I confess that after Sunday's 67 race and my inability to drive this circuit I spent an hour on Monday doing some serious practice around this nightmare.
Maybe I took the easy option for the 66's and chose the 3ltr Brabham, but I figured that I wanted to fight the circuit and not the car.
When I started matching my best 67 times in a 65 car, I figured that I was beginning to tame the track.
I arrived a little late for qually and some fast lap times were already being posted by the usual suspects, so my first runs were on race fuel
to settle in were OK. Then I halved the fuel load and tried a quicker lap and was amazed to get 2nd behind a very rapid Art
. Hristo eventually appeared ( as expected!!) to push me down to 3rd, but still, I was quite happy with that.
From the start I stayed wide at T1 just to avoid chopping across anyone and getting nerfed. Tristan took the opportunity to squirt through the inside and take 3rd place. Although I was easily keeping pace with Tristan on cold tyres, he seemed to be a little unstable in his tail heavy Lotus. It looked like an accident waiting to happen, but when it did it caught me by surprise as he squirted sideways across the track fighting for control and I clipped his rear wheel as I tried to avoid him.
That promoted me back to 3rd with a clear gap ahead and behind, so I concentrated on a few smooth laps as the tyres came up to working temperature. I had learned that careful use of the right foot and avoiding spinning up the rear wheels was crucial to consistant lap times during my offline practice ( remember this for later!!
) and slowly but surely I was closing on the leading pair of Hristo and Art.
Art was off at T1 and Hristo was closer... a moments contact? .. but either way I was 2nd and the gap to Hristo was halved. A few laps just pushing gently and the gap steadily reduced until I was on his tail.
The problem with Dijon is that there is really only one passing place if the guy in front holds a good line and makes no mistakes. This requires a 5th gear that will give you the advantage with slipstream down the S/F straight and outbrake your opponent into T1...simples ?? But if you have forgotten to raise 5th gear high enough your car will run out of revs as you cross the start line and there is no way you can make the pass. What sort of dipstick would make such a dumb setup mistake??
So, option "B" ..wait for a mistake was adopted. I waited and harassed, and waited and harassed and waited and pushed and prodded for lap after lap. It was evident that I was quicker through the twisty bits but just lost out out of the final turn and on top speed.
Hristo was fighting the tail heavy Lotus and had several sideways moments where I thought "he's going off"...but he always managed to catch the slide. Until he finally made the mistake I had been hoping for out of the hairpin and I was through...woohoo.!!!
At this point my brain decided that I should forget how to drive the Brabham. Thus far in the race I was easily able to lap in the low 1:25's whilst chasing Hristo...now? I was suddenly struggling to hit braking points and turn in points.
I had hoped that my pace around the infield would hold the gap I now had over Hristo...I knew he would be driving at his max to get back on terms, he always does lol. For a few laps the gap stayed constant despite my poor driving. Then I lost a little passing a backmarker and in an attempt to regain that time I started over driving the car ( remember what I said earlier??). I simply gave away time lap after lap until I had cooked the rear left tyre and allowed Hristo to catch and pass me. But with 5 laps still to go I felt I could still maybe sneak the win.
I pushed hard, instead of smooth, and by the last lap had made little impression on Hristo's 200 mtr lead. Then I totally missed a braking point with just 1/4 of the last lap to go and stuffed the car into the armco, ripping off a rear wheel..............race over
Don't ask what I said when that happened, it ain't pretty.
Grats to Hristo for a great race and to all of those who finished.