occult ganglions

 

OEL Blancpain Endurance Series Round 1 : Vallelunga 320km

No surprise, Elia Tartari wins the first round of OEL Blancpain Endurance Series at Vallelunga. He was comfortably fastest in Qualifying and in the Race. As for me, I finished in 2nd place, more than 1 lap behind. I was about 1.5 seconds slower per lap in general compared to ET, but I was about 1 second or more faster per lap than everybody else. I need to practice a lot for the next round in Portimao and make up the deficit.

I had a so-so race; I led the opening 10 laps after ET was punted off in the Bowling Incident at the first braking point. But ET recovered soon enough, and I conceded P1 easily. I just couldn't keep up with him, but I was also pulling away from the rest of the field. For a few laps my right paddle was glitching, causing me to miss some upshifts. But the gremlins went away, and I was able to regain my rhythm. Just past halfway point I had a spin, but I was able to keep it away from the barriers and had enough of a gap to keep my position. Near the end, with less than 10 laps to go, I spun again at the same spot and this time I hit the wall. I had to do 1 unscheduled pitstop to repair the damage, but again was far enough ahead of the car behind me so I held 2nd place until checkered flag. 

Now it's off to Daytona for the big ORL x VeeRace event. I gotta practice and learn the Mazda RT-24 DPi, but at least Daytona Road Course is a relatively easy track layout. It's gonna be a long race and the pitstops are gonna take time, so I need to figure out the optimum tires and fuel strategy. It will be a bit tricky because I am not familiar with the car, and the engine boost (which affects fuel consumption) can be adjusted in the cockpit during the race.