Caterham @Algarve Post Race Data and Discussion

First off, congrats to Jason for two overall wins and to Pete for two old farts' wins. And sorry to see that neither Ryan nor Jerry made the races this week (things happen, I know)
I had a blast in both races, although in entirely different ways. During q, Tony and I both realized we were going to be racing each other, and nobody else. And he bested me in q, by a bunch. But we had a great 2-man race in R1, tight stuff, but I got a good laugh out of when I nearly lost it in one of those uphill turns, driving directly into Tony's path and making contact, and then both of us waited on the other to pull away. It reminded me of the Loonie Tunes characters "Chip and Dale" ("no, you go first." "no, you." "but I was at fault." "no no no, it was me, indubitably." "then you don't mind if I proceed?" "oh, no no no, please do") grin
Race two, and I messed up, spinning on lap one to miss Gilles (I had misfigured on where to brake), but eventually caught up to Tony. But every time I'd catch up I made a mistake, spinning. Late in the race I saw that Tony appeared to be waiting up for me, just to have somebody to race, and I figured if I got by and maintained, I'd give the position back on the last lap. I was really disappointed to see him pull off (when he was ahead of me) due to lack of fuel. Thanks Tony, for making the night a ton of fun for me, and remember to put in an extra 2 laps' fuel (one for pace lap, one for the final lap).

Have to congratulate Jason on his dominating wins! Class of the field driving no matter where he started. I tried to stay in his draft to no avail. Got close a couple of times. But I made too many small mistakes and his pace was on another level. I'll take solace in finishing second within 10 seconds in race 2.

OTH, I was happy just to finish both races based on my dismal luck in the series so far. I got lucky in the first race here and moved up to P2 early due to others misfortune. Trouble was I did not have the pace to hold off Joe and Gilles with occasional bobbles and a so so pace. Eventually I spun on everyone's favorite sharp right hand uphill leading into sector 3 and lost at least 8 seconds recovering. Not a big loss. running close with Joe and Gilles was fun and I at least finished where I started. Race two was even more interesting. Bob and Peter were ahead at the start and driving like mad to keep the rest of us at bay. It worked for a while and then we got a little spread out. As you can see from Gilles report, he and Joe were having a dandy battle with each other and that allowed me to focus trying to stay in the same zip code as Jason. I had a couple small bobbles along the way. But I was able to stay in second all the way until the flag. I would consider those two drives in my fun bucket.

I have always liked this track. I play it in other driving sims offline occasionally. The main difference is I am usually driving a heavier car and using the non-moto GP hairpin in sector 2 (which is less fun). I continue to come back for the track variety.

Thanks to all that made it! Hope you all had fun. How can you not in these Caterham's? Sorry to see Martin, Jerry, and some of the newer drivers didn't make it. Hope we didn't scare them off with our crazy practice antics. See you all next time.