After first qualifying I had a lot of time to make up as I was near a second of the pace. After many hours discussing the issues with my engineer we came to a couple of conclusions that would hopefully help us close the gap significantly.
I went out into second qualifying with the idea that the car would be more suited to me and circuit and after a one flying lap I could feel the difference in the car. I felt much more confident with the car and with a couple laps to warm my tyres up I started to get a better feel for the new set-up.
After many laps of pounding round trying to find some extra pace the session was over. I set a time that was 0.1 of a second quicker than my previous effort but the difference this time was that due to the ambient temperature being hotter the car were slower that the mornings qualifying. I ended up 0.4 tenths off pole man Dias closing the gap and having 2nd place was a decent improvement. Overall the session was much better but still room for improvement.
After my victory in the first race I was in good spirits for the second race and planned to do the same. The changes after the second qualifying definitely made an impact and helped me out massively. I changed a couple more things on the cars before the second race which was a little bit of a gamble but I fancied trying something a little bit different for future reference. Going into the last race of the series I was fairly calm and collected as usually the last race of the series ends up in carnage.
After the last green flag lap I would do in the national class car I sat on my grid slot and prepared for the start. Holding the revs at a steady rate I slipped slightly on the brake pedal which was holding me on the slope and crept forwards, I quickly came off the power and on the brakes at which point the light went out, I got caught out and made a fairly poor start and lost a few places by the first corner.
At the second corner I got a nice surprise of a car spinning directly in front on me and lost even more places to avoid it. I was in 4th place – from which I had to get to at least second place not to spoil a year of getting on the podium and a year of only finishing in 1st or 2nd place. I dispatched of the 3rd place man Max Snegirev fairly quickly which put me onto the back of 2nd place man Joe Ghanem. After many laps of battling I made a bold move into the second corner to take 2nd place.
I was 4 places down on Dias and a fair few seconds, I continued to push for the rest of the race and only realised the laps were going down and Dias was still a distance away. The chequered flag come out and I claimed my 8th second place and finished 15th overall.
I finished the whole year with 11 wins, 8 second places, 11 fastest laps and 6 pole positions. I came into the championship in hope of dominating and wining the whole national series, I can safely say I have done that with a total of 351 points and a lead of 56 points over second place man Dias.
I want to say a big thanks to my sponsors this year without whom I would never have been able to achieve this victory, my family and friends who have given me their full support, my mental mind coach who helped me with my preparation and mental strength when times got hard, my trainer who got me fitter so I can cope with the real challenge of driving any car I can get my hands on and last but not least my team who gave me a championship winning car and took me on this year even when times were tough.
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