Congrats Mark and Tommie!
What a crazy race! But every race in these cars is crazy to me. What a tough car! I beat on it a lot. I narrowly missed a catastrophic wreck at the end of lap 1. To keep from spinning and hitting a wall on the left before La Source, I had to wait too long to brake. Once I did, I immediately got sideways and ran the nose into the guard rail on the right. Luckily I didn't suffer much damage. Thanks for leaving me room to reenter the track Tommie even though I stopped once I realized you were right behind Axel.
I'm still struggling with my handling in the tow. I had to keep some distance when following Axel and often lost a lot of momentum. I lost too much grip on the front, twice in Axel's tow. One time was exiting Malmedy. The car slid wide and I ramped off the banking on the left. I rolled 23 times. I had to check to my replay. That's probably a record for me.
The rolling got me so confused, I had no idea where I was. I almost did a complete circle looking for the track. Luckily Doni came by as I was heading back towards the track, otherwise I wouldn't have known which way to go. I was worried I would be DQed for going the wrong way. It's amazing I finally landed on my wheels and the car would still run.
Prior to that, I ran wide exiting La Carriere. I wanted to come back on the track but I didn't want to risk wrecking Mark. I waited as long as I could, passed where I thought Mark would already be turning in for the next turn. My plan worked well for not wrecking Mark but I couldn't stay off the guard rail and trying to stay far left brought me off the track again. After all the things I ran over while fighting like crazy to maintain control. I reentered the track much wilder than previously. I was very relieved Tommie and Axel were able to avoid me. After that incident, I had lost all confidence in the car. It felt terrible. Luckily within two more laps, the car seemed to be working well again. At that point I thought, maybe it's the fuel load giving me trouble and not damage.
By the time I got back into 2nd place, I didn't think there was any chance to catch Mark. But when I saw the 27 second gap drop to 23 in one lap, I thought I might be able to do it. 8 of my last 9 laps were very good. I faltered a bit on the penultimate lap just as I thought the tow was about to start getting strong. I ran wide at Stavelot and had to slow drastically to avoid hitting the abutment on the left.
That was fun. I'm getting better with these cars, but I still need more practice. I struggle to keep just below my limit without passing it and I'm not yet driving well in the tow.
I'm glad I didn't wreck anybody but myself. I was trying hard not to wreck anybody, but it was sheer luck I didn't take Tommie out after screwing up exiting La Carriere.
Thanks for the practice and racing guys.