This weekend, the first round of the GT4 European Series took place at the Belgium circuit of Zolder. With 44 entries this is the most competitive GT4 championship worldwide and therefor expectations are high.
On Friday, two free practices were scheduled. Unfortunately we did not drive much in free practice, due to some technical issues. This did not make our lives easier and we had to go into qualifying with (almost) no driving time. However, in qualifying bad luck kept chasing us as we could not drive due to a broken driveshaft. With no laps in qualifying we had to start both races completely at the back of the field.
In race one, my teammate had to retire early due to a turbo issue (which occurred due to the earlier problems, and was really “Murphy’s Law”). We decided to dedicate the first race as a test, in order to be fully ready for the second race on Sunday.
Sunday it was my turn to start the race, as said completely from the back (I even had to start from the pitlane as I did not do any laps in qualifying…). During my stint of half an hour, I managed to drive from P44 to P23 with which I was super happy. I was able to drive the same pace as the front of the field and was catching up really quickly. After I handed over the car to my teammate, he unfortunately out braked himself which cost us another 10 positions. In the end, we finished P23 and showed some great potential, however, if we could have continued after I gave over the car to my teammate without any mistakes, we could have ended in the top ten and gained some points.
It is clear that we absolutely had all the bad luck at once this weekend, however, we now know (after yesterday’s performance) that we are able to fight for top 5 positions. Therefor we are heading to Brands Hatch positively minded and will be back very strong!
Round 2 – Brands Hatch (UK) 4-6 May