Grats to Ziu, Rog and Dan on the podium and to Erling for the championship.
After a night's sleep the red mist has cleared and I am not feeling quite so frustrated.
Apologies for my emotional post last night
I think it was just that I was enjoying what is just about my favourite car in GTL, on a circuit where it can really stretch it's legs, and on top of that I had found a setup that actually worked for me.
As pre race posts indicated I had tried a couple of practice pitstops, although I had not done a full race run. I was relying on the indicated laps available on a tank of fuel which showed 10.4, so I needed to add 40% of a full tank to complete the final 4 laps...simples. I think the longest run that I did was around 5 laps in offline practice, just to see how much rubber this monster would chew through and I decided that one set of tyres would actually last the whole race, so that was my plan. Full tanks off the grid and a splash and dash for the final 4 laps on worn tyres. I figured that not taking tyres would save around 30 secs on a pitstop and I could afford to be 5 secs a lap slower for the final 4 laps and still be ahead on time.
However ...... when Ziu bogged down at the start and I suddenly found myself propelled into the lead ( with gentle encouragement from Dan at T1
) I had to try and build a gap to prevent Ziu getting back into my slipstream
. It soon became obvious that Ziu was not running at full pace and I wondered if he was trying to squeeze a whole race from one tank of fuel. I had worked out that with a featherlight right foot and major short shifting it might just be possible to reach 13+ laps, but abandoned it as too risky. I was extending the gap by about 1.5-2 secs a lap and when Ziu pitted around lap 8 I was suddenly 80+ secs ahead.
By the time we got to the end of lap 10 I had a 90 sec advantage and although I still reckon the tyres would last until the end I figured "why risk it?". Tyres and fuel would cost me around 65 secs? and still leave a healthy lead for the final 4 laps, and I would have fresh rubber if I needed to up the pace.
The pitstop actually went well for me and I was feeling quite chuffed as I eased back onto the track and powered away still with a 30 secs lead
. I was shocked to get a SnG penalty just before I swung on to the straight and almost made my first mistake in the race
. OK nail this out lap and I can still do the penalty and be back out for a final 4 lap duel with Ziu.....Except when I did an ultra cautious SnG I got another penalty just before the Mulsanne again.
I had thought that by entering the pits on the speed limiter, making the stop and then getting back onto the racing tarmac before releasing the speed limiter, all would be OK with the GTL gods. I had assumed that the speed limit only applied if you were actually in the pitlane and once I was out onto the track I was free to use max velocity?
I am guessing that my pre race post was erroneous and that I was at liberty to get back on the race track, but I would still have to engage the speed limiter until I reached a point alongside the marshall at the end of the pitlane??