I know that I headed my last column 'Perfect' after winning at Le Mans, but the Patron Highcroft Racing team has now reached the dizzy heights of the top step of the American Le Mans Series podium, and the feeling is just as good.
We're racing against some tough opposition in the LMP2 class. Penske is an extremely successful organisation that knows how to win races - you just have to look at their history in the American Le Mans Series, where they have pretty much dominated for the past 18 months. The Patron Highcroft team is a relative virgin in terms of the other teams we're up against - the likes of Andretti Green, Fernandez and Dyson, as well as Penske - we've grown very quickly and so, to go up against these guys, beat them to outright pole position and then beat them in the race on strategy, driving and so on is extremely satisfying. For us to get Acura's first overall win is very special too.
Everything kind of fell into place at Lime Rock - it was fantastic, even if it was a bit of a rollercoaster at times. Leading up to the event, we felt like we'd be strong there, and were really never out of the top two in each practice session, but qualifying was one of those where we were quick straight away and then we dropped down to eighth. I only had to find three-tenths to get back onto pole, but there's not a lot of corners at Lime Rock. The track was a bit slick too because the surface was fairly new, and there was a lot of dirt on it because the grass hadn't grown on the sides [where the work had been done], so it was changing a lot.
With about two minutes to go, I backed off and thought 'this isn't working', but then I told myself 'this is what I've got to do here, that's what I've got to do there, at this corner I've got to do this - just get on with it'. On my first flying lap, I got pole position by thousandths of a second or something - and still had one more lap. So I really went for it and pulled out nearly four-tenths!
