About 10 minutes before hoping into the car for qualification, I had to run down to the toilet. Something I ate for breakfast wasn't sitting well and I was feeling rather like throwing up. After some deep breaths in the cubicle, I finally calmed down the urge and felt fine again. Weird that. Probably nerves I guess. I had to run back to the car though to get my helmet etc on as cars were already on their way out.
A good qualifying lap is vital at Tsukuba. Ideally you want nothing less than pole to make your race as simple as possible. The performance of the tires and the car go off after the first 2 laps on a hot day like it was on the 25th so you want to pull out off stops on your first lap and if you don't nail that, you nail the 2nd one. That's all you can do. By around the 4th lap, your time will be about half a second off its 1st lap potential, so nailing your performance and the cars to that early lap is the trick. The other trick is a clear track. Ideally, you don't want anyone directly behind you so you can concentrate on what's ahead and ideally you should give yourself lots of room on that outlap, so you can go all out without following someone elses mistakes. I managed to get great space for my first lap and then after that I had traffic. My first lap was my best. A 1'10.191. Unfortunately, this was only good enough for 3rd spot. Still it was my best qualifying lap ever at Tsukuba so I was pretty happy. The other two cars broke the previous Clubman lap record of 1'09.9 with the top guy getting a 1'09.5. Wow!
The other thing about qualifying was my brakes. They felt terrible. Something was wrong. When I was trail braking into the corners the peddle would move under my foot as I slowly released it which made it really hard to corner at speed. Luckily I had great support from D-Technique who bled my brakes after qualifying and got them back in the their normal condition again. Thanks!
The race was held at 11am. It was scorching hot. Probably 34 degrees. Lining up 3rd on the grid, I thought, I'd have a good chance to grab 2nd by the first corner. The 2nd grid spot isn't the best as the rollcage blocks the start lights slightly and you end up craning a little to see it. As for the pole sitter, I thought if I could put a little pressure on him without using up my tires I could get him towards the end of the race if I was lucky. For some reason, I didn't even think about those behind me.
I was amazingly comfortable at the start. I revved the engine and eye'd the start lights with my peripheral vision which leads to better reaction times than looking directly at the lights. The lights went out and the rear wheels chirped, I had a perfect start. Before I knew it I was along side the 1st placed car and ahead into turn 1. Wow. 15 laps to go and I had no desire to give up my spot.
The race was pretty easy. I was quite relaxed and had mentally decided that it was impossible for anyone to pass me if I got every corner apex and nailed every exit so that is what I concentrated on doing. I was a bit distracted by my tire noise though particularly around the last corner as I was under-steering around it mostly. I guess that comes from lack of practice. I was pretty happy though as I'd built up a little gap of probably about 1 to 1.5 sec.
Then after about 10 laps or so, the brakes went funny on me again. It was the same as qualifying. Trail braking properly was next to impossible and it was hard to gauge braking again. I started braking earlier and taking off more speed to try to continue to nail my exits and as such the guy behind got closer and closer. My tires were also struggling as I'd used them quite well to make my initial gap. The next 5 laps or so would be interesting and were the longest of my life.
I remember going through Dunlop and just wishing it was all over. I looked at my lap timer and saw I'd a bunch of laps left. I recall telling myself that this was my favourite part of the track and the bit I owned in terms of speed as I'd gain here a little every lap. I guess its all about being positive when things go wrong like my brakes did and concentrate on what is going right. I was a head and every lap I did was a lap closer to the end of the race.
On the very last lap, the brakes got the better of me into the first hairpin and I let them off too quickly leading into a pretty big sideways moment mid corner. I was really lucky though in that a) I've done that a lot and b) the guy behind me was so close that he copied me. As I got the car in line, I had a little smile on my face knowning that I'd have a gap now which would take the pressure off the first of the final lap. I crossed the line 0.7s ahead and a very relieved winner. This was probably the toughest win I've had so far. I was elated.
