Santino Ferrucci's diary: Wet and wild at the Norisring

After Spa, I headed straight to Nuremberg, Germany to get ready for round 6 of the FIA F3 European Championship at Norisring.

This track is different to most because it's a very short, very wide street course. Norisring has only four turns – two are first-gear hairpins and one right-left chicane in third gear. Top speed here is 150mph. Our times are 48 seconds so the races are 42 laps. The qualifying is split into two groups for odd- and even-numbered cars. I am odd-numbered along with most of the top 15 in the championship so the groups weren't close to being equal.

In practice, my car was loose and I was seventh in group, not pushing too hard yet. To be fair the track is very green on Friday, having no grip, so a loose car is rather expected. My engineer, Ralf Druckenmuller, and I made changes for Qualifying 1 but the car was still not at its best and I qualified seventh. I had the ninth-fastest time overall of the 34 cars, so our group has some serious pace!

Unfortunately they don't combine the groups based on best lap, making qualifying in this extremely fast group more difficult. The group that has the fastest time takes the pole side of the grid for the races. For Qualifying Two and Three, Ralf was Einstein as the car was awesome and I qualified fourth for both races. We rocked it – fourth in our group, fourth overall plus fastest Mercedes-powered car.

Race One would be in the rain – and rain at Norisring tends to be very dangerous because the spray is so bad here that we can't see other cars, even if they are right in front of us with the rain light flashing. Not only that, we can't see the walls next to us and I was hoping not to hit one by accident!

The race was off to a good start from 13th on the grid. I was already up to ninth and for a while the fastest car on track. Passing people was fun because I was very good in the brake zones and I knew how to avoid the big bumps on the circuit.

About 10 minutes into the race I was starting to lap cars, which was a bit of a surprise so early but, as I said, Norisring is evil in the heavy rain. About midway through the race visibility was zero – I mean nothing but spray. So here I am, flat out down the front straight and just as I got into the break zone, BOOM! I knew it was a car but I didn't know how that it was possible because I never even saw him! I hit him hard, so hard that my front rim split in half!

Only later I found out I ran over a lapped car and Ralf said maybe he was looking for parking at the 200 meter board. Of course he was joking but really, what the heck are you doing! I am going about 130mph and he must have been doing 50! I mean, if you are that slow get out of the way, please, and don't crawl in the race line. I couldn't believe it – looking for parking at the brake zone was a fitting comment.

Unfortunately my race was clearly over because after I hit him I bounced off the inside wall and punctured my left front tire. It was a shame considering how fast I was.

Race Two wasn't much better, though. I had a really poor start off the linem dropping back to about 12th before Turn One. But I got lucky and managed to pass all the way back to eighth. I had my teammate in front of me for seventh, my original starting spot.

I took a small look up the inside of Turn 4 and he braked earlier than me, so I went for it. At the last moment I realized that he didn't see me and he kept turning in! He never took a look inside, as I was right there. I completed the pass but it wasn't clean. When he turned in we softly touched although luckily there was no damage.

Then in about two laps I left him in the dust and caught the next group. I was behind three cars, and I was now sitting in sixth because someone got a drive-through for a grid box violation. I was much faster than the cars I caught and my teammate was now gaining back some ground on our group. I could see behind me that he was much faster down the straight than me, even though I was running almost no downforce. So I didn't want to be a the sitting duck and when the two cars ahead went at it in Turn One, I took a lunge on the car in front of me.

It turned out to be a bit too much – maybe by a meter or two – and I slid into him. We both had complete control until someone on the way, way outside of the turn (we were now three-wide) decided to close the door on the car in the middle and we all crashed together. This special someone has special Turn One talent because he also managed to take out half of the field in Turn One at Norisring last year. Bravo to him...

It was unfortunate but I guess it's racing, and I was willing to accept that. Unfortunately, I had to go to the stewards later that evening to collect my five-place grid penalty for Race Three Sunday. So I went from P7 to P12.

The last race was much better for me, though. I managed to get one car off the startline and avoid another who had an issue getting going. As I raced down to Turn One I found a good gap to get up into 10th. I was going good and was able to pass the car in front of me for ninth. Then I was able to apply big pressure on my fellow American in eighth – enough pressure to make him miss the brake zone in Turn One and hit the car in front of him! So a quick thank you to him and I was now seventh.

I quickly caught the next group, as once again I was very fast, the fastest Mercedes-powered car this race. I was patiently awaiting a mistake from the car in front of me. It was taking too long so I turned up the pressure. He then made a questionable move on fifth and it was a bit scary but it worked in the end because I got by "the special someone"!

Still behind the same guy now for fifth I was told on the radio he just got a penalty and not to push him too hard. He ended up giving his position back and I was now in the clear for fifth. Then an untimely for me safety car came out for a crash in Turn One. I had a good restart but I flat-spotted my tires trying to push too hard. My brakes were starting to fade, too, so it was becoming very difficult to hang on. I pushed the best I could but my teammate Mikkel Jensen made it by after we had a really good fight. I was just able to hang on to sixth because my brakes were finished!

I was very happy to come home in sixth, being fastest Mercedes and, having not finished the first two races, I needed this to stay inside the top 10 in points.

A big thanks to Eastern Account Systems, Cly-Del Manufacturing, Alpinestars, ARAI Helmets, Brett King Design, my team Mucke Motorsport, Joe Zeller for getting the car together for each race, and my engineer Ralf.

Also thanks to my dad for always taking my side ☺, my friends who came to the race this weekend and my fans for the support on social media. Now I'm off to Italy for a week of intense training at Formula Medicine to prepare myself for Zandvoort in less than two weeks!

Thanks for reading!

Santino