AL3 :- From the Cockpit (Rosstheicon's idea) - Bahrain - Round 4

So, round 4 was at Bahrain and since my luck had been poor in recent league races, I was hoping for a good result on a track which is decent for me but not my best. After doing the first session of quali, we had to restart due to an unknown source going out onto the track too early and would gain about 5 laps on the others in the process.  This meant that we had to restart the session and do 1 lap. For me, I thought this was complete bias and decided to start from the back on the prime tyre hoping to do a different strategy to everyone else. brianjohnson43 (not the guy from ACDC) qualified on pole which was well deserved since he was 2nd in the actual session....

Anyway, race got started and I was just waiting for an accident to happen, but it didn't :DMade a few errors on the first couple of laps but soon got my way up into 3rd place. Pagey (who was having a great race) was in second and even though I qualified 1 second faster than anyone else on the slower tyre, I couldn't catch him as he was quick. Then on around lap 6 or 7, RichytheRacer lost his front wing. No other driver was involved so possibly the mysterious bollards claimed another victim. This promoted me to 2nd and I still wasn't catching Pagey. On fresh rubber, Richy was going really quick until an accident at Turn 12 made him retire. This was down to a controller malfunction but it was a shame that this happened as Richy could of won the race. But then again : could, if and but are all part of the racing vocab.  (No one likes to see people retire though)

So after the accident, there was no Safety car which meant racing was as normal. As I was on primes, I was the last to make the 1st pitstop on Lap 21 and decided to fit another pair of primes as my tire wear is poor and I was happy as I didn't use a pair of options in quali. The race did start to settle down and there were some battles down the pack. Marc and Jay had good battles as well as Brian and Dastardly for the final podium spot. Pagey was still on my tail and for a good 10 laps he kept the distance at around 3.5 seconds. Regardless of the tire he had, he was doing a great job in the race.

I turned up the heat though and produced some quick laps. Pitted on Lap 43 for the options and went for it. I was then on Lap 48 and was catching the battle of Marc and Jay.

Suddenly, the safety car was brought at the right time for Marc as had he of been lapped, it would of been 6th place for certain. The Mercedes team double stacked their cars even though the number two driver was holding up his team mate ;)Most of the cars had pitted for the option tyre and it was down to a 7-lap sprint. I tried to back up the field as much as I could but Marc and Jay just missed out on the party. Dastardly was in 3rd place & had not fitted new tyres on his car. He was on primes and Brian was on options. In the end Brian got a 3rd in his first race which is a great effort. Dastardly got 4th JUST before Aletdownofstate (Marc) and Jay rounded it out with 6th. All drivers did well but congrats to Pagey on 2nd, fully deserved and the best I've seen you race so far

BUT FINALLY! I took my 2nd win of AL3 and the first of this season. After such bad luck these past races, I found myself on top of the podium. Nothing can beat Abu Dhabi but the race today was great and I earned it.

Now for Rosstheicon's award thing.

Driver of the day - Pagey_80
Great start in your AL3 Career - brianjohnson43
Charles Pic award for ignoring Blue Flags - Aletdownofstate
Winning a race without making a mistake (for once) - Chaz_B_97
Not so lucky this time award - Jaywhywhy
& Finally, the worst place to finish award - Dastardly


Thanks for the great race guys, Hope to see you in Spain

Chaz

I approve.