Such a drastic change from the Benetton that Williams was.
When i first jumped it the car it wanted to bite my head off so i quickly realised it needed the same touch as with a woman. Nice and gentle. As soon as i did that the car started rewarding me. Spent a lot of time working on the setup to get a nice base that will translate to other tracks (Thanks Ian
) after that is was just a matter of chaining it all together and finding a rhythm around this track. Something that is essential. i always felt it was a track where the driver could make a difference.
Onto qualifying, was a way off my PB but the track was very hot. A few tweaks to the tire pressures and the car was much better. Was happy with my time.
Race start was okay, was concerned about being on the dirty side of the grid and was worried i may get jumped. Nearly did by a rapidly charging John Thim (Great start
) Managed to hold on though, first few laps were a bit dicey as the tires were too cold, so i had to be patient and wait for the pressures to build up. I could feel the extra grip and then i was able to start making a gap to Jules, at the time i expected more of a challenge and was
surprised to see i could pull away but now i know it was because he didn't have access to his best setups.
Shame to also see the bottleneck behind John, i think that really helped me and Jules out and made the race much simpler.
From then on it was just about being consistent and hitting apexes and being gentle with the throttle to minimise wheel spin and tire wear. Decided to pit on lap 30 as with the heavy car the tires really suffered, had a disastrous pitstop of 19 seconds, luckily it was enough to maintain the lead, but i knew i had to be patient and wait again for the tires to get up to pressure again.
After that it was the same again, just try and be consistent and look after the engine and the car.
That was a very tough race, lasting just over 2 hours
so congrats to everyone that managed to bring the car home.
A special thankyou to Jason for broadcasting. Great job as always especially in the circumstances.
See you all in Austria.