Mosher_Vados

I crashed my Lotus during qualifying. I never managed to set a valid lap time, so I started from last place. The mistake was simple: I accelerated too early and ended up in the wall. To get back onto the podium from the start, I had to rethink my race strategy. The race went great; the pace was high. Lap after lap, I overtook slower drivers. I was already in 6th place before the pit-stop wave. My pit-stop strategy worked, and after the stops I gained another position and was confidently running in 5th. Just one lap later, I overtook Niko Rosberg at the first opportunity, while he was getting his tires up to temperature and mine were already at their optimum. Building up my pace, I managed to pass another opponent (Fernando Alonso), securing my final third place. My pace was high, and all my car settings were better than the others'. The numbers and times spoke for themselves; I was just 5 seconds behind the next driver. There was one moment when I decided to accelerate a little too early again (guess where), and made another mistake, but it wasn't nearly as critical as in qualifying. I lost my advantage over the rival behind me and let the drivers ahead pull away. I didn't go after second and first place. After all, I had started last (22nd) and finished third. And so the race ended, but the gap to second place had shrunk to 2.5 seconds. I realized that if I hadn't accelerated there and had just kept up my pace (which was faster than the drivers ahead), I would have had a real chance of fighting for second—and maybe even first place. Still, it was a fantastic result!