It all went wrong on Sunday morning when I spent 3 hours (6am - 9am) pounding round the awesome Daisy Hill Mountain Bike park with some mates. Ok it really went wrong midday Sunday when I used time trial to setup my car up for the race. The time trial setup was schmick. Consistently faster than my previous setup. Never did set a full lap on it though. That should have been enough warning. However, I set it as my DQL (Dry Qualifying setting).
Quali was a mess. I set my banker and decided to go about pushing for a fast lap. I was on a half decent lap and hit Ghost how had spun coming down the hill. Broke my nose. By the time I got to the start of sector 3, I was still 0.6s up on my previous best, crash and broken nose and all. Then I clipped the inside of the final turn and got stuck. With 30 seconds left in quali it was game over.
Then F1 2010 did something it started last weekend and usually does at the end of every session. Lock up.
The random grid saw me at the front and I eased cautiously off the line, aware of the possible, nay problable, carnage at turn 1. That's how and where Mark84 and Flouncy got by. And I left them plenty of room. I dropped it at the top of the hill and committed the carnal mistake of taking out my own teammate :( I dropped it a few more times that lap, and with broken nose (yellow only) continued on for the next 8 laps, falling increasingly behind.
I pitted on about lap 8 for options and set off. Broke my nose a few turns later and returned to the pits again. I did have a good turn of speed mid race, when I found some consistency and unlapped myself from Mark84 and Lambo, having caught them at a good few (3 to 5) seconds a lap once one fresh options with a lightening fuel load, only to drop it again a few laps later.
The happened a couple more time and by lap 25 my real world activities got the better of me and I floored it into the wall (129G!) and went straight to bed, a physically and emotionally broken man.
