It has been an uphill battle to get the Subaru to work when it was race day and for the past  1½  year, and our mechanics have constantly been improving on areas where it was found to be unreliable.

We knew we were starting to have a good package with the car, but needed to get some results this weekend to ensure we stayed in touch with the front runners in the Championship.

In fear of getting problems with the car we decided not to practice, just do a few runs and see that the car was working and then do the qualifying session.

We did as planned, and never pushed the car in the practice session, which later would come back to hurt us a bit.

In the qualifying session we had the first quick runs with the car and had major understeer so handling was not very good, but we still managed to put in 5^th on the grid for both races during the weekend, so that was very positive.

For the first race, we had a standing start and I knew we would be fast here and I had a blinding start and shoot up from 5^th to 2^nd on the way down to the first corner, but on the way down to the long sweeper I got passed by one of the Toyota’s and we were now in 3^rd place.

On lap 3 we lost another position to the second Toyota, and I was now struggling with a clutch that was slipping every time I tried to put down the power. On lap 4 we dropped to 9^th place, and it took me a while to figure out how to drive the car best with the slipping clutch, but then we started to make our way back up the field.

On lap 7 we were back up into 6^th place and from there on we had a great battle with Pete in his Mazda, as we were quick in the slower sections but he was fast on the straights and out of the corners.

On lap 15 we managed to get passed him and started to gain on the Porsche of Mr. Aki in 4^th but as we got closer and closer he suddenly increased his pace, and I saw it would not be possible to catch him, so we settled down for 5^th place.

A small driver error allow the stalking car of Pete to come back past me, and I was frustrated with myself.

A pit-board showed me that Pete had jump started and that he would be penalized 60 seconds so I settled down and finish in 6^th place, as I knew that this would be good enough for 5^th and a podium place once he had gotten his time penalty, so better save the car, engine and tires.

For the second race on Sunday, we had a rolling start, and I was a little reserved about this, and I did not want to have any come together with any other drivers in the first corner, but once again we had a good start and managed to keep our 5^th place cleanly and put a lot of pressure on Khun Voravut in his EVO.

For some reason he slowed down on lap 3 and we passed him and were into 4^th place, and on lap 4 the Subaru of Khun Aekarat also pulled into the pits and now we were in 3^rd place, and we pushed hard for a few laps to open up a gap to the drivers behind us.

On Lap 8 we now had a comfortable lead of a full straight down to Aki’s Porsche in 4^th and I settled down and kept the gap the same for the next many laps. On Lap 15 I started to have fading brakes and the pedal went almost to the floor but was still working so I decided to back off and play it safe as Point’s wise Aki’s position would not count for the overall result.

I finished the race in a safe 4^th place and scored a 3^rd place 12 points in the championship, so that was very good, which also moved me closer to the top and fron a 9^th place up to a 6^th place in the championship.

During the race we still had plenty of handling problems, but the reliability seems to be there as the car never ran hot, it was only the brakes that needs to have some cooling ducts installed before rounds 5 and 6.

With the reliability now there, we should also be able to actually test the car for the first time, and spend some time on setting up the car before the next race in August on the 20^th, 21^st and 22^nd .

Looking forward to getting back in the car for rounds 5 and 6 in August and hopefully we can improve further on the results from the past weekends races at Bira.