Going into Lausitz I knew we were going to have a tough battle on our hands after the times people were laying down at the test there earlier in the year. The German circuit is basically a power circuit with hard braking corners and not too many technical parts.
Acceleration isn’t our strong point so I just worked on getting a set-up that was strong in the braking area and which would allow me to do consistent times. In qualifying I managed to get in to 1min 38secs bracket which was awesome. At the time I hadn’t even done a 39 and - bang - to pull a 38 out of the bag was pretty pleasing. It meant I was happier and a little more confident for the races.
In race one I got a good start and managed to hold off the Kawasaki gang for a while and also Xaus on his Ducati. They managed to pass me but I hung on to them. I could see I was catching Xaus and managed to pass him back and hold him off to the line. To me it was a bit like a victory. If you look at season 2003, Xaus and Hodgson were battling for the championship miles ahead of everyone with their Michelin tyres. So to beat Xaus on basically a factory Ducati, on our 900cc Petronas, was a great morale booster.
For race two we changed our front tyre as the track temperature sky rocketed. I hadn’t used the medium all weekend because the weather was cool and I was happy with the front I had. From the first lap I didn’t get on with the front at all and was lapping about half second a lap slower than in race one. The bonus was that I still managed to finish in the points with twelfth place.
Four races and four points scoring finishes – awesome!
Going into Imola I will have so many emotions: happy and sad and for quite a few reasons. Firstly I will be sad because I can confirm that I won’t be continuing as a part of the Foggy team in their future plans and secondly there is talk of taking Imola off the calendar for next year.
