Homestead was probably the closest times of the season so far, as qualifying saw the top 8 all within half a second. Richard made a huge mistake in qualifying only managing 2 fast laps and then the back end switched on him as he was going faster again, hitting the wall and having to retire to the pits but also this caused Alex to have to back off the throttle on his faster laps which cost him in Qualifying too. With Richard starting 6th and Alex 3rd.
A brilliant rolling start saw Alex make his way into 2nd. Richard had an equally good start, catching and taking 5th and breezing up to the back end of 4th early on. Alex made a mistake which saw him hit the wall hard and having to recover to the pits, which promoted Richard into 3rd just about to make an overtake for 2nd when the rear end of the car got light in the slipstream and saw Richard hit the wall as well and also having to pit to fix damage. Coming out just in front of Alex, but 2 laps off the lead Richard and Alex were now back in 5th and 6th. As the race settled into a ryhtmn, Richard was heavy on fuel but still as fast as the cars around him. Alex being a little quicker on lesser fuel was pulling away from Richard sligthly each lap until the last 15 minutes of the race. Richard pitting for fresh tyres and a lighter fuel load had made it back on same lap as the leader due to staying out when others had to make their pitstop. Richard came out and started to gain on all the cars in front but one... Alex had also pitted again for new tyres and was running a much higher turbo settings. Richard remained consistent maintaining the gap with Alex as they were very much equalling lap times.
Richard could see that Alex was slowing down considerably on the final lap as he was now having to fuel save. Richard set the fastest overall lap on the final lap of the race trying to catch Alex for 4th but just could not manage to close it up enough and crossed the line in 5th.
Without the mistakes I think it would have been a very different result for Vermin Racing and Triple EIght but that is the nature of racing. It can be very cruel even though we showed we had the pace to challenge for the win.
Watch the full race replay here:
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