Racereport Nürburgring 5-7 august

FP1

I started the week with getting out of the hospital on Tuesday and honestly did not believe that I would be able to race on Friday! On Friday I drove a few laps to see how my body reacted and it felt like I had no power in my body and had a hard time concentrating. I tried my best to get my body to perform but had to lie down and rest directly after the practice.

FP 2

This practice was very limited time wise due to a red flag in the middle of Marco's planned time. This caused the whole timetable to be a little delayed and I only got about 5 minutes in the car. My body felt a little better but still not even close to what I usually know I am capable of.

Qualification 1

In qualifying I had trouble to get the temperature up in the front tires and this affected the handling of the car a lot. With limited experience from Friday and this affecting how the car reacted I totally messed up in the qualification and ended up in P31.

Race 1

What a race! I started from the back of the field and was hungry for redemption from qualification. In my stint I took 10 places on the leaderboard and got some really good lap times. I was very pleased with my come back and handed over to Marco in P21. Marco did an amazing stint and took 10 more places which got us up to P11! The race in total felt great and I never thought it was possible to take 20 places on the leaderboard in one race!

Qualification 2

Marco's qualification went well and we got the best result of the year with a P16. The problem with the temperature in the tires sadly remained and if we could solve this we would have an even better shot at the higher spots in qualifying.

Race 2

Marco started the race from P14 due to penalties on two other cars in front of us. He fought his way up to P12 and I switched in to the car in that position. I went out on the track and did not find my rhythm right away which caused me to lose 2 spots but my driving improved every second I was on the track and found a better and better pace. I was fighting with one of the Lamborghini cars and unfortunately I was pushed and turned around by him after a couple of laps. This of course caused me to lose a number of places in the race and I came out on the track again as P19. After that I struggled my way back up to P17 in the main race and finished the race in P6 in the Junior cup.

All and all it was a rough weekend due to my visit at the hospital earlier last week and it was really about keeping your head down and fighting through. I am really excited to race again in two weeks at Zandvoort!