I wish I knew why I'm so utterly pants at qualifying - I always seem to start 3 or more places behind my proper race pace.
Once the race got underway it was pretty easy to pick my way past Picnic's GT3 Cup using the Viper's truck engine - though he made me work for it for a couple of corners until I stretched out a few car lengths gap.
After that I could almost but not quite peg the gap to SbG's 911, but knew he would probably be able to pit for just tyres, whereas I would need 60 or more litres of fuel too. By mid distance my tyres were really starting to go off and I decided to pit a couple of laps ahead of schedule, knowing that SbG had already pitted, in order to avoid losing track position to MJ's colourful Leg Ends VCC on my worn tyres.
Almost missed my pit box, which I'd forgotten was outside the first garage, but just got in and my crew did their usual slick job, spending an extra 5 seconds to repair some mystery damage. Added 5 litres more than planned given my early stop and took on more hard rears and medium fronts. Came out to find myself 40 seconds behind SbG and only about 20 ahead of Picnic/MJ behind.
Kept pushing pretty hard - car felt good and slow, slowly the gap ahead was coming down... 30 seconds... 20 seconds... 16... then... SbG's car stationary just before Variante Bassa. A disco! Terrible bad luck, and not the way I wanted to get the GT3 lead - especially not as it was looking increasingly like I might
just catch you before the end.
I called it to the other Sharks over TeamSpeak so it didn't come as a complete surprise.
After that I backed off a fraction, but with 15 or so minutes to go it was obvious that MJ was starting to catch me at nearly a second a lap... With my tyres starting to go off again, time looked to be just about on my side... but with 4 minutes to go my fuel was getting low and I was getting really concerned about whether I would make it to the flag, so I started short shifting and taking corners one gear higher than normal. With 2 minutes to go MJ was right on my tail; I was using 3.5 litres a lap and had just 7 left - I needed the leader to lap us on this lap to avoid finishing on fumes... and thank goodness Backo appeared like a red and black angel to release me to use all my V10 again to stay ahead to the flag.
A good way to end Season 5... pity it was at Ginsters' undeserved expense.