A frustrating start

My F-BMW debut weekend didn’t go as well as I’d have liked and has left me frustrated that I couldn’t show properly what I can do in front of the big crowd at the GP and especially in front of the sponsors and people who are supporting me.

Qualifying

Was pretty OK. The car felt good with new tyres and I managed the fastest lap I’ve done at Sepang and ended up 7^th for race 1 with a 2:11.4 but I got into a bit of traffic after that and could only do 2:11.8 as my 2^nd best time so started 10^th for race 2.

Race 1

It was very weird before the 1^st race. I was excited, nervous, calm and focussed all at the same time – I guess all the rookies were the same. I didn’t make a very good start and lost a couple of places into the 1^st corner and then lost a couple more during the 1^st lap because I was very careful not to make any mistakes while the tyres were getting up to temperature. Once the race settled down I could go at the same pace as the group in front of me and we had quite a good battle all the way through the race. I had one big go at passing Dustin and Afiq at one point and did outbrake them but I slide a bit wide and they both got past again. For the last few laps I was very close to Afiq but he kept a very tight line and didn’t give me any openings to try to pass so I had to settle for 9^th place.

Race 2

From 10^th I made a good start and was 8^th going into turn 4 but then disaster. I’m not sure how it started but exiting turn 4 I ended up doing a 360 on the grass on the outside and although the next 5 cars managed to avoid hitting anything by going in different directions, Afiq was unsighted by the others and hit me just as my car was pointing back in the right direction. Unfortunately both our cars were damaged so one incident took out the 2 top Malaysian championship finishers from race 1. It was a normal racing accident but a big shame for both of us – and the other guys that lost places in the incident.

As I said at the start, it was very frustrating that I couldn’t put on a better show for everyone but it’s made me even more determined for the next set of races during the weekend of 14-16^th May.

The good news...

...was the performance of my team-mates, especially Richard Bradley who completely dominated the weekend with pole for both races and flag to flag wins, and fastest laps, in both races. Kotaro spun in race 1 while 3^rd but redeemed himself with a great drive and awesome last corner overtaking move to grab 3^rd in race 2. Duvashen got 11^th place and a couple of championship points so everyone in the team scored points and Eurasia lead the team championship by a good margin. We’ll all be working hard to extend that lead in the next round.