My grandfather always said: “never give up”. I tried to keep that in mind over the weekend at Portimao, Round 2 in the FIA Formula Two Championship.
It really was uphill all the way over the two days due to a number of unforeseeable situations that meant I had to buckle down and fight tooth and nail for every possible point that could make the difference at the end of the season. Those unforeseeable situations included, f or example, a shower of hail during my best qualifying lap on an otherwise dry track, a coming together between two of my rivals who unwittingly dragged me into their skirmish two corners after the start, an Overboost system that malfunctioned just when it was needed and so on and so forth.
In the end I had to settle for a seventh place in Race 1 and tenth in Race 2, climbing from 13th and 16th place respectively. A result that was a little disappointing given that I’d set out with the idea of matching or bettering what I achieved in the first round at Silverstone… but I have to admit that it was great fun racing hard with some great drivers.
At this point all that remains is for me to thank those very drivers for helped me enjoy so much overtaking and so many errors, screeching brakes and manoeuvres that challenged the laws of gravity (and a few rules and regulations) and to reassure you that next time out at the Nürburgring, seeing as Lady of Fortune seems to have momentarily abandoned me, I’ll be making own my own good luck.