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How I managed my studies together with a career in car racing

Hey guys, how you doing? I know, it’s been quite a while since my previous post here. And sure, I’ll keep all the shoulds, woulds, ifs and buts to myself. Let’s just say I have a lot to tell.

To begin with, I’m officially now a qualified engineer! Just a few weeks ago I graduated University of Manchester with 2nd Class Division 1 Honours in Mechanical Engineering (BEng), fulfilling my goal that I was pushing really hard for. Unbelievable to think how close it was at the end! Each and every submission ended up being absolutely critical to pull it off. Having missed exams and therefore failed modules in my final two years, I needed a good calculative approach in order to make everything come together nicely – every piece in the equation was essential! And to be honest, this was one of the key reasons why I stopped writing blogs for a while. Anyhow, it’s done, and I’m back. Taking a few gap years to sort my life out, focus more on racing and when I know I honestly have enough time for a commitment such as Masters’ Degree, I’ll do it. The exciting part is that at this point this could take place anywhere in the world.

Update from my racing life. At the beginning of 2018 season, I made a team switch, joining forces with Absolute Racing and Franky Cheng Congfu to challenge for the Blancpain GT Asia championship trophy. At this point, we’re well past the half season mark already. Four of the six race events are done and dusted, and the remainder of the season features two weekends in China: Shanghai International F1 Circuit as well as the new Ningbo International Circuit. Franky and I are currently sitting fourth in the championship standings with two podiums and a win in the bag. This year, we’ve been added some weight ballast, which probably makes our package a bit less competitive than it should be. However, the low point in the calendar for us, the Fuji Speedway and its 1.3 km giant of a main straight has already been done. We even managed a decent 5th place finish in the points, against all odds. And looking forward, I’m optimistic about the coming rounds in China, where the characteristics of the Audis should be better suited to the tracks.

Furthermore, I’ve done two rounds of China GT this year. The first one was a busy one in Zhejiang, where I drove two cars in two categories. In addition to GT3 action with Light I won a GT4 race with Naomi Zheng. In fact, it was also the first time an Audi R8 GT4 car was driven in Asia, which makes the win even better. Later in Beijing, I won a race with Light as well. I was pleased to see this many people come and watch the event – always gives me a bit extra.

It’s currently the summer break from racing. Same as in Formula 1 or most of the other categories in car racing it means August is race-free. On another note, the weather in Estonia has been really hot lately, so I’m just enjoying the most of it. And August is a good time to put in some work and improve conditioning, so I’ll try to stay on top of that.

For my next race in September I’ll return to Shanghai F1 Circuit, one of my favourites. Check my social to see how it goes!

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