After the great experience of meeting Teemu Leino at my track in Orihuela â” and from whom I gratefully learned so much â” I came to the third round of the Spanish Championships at a very technical track.
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PRACTICE
During Friday practice I devoted myself to trying several set-ups to try everything I could since I had never practiced on this track before.
QUALIFYING
For Saturday qualifying I was doing very well. In the first heat I finished in 2nd place only 1 second behind Robert Batlle. In the second heat I made two mistakes but finished in 6th place. In the last heat, having secured my direct entry into the semi-finals, I focused on trying diferents set-ups for the finals. My final qualifying position was 8th place.
In the semi-final I was in the lead for several minutes, battling with Antonio Salmeron and Robert Batlle. Unfortunately, two errors on my part dropped me back to 3rd place and that was the way I finished the semi-final.
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Semi-finals results
1. Robert Batlle
2. Dani Bernabe 3. Bryant Baldo XRAY XB808â™09
4. Juanma Vera
5. Josue Artiles
6. Albert Navarro
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FINAL
In the final I started the race in position #5 but I moved up to Dani Bernabe and Richi Gomez and I got into 3rd place behind Dani Vega and Robert Batlle until they overturned me. I dropped back to last place but started to turn very fast lap times so by 6 minutes in I was in the lead. My pace was fast and I was pulling away from Batlle by 1 second per lap until the 35-minute mark when I was pulling away 25 seconds. At the 40-minute mark I did a pit stop and I exitted behind Batlle because his pit stop was faster than mine. We battled for the remaining 4 minutes with Batlle staying ahead and winning the race by only 3 seconds.
