Atze’s Report iWCGPS 2012 – Phillip Island
Interesting race! Starting with qualy we knew we had only 1 lap to set the laptime. I opened the game set my brain in race mode and went for the lap. It didn’t feel very well, but passing the finishline in a 1.06.8 I had to be satisfied! Obviously like in every other race I expected Greger, Luke and Hugo to dive under that laptime, but Greger missed a corner, Luke didn’t manage to put his lap down. Then there was Hugo who crushed my laptime 
. Big respect for such a lap in quali, I instantly knew that Hugo would drive away from the start and Greger would deliver some pressure from behind.
I started a bit havier than planned, not sure if this was the best strategy, because I was struggling badly in the first stint. I was struggling unbelievably hard with Turn 3 the hairpin. I couldn’t get the braking right. Tried everything with brake balance and diff settings, but it didn’t pay off. Jake was on my tail the whole stint and I couldn’t get rid of him. Every single mistake would end in an attempt from Jake to pass me on the straight, so I had to keep my head cool. I saw that Greger was lurking in the background behind Jake. He was heavier than me so as long as he stayed close to Jake, I knew I was in trouble later.
Jake pitted and me and Greger had some laps left, Greger was on my tail and I made that stupid small mistake which provided him with a run on me on the straight. I didn’t want to fight him so I let him by. Going from clean air into dirty air behind greger including going off throttle costs me a full second, exactly what Jake needed to get in front of me after my pitstop. So there I was behind Jake. I knew he was light on fuel so I just had to stick with him throughout the stint. I was suprised how easy it was on this track to follow closely. Actually I was having a great time! Jake drove a wonderful stable pace that stint without any mistakes so I was in a perfect position.
Like I expected he was going in some 4 laps earlier than myself, so from there I had some clean laps. I knew I was able to do 1.07.7 on the fuelload so I pushed some .8′s out before I had to pit. In my rush I forgot to calculate my fuelload so I made sure I had enough fuel to the finishline. In the end I drove the last stint with 8kg too much fuel (better than pitting the last lap). Got out in front of Jake and I knew I had to stay calm and make it to the finish. It was a bit hard to get good laptimes in but in the end I’ve seem to found a solution for the hairpin issue. This gave a bit more breathing space although Jake was easily able to hang in my slipstream.
This was one very satisfying race, I had some issue that took more than a week practice out of my preparation. Picked up practice friday night, so I knew up front that I would be in trouble for this race. Greger made a wonderful setup, It was just that little bit quicker than my own, so with some adjustments for my style I went for his set. The big issue in this picture is that I can manager barely top 3 now with this kind of preparation, but in order to get close to Hugo I need to be on Greger’s pace. Crap!
In the end I drove an almost perfect race. Not a single lap without pressure from behind or a car with a second in front of me which is quite entertaining! I wanna congratulate and thank Jake for his professional and great driving on track.
Also big cheers to Fanatec and Obutto.eu and TRL.
Thanks to Greger for the awesome work that is done.
Congrats to Hugo, Greger and the rest in the top 5!