The qualification has been very promissing this week. Frank impressed with very little stick time in his hired MX-2. He placed eight with less than 45 mins total time in this cockpit.
Frank explained the media erlier thise week, the SFO race could be the most spectacular of the whole season. The track design has been called not very clever by many of the race pilots. And.........race day came with the expected surprises.
Frank started as number 8.
It was a very important race for the Dutch team.
This was the main reason Frank built up his training very carefully and started at slow speeds. So far everything went well.
The motto for SFO race day was, No guts, No Glory. So the team decided not to fly to conservative and go for the maximum acceptable speed. Yesterday max speed was 185 Kts. Today the aim was to start at 195 kts.
Frank entered the track at exactly the prognosed speed, but in combination with the calculated tailwind and higher temps than yesterday, it proved to be impossible to make the second turn into the chicane.
Drama. He could not make the turn into the chicane.
Course deviation, and that means under the present rules, finito for the day.
Next year rules will be different, but that does not help a lot for todays result. Frank was in good company as Budapest winner Steve Jones and Spanish pilot Alejandro Maclean had exactly the same experience. Course deviation and finito for the day.
Pilots hope, track desing will improve in the future.
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