R5: European GT4 @ Monza

Final Race at European GT4 Championship R5 – Monza

The fifth round of the European GT4 Championship was run at the Monza in Italy, the home of the Italian Grand Prix since 1949. The circuit is 3.6 miles long with 11 corners and is very fast. The weather for the entire weekend was dry and hot, there was a large crowd at the event and a grid of 50 GT4 cars entered.

I was pleased with my qualifying, I managed a time that put me 17^th overall and 1 second off the pole position time.

My team mate Dexter started Race 1 and was making good progress from a start position of 40 up to 31 when I took over the car. For once the race was relatively trouble free and I managed to make up a few more places to finish 28^th overall.

I started Race 2 from 17^th on the grid, got a good start and made places in the opening laps getting up into the top 10 when on lap 11 I was fired off into the gravel by a wayward Mercedes driver. I managed to keep the car running and got out of the gravel and back to the pits but the damage to the rear of the Lotus was too bad to be able to continue and we had to retire the car. Another unfortunate end to a race weekend.

Because of the amount of damage that the cars have received racing in Europe the team has unfortunately decided not to go to the final round of the season in Jeddah. This is a great shame because it would have been the first time that we would have been on a more level playing field with the other teams as no one will have raced there before, but it wasn’t to be so I am moving onto preparing for next season.

Racing in Europe has been a challenge this year as all the circuits were new to me, but despite the lack of results it was a great experience and I believe it has improved me as a driver.