Hi everyone, sorry that my blog from Valencia is a little bit late.
Valencia was a brilliant weekend for us, so there’s a lot to talk about!
We arrived at the circuit in Valencia on the Thursday, which allowed me to meet up with my engineer and prepare for the weekend. We also took a track walk, which is always important, as some parts of the track may have changed since my previous visit.
Friday morning was an early start; I arrived at the circuit for 8am and immediately got set for FP1 and FP2. Both sessions were wet on the Friday morning, but I enjoy racing in tricky conditions just as much, and completed both sessions in fourth and fifth place respectively.
The on track conditions changed once again for qualifying, I initially went out on full wets but soon pitted for slicks as the racing line was drying rapidly.
I pushed hard as the session progressed and completed it with a seventh position for the first and third races of the weekend. I think that I could have been quicker by 0.5 secs, but due to the tricky conditions, I believe that our performance was still quite good.
Race one was very good for me; I quickly disposed of William Buller and Carlos Sainz Jnr at the start, promoting me to fifth, and then Felix Rosenquist was handed a drive-through penalty, moving me up to fourth.
I ran well for the remainder of the race in fourth position but unfortunately didn’t quite have the pace in the car to allow me to hunt down the top three. It was great to see ma-con earn another podium through my teammate Tom Blomqvist.
Race two was quite a frustrating race for me; although I earned a second top six finish of the weekend, I got held up by the Carlin’s William Buller throughout the duration of the race, which halted my progression to the front.
The final race of the weekend was a little frustrating also; I started in seventh position and followed Tom whilst he attacked Sainz Jnr during the opening stages of the race.
Tom eventually made a move stick on Sainz Jnr at Curva Aspar, but I was unable to find a way past the 2011 NEC Formula Renault 2.0 Champion, taking the chequered flag where I had started the race.
Overall, I’m pleased with the way that the weekend went for us. We had a tough start to the season due to the late delivery of our VW powered Dallara F312, but I’m pleased to see that we’ve been improving steadily over the last few races, it’s nice to be up there fighting with the front-runners.
I can’t wait to get back into the car for the final rounds at Hockenheim on 26/27/28 October.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, I’m looking forward to keeping you all up to date with how the season finale goes.
Emil
