further 15 seconds success penalty from the previous race as we finished 2nd.
This was the final race and overall we missed out on the championship by 1 point, missing the title by a single point is disappointing however overall I am very pleased with my performance in my first season in British GT and in the BMW M4 GT4. I've learnt an incredible amount and cannot wait to take this experience and skill into my plans for next seasons racing!
I’m really looking forward to what the future brings.
A big thanks goes to everyone who has supported me throughout 2018 - I wouldn't be here without your support!
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