Yuuji's Race Report: Sepang
(spoilers)
(well, you should've known that)
(your problem now)
Sepang was a race of W's to me. First and foremost, it was so, so unbelievably wet. At the start of the race it was raining. A third of the way through, it was pouring. At two thirds, I could barely see. By the end of the race it had become the Pacific Ocean Grand Prix. Pretty sure there wasn't any remotely dry spots left by the end of the race.
Wrenches were a large part of the race too. Most of the pit crews decided to put on an impromptu pit stop challenge throughout the race, with many drivers coming in multiple times, some up to five! A lot of people dissapeared from my mirror into the pit lane on the first lap - some had started on dry tires! As the race went on people kept on pitting and pitting.
Especially during the first safety car period. After their was a reported rear wing moment of Kimi proportions out on the track, the safety car came out, and many drivers dived into the pits. Unfortunately, many of those drivers were on the same team, and spent a nice long time twiddling their thumbs.
As the safety car went away my teammate and I were running a BMW one-two, with who I presume would be my rival right behind me in a Honda. Somehow, he got twatted into again by someone else, and he was left behind in a spray of water and cursing.
And so we drove on, and on, into the wetness. Every so often a report would come by that someone had drove off into somewhere or something, but it's not like we could really see what's happening.
Pitstops for our team came and went under green flags without much of a problem, and after that I was left in an interesting sandwich between two Aguris. Eventually they both drove past me and straight into the pits, and I was leading. Ah, how it felt good to get out of the spray of the other cars. My vision was still next to nothing, but it's a moral victory.
And then with 10 laps to go the rain got worse. I didn't really know that was humanly possible. Nevertheless, I braved on and drove straight into the pits by accident. With nothing better to do my team decided to put on the armageddon-weather monsoon tires and sent me back out.
It appears the tires actually worked quite well. Supposedly I was lapping much faster than everyone else, and supposedly my teammate was having an interesting battle for the lead. But it was all so wet that I wasn't sure if it was all just a dream and I was sleepwalking in my shower.
Nevertheless, my teammate pulled off a W(in), and I got a podium, so it was all good. Although, I must say, these champange ceremony thingies are not quite as much fun in torrential rain.
