P1-Gaming.de: F3 championship

Yeah Baby, took my first victory tonight at Watkins Glenn, ahead of second placed Elias Thrackl and Mats Hutsfeldt on position 3. Racedistance 36 laps, ~60 min.



Great race, had some luck, made no mistakes, no crash spin or contact. Took an early lead because drivers spun in front of me, after my pitstop in lap 18 on lap 23 Thrackl was only 2.8 secs behind me, and much quicker then me, made a mistake and spun, after that had a 25 secs lead, slowed down and finished 16 secs ahead of the second.

Well done Mike... i know you haven't had much time but you haven't lost the touch eh?

Yeah could only do my laps to be allowed to race, some of them offline but sended my xml files to the admin and he was happy with it, P1 rule is that you have todo at least the same laps in the training as the racedistance, of course full laps.

Now discussion is big, because from 18 drivers only 8 finished, some rule changes will come soon.

Neil Bateman enters the F3 as my teammate now. First time that 2 old rivals race together for one team.

The new is named Energy Racing. Main sponsors are Monster Energy for Neil and Rockstar Energy for Mike.

Next race is Austin, Texas on next sunday.

Race 4 was yesterday evening in Austin, Texas. Neil and me had positions 6 and 7 on the grid, both missed the top 5 qualify by a tenth.

First time in the grid from WSVR Jim Self, Roy Wuestner and Chris Braam.

After good start wNeil and me made good progress, Neil moved to second, me just a few seconds behind on 5th. I could catch up on the 2 drivers in front of me, but had 2 contacts with one of them while I tried to overtake, spun and crashed. Damaged front aero in round 17, long pitstop for repair. After that couldnt do the same lap times as before, lost 1~1,2 secs a lap on my fastest before the crash. Was down to 12th at this point, could move up back to 7th at the end.
Similar to Neil, after his pitstop he had contact with another driver in the first corner, lost his front wing, had todo a second pitstop and finished ahead of me on 6th place.

Resume: We both had the chance to be on the podium, race pace was really good. Our laptimes overall in the top 4, just David Mueller was unbeatable. Next race is Valencia in 2 weeks.

was a great race, did not realise coming out of pits it was a back marker in front and at turn 1 he lifted to let me by but i was too close to react, really gutted as my pace was strong and felt i could have been at least 3rd if not even 2nd, closed a 21 second gap to 6 seconds to the leaders after new wing.

My crash with jochen in lap 2 will be watched by the stewards. He just kicked me out without any chance for me to avoid this contact.

Valencia could the same scenario happen then in the real f3 at macau this weekend. ...

The crappy Valencia street circuit?

Yes matt, that one.

I was right behind you mike when you had contact, needs looking at for sure.

Neil Bateman wrote:Yes matt, that one.

.

Hateful track!!!

Here it is on the live stream, Jochen in front, me and Neil behind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BO6OX2q2QU&feature=youtu.be&t=1h7m56s

Full live stream:

Yesterday was the fifth race of the F3 championship. I made a real good setup and had very good speed in the qualify. Managed to go into the top 5 qualiy and got the pole.

Lost first place at the start to David Mueller. He could build up a gap because i had to defend some laps against Elias Thrackl. After Elias had a spin i could hold the gap all race 6-8 secs but couldnt catch David. 5 laps before the end i had a spin too but could hold position in front of Mats Hutsfeldt because had a ~20 sec gap. After that i slowed down a bit and finished second 5 secs in front of Mats.

Overall good race but you need to be 100% concentrated all race. Now 5 weeks break.