Grats to the podium and all who made it to the finish, it looks like the GPL gremlins were on a bonus for this race?? So many engine failures
I was a little disappointed to see Clive Loynes arrive at the party a little late, but I suspect that real life was intervening and being the experienced and cunning protagonist that he is he played a tactical card to get his "starting money".
I had anticipated that Mr L would be running the W196 and looking for revenge for Zolder, so I actually spent a little time doing some offline practice for this race in the Lancia. That worked well in quali, where I almost went sub 4:00 without any slipstream, but the plan fizzled out in the race after 2 laps with a smoking engine
. I was looking forward to enjoying some slipstream in the race and possibly knocking 3-4 secs off that time, but that did not happen.
I had resigned myself to this race being a slipstream festival, where any places and points would be decided on the last lap. I did remember to save my race replay and I think I gave my engine a nudge towards oblivion on lap 1, with one bad downshift and maybe a couple of acceleration points where I was spinning the rear wheels and got too close to the 8500 rev limit....lesson learned hopefully
This old Spa circuit is great because it highlights the insane speed of these old cars, but IMHO it does not have enough braking zones to force some management of the brake fade. I had all the brakes I needed for stopping at La Source, with enough left over for a dab into Eau Rouge and then time to recover for Les Coombes. After that there are no brakes needed until La Source again, just keep your right foot planted on the go pedal
Well done to my Blue Moose teammate Doni, for keeping it together for 2nd place