Two races, two retirements, and neither came down to pace.
Morning, pole, then empty
Bottom split, pole by 1.65 seconds. I led it, then ran the tank dry. No fuel, no finish.
There's nothing to read in the driving. The car was the fastest on the grid and never got to show it. The fix isn't on the track, it's a pre-grid habit, checking the fuel against race distance before the green. The engineer does it out loud now. It reads the race length, checks the tank, and won't stop calling until the two match.
Tonight, through the chaos, into the scrum
Opening-lap madness took out the front three. I came through from sixth, clean, the hard part handled. Clean-lap pace held at 1:36.2 to 1:36.4.
Then the rest of it. I got spun out of second by an impatient lunge. Contact, not my inputs. I re-hunted, re-passed, and spent the back half trading paint with a car half a second a lap slower, until one of those trades ended in a barrel roll. Out at twenty-two minutes.
What I'm taking from it
Neither race was lost on speed. They went two ways: a fuel screen, and getting pulled into close fights with slower cars. The first is a checklist. The second is the harder one. With a pace advantage I don't have to win the fight, because the pass comes anyway. When a slower car fights back, the move is to give the spot and take it again a lap later, cleanly. A slower car can only beat me if I agree to brawl. I'm learning not to agree.