Well the Miami F1/Carrera Cup is in the books! We were off to a good start in Race1 and had an unfortunate incident in T1 (around the 30min mark on Race1 video) which ended our race weekend.
| Race 1 | 0 |
| Race 2 | - |
I have to admit this was the most intense racing in Carrera Cup I have seen to date! The start of each race is truly a scary marvel as the cars are bunched up “Nascar style”. In fact, the drivers will tell you that they are full throttle at the start regardless of the driver in front. Many cars have major dents in the rear bumper. This type of bumping is no tap as it will throw your head back - almost causing whiplash. Dan at one point had both hands knocked off the steering wheel! While we were unable to start Race2 because of damage to the shock tower/front end of car, the video of Race2 is well worth watching.
I do think we should have a good showing at Watkins Glen. Dan is currently 10th in points (see attached points standings). 4th place and down are still well within reach!
Next race is Watkins Glen is June 22-25. Let’s go Dan!
BJ
Upcoming Race Weekend: Watkins Glen International - Watkins Glen, NY
FRIDAY JUNE 23
- Qualifying | 8:35am-9:05am
- Race #1 | 1:25pm - 2:05pm
- Race #2 | 12:20pm-1:00pm
View Full Schedule Here
——————————————————-Dan's Commentary:
Wow, what a surprising weekend. Everything was really going well at our 3rd race event in this series. In practice we were applying things to the car setup we thought we were learning from Sebring and Long Beach and I was happily working on managing the tyres in a new way after studying some of the front guys.
5th and 3rd in the practise sessions was encouraging enough for me. I wasn't taking any risks or in a dire rush to be the fastest, I really wanted to apply the things I thought would make our lap-times faster and see if they worked. And they did.
Qualifying didn't go as well but it wasn't a huge frustration as it was going to grid us 9th and 5th for the races and that's better than previous weekends and put us ahead of a lot of potential havoc. What was interesting from Qualifying was seeing the best lap-times produced at the beginning of the session, before the track started heating up in the sun, corresponding with what I felt during the session. Despite missing that early performance window, by being a bit unlucky lining a clear lap up, I was still able to produce fast times closer to the very front of the grid.
Race 1's end was a bit of a shocker. I have to study what went wrong and why the car failed to slow down predictably as it had before. It was a real shame as I was waiting to steal P6 from Nepveau at some point before the checkered flag and would've been happy with 6th before starting race 2 from an even better position.
Miami was an interesting track. The surface is very smooth making the difference between grip and no grip very fine. The challenge was being able to carry momentum in the turns without sliding the tyres much at all as that would very easily overheat the tyre surface and that's when grip really falls off. I was still learning to master this in the race but happy to hang on to 7th and be waiting for a shot at 6th.
We have a ways to go before Watkins Glen now which fortunately will help with the repairs needed for the car and also some extra work both myself and my teammate want the team to pursue to find a little more speed.
————-
Quoted for NOLASport media:
"Miami was a reasonable step forward for us. I feel like I made some gains in how to use the tyres even better and I think that enabled us to be 3rd fastest in practice 2.
"Qualifying was our best result of the season so far with 9th and 5th for both races but I could see where I hadnt maximised my stint on the tyres as best as I could've. It was encouraging to at least see where some of the lap time difference was this time.
"Looking forward to starting Race 2 in 5th, I just wanted to score reasonable points in Race 1 and make the most of what speed it would turn out we had. Running P7 in Race 1 with an eye on possibly stealing 6th at some point. Unfortunately, on a restart I couldnt get the car stopped for turn 1 and collected another car that put us out of the race. It was a strange moment for me as I wasnt trying to do anything heroic at the time so it will take a little bit of studying to understand what went wrong.
"Im grateful to the Nolasport Reis Nichols team for all the work theyre putting in when we're racing. Im eager to see what we can improve again in time for Watkins Glen in June."