Well, what a baptism of fire the Australian Grand Prix was for me! It really was a pretty good weekend, with a few small mistakes here and there with the setups and strategies but on balance I think it was a pretty good effort for a first GP.
The weekend started with final setting up for the qualifying session. I had done a fair few laps around the Melbourne circuit in the off season, since it is the track we do most of our testing at. As I had a fair setup, I concentrated mainly on damper and spring settings to try to dial out the turn in oversteer I was experiencing. It was a matter of do one lap then pit, alter setup, do another one lap then pit, alter setup and so on for the entire one hour session.
By the end of the session, I had completed a fastest time of 1:29.473. I was pretty happy with this time, rightly considering it to have the potential to put me near to the front of the grid. I would have in fact been good enough to have got me on the front row, but qualifying through up some different problems....consistency!
I guess I was a little nervous and was a little in awe of my surroundings because I never completed a lap within cooey of the one I did in the morning practice. The first lap I did in qualifying was a 1:30.103, which I considered after to be a 'bank' lap, in other words, one to put me on the grid. I knew there was better in me as I stuffed up quite badly in turn 8 and had almost understeered into the sandtrap. Looking back at the first sector time in that lap, it was only a few tenths behind eventual pole sitter Jason Smith's time. If I hadn't fluffed the middle of the lap, I would have been right up there.
However, fluff it I did. And the next lap and my third too. I just couldn't get the necessary rhythm to complete three top sector times. So it was when all my 12 laps were up and my tyre quota had been used that my first lap was my fastest, and I had qualified 5th. I guess for a first grand prix thats a pretty good effort, and I wasn't too disappointed, however it would have shocked a few had Arela put a car on the front row for its first grand prix!
I then set to changing the car to a race setup so we could reliably complete 58 laps of Melbourne. I had been pretty successful dialing out the turn in oversteer, and it seemed the conventional wisdom was to do a one stop strategy. Indeed when I lapped with 31 laps of fuel in the race warmup, the car felt great and I did a best time of 1:32.879. I gathered that the other boys on a two stopper would be in the high 30s or low 31s, so I worked out that with the times I was doing it was quite possible to do a one stop stragegy.
So with 31 laps of fuel on board I faced the starting lights. I made a good start and slotted into a strong fourth place. My car felt good for the first 10 laps or so but after that it began to deteriorate. By lap 17 I was having a fair few lairy slides in some very fast and scary parts of the circuit, and I realised that I had made the wrong decision on pit stop strategy.
I did manage however to keep the car on the track until the pitstop on lap 29, which was unfortunately a very very long stop, some 15 seconds stationary. Very disappointing for the team, however on returning to the track I mananged to complete a string of low 1:33 second lap times, and reeled in a few who had passed me during my stop.
I then settled into a comfortable rhythm with the aim of finishing the race without a mistake. My times slipped into the low 34s, but the car felt a little better on its second set of tyres than it had on the first. It was around this stage of the race that Ian McMah and Christian Newman blasted past me from their low grid positions. They of course had suffered the wrath of illegal qualifying submissions. Both drove sterling races to finish in the top 6.
As the race drew to a conclusion, I at least salvaged some joy from knowing I had completed the entire grand prix without incident. Whilst the strategy I chose did not work, I feel confident in my concentration and race craft for future grands prix as my lap times were all within a few tenths lap after lap.
My final race position was 10th. In the points for me and Arela at our first grand prix, but not as high as I wished. If I had done a 2 stop strategy I feel confident I would have finished about 6th. Such is life, and no point getting upset about it, instead I will assign the experience to memory for next year.
Final race results are below. I look forward to writing to you from Malaysia next week.
Results