Racing to the Top

Working Hard....

It’s been a while since I updated my blog but here goes:

The last month since the 1^st round of the F-BMW championships has mainly been about catching up on schoolwork and fitness training. During the practice for Round 1&2 I got behind a bit at school so I’ve had to put a lot of effort into getting back to normal there. It should be OK now but I’ve got exams this week so we’ll see.

I’ve also been doing a lot of work at the gym to improve my fitness. That’s going well and I was very confident that I’d be able to handle the AFOS 4-race weekend without any fitness problems.

But, I got a fever a few days before the race weekend so it became a bit of a struggle. I felt quite weak on Saturday before I even got into the car and each session became harder and harder.

Qualifying went really well. We’d changed the engine in my car and it was much better. I set my fastest time ever at Sepang – 2:11.581 and qualified 5^th. I was best Malaysian and 2^nd of the championship entries – 3 of the drivers ahead of me were overseas guest drivers.

With that qualifying position I would normally have been very confident that I could attack in the races but decided to be careful and try to be consistent during the weekend.

Race 1 (round 3). Went well. I didn’t make a very good start but settle into a good pace not far behind the top 5. For the last couple of laps I got into a dice with Pasin which I ended up losing but 7^th overall was fine.

Race 2 I made a better start and again settled into a good pace. No big battles this time and I ended up 5^th (and 2^nd of the championship entries) so my best result so far.

For the Sunday races we started in the finishing order of the 2 races on Saturday. I was feeling a bit better than on Saturday so wanted to try and push during race 3. I made a good start and moved up to 5^th on lap 1 and then outbraked Dustin into turn 1 to take 4^th place. After a couple of laps my team mates Richard and Kotaro caught me. Richard passed me quickly but Kotaro and I had a bit of a battle for a couple of laps. Once Kotaro got past I was really just trying to hang on but in the last couple of laps Oscar and then Carlos both caught and past me. It could have been better but 8^th place still gave me good championship points, especially with 3 guest drivers ahead.

Race 4 was a real struggle. I was feeling very weak and just battled to make sure I scored some more championship points. I ended up finishing 11^th – 8^th without the guest drivers.

It was a really hard weekend which could have been a lot better if I hadn’t been ill. But, I was the only driver to score points in all 4 races and have moved up to 5^th in the championship – and only 1 good score away from 2^nd place. I’m easily the top Malaysian rookie driver in the championship standings now.

The championship is very competitive – if you ignore the guest drivers, 8 of us were on the podium in the 4 races over of weekend so every race is going to be fast and furious. But, I’m very confident now that I’ve got the pace and the race craft to race anyone, including the guest drivers so I’m really looking forward to the next rounds in August.

During the break I’ll be doing schoolwork, doing a couple of kart races and working on my fitness – what this weekend proved to me is that fitness is really important and I don’t ever want to feel as tired as I did this weekend...