I had no great hopes of being anywhere near the action for this race. The BT7 might be a sweet car to drive, but on a power circuit like this it was a big handicap.
Qually showed that I was going to need a strong tow rope to stay in touch with any of the other cars, so I set my gearing for "Slipstream Mode". It was crucial that I stayed tucked in behind a fast car from the start, because once I lost 60 mtrs I had no way of closing the gap.
Lap 1 went Ok and I was just hanging on to the back of the lead group
Lap 2 and the plan fell apart as I took avoiding action on the straight and allowed the gap ahead to grow and i was lost.
I then had a few laps dicing with David hoping he would pull me back up to the pack, but he was passed by a recovering Tris, Greg, Tim and a few others. each time I jumped into the slipstream and tried to hold on, but the extra grunt out of Lesmo always gave the faster cars the edge and I was dropped.
By about half distance i was contemplating giving up as I was running alone and with no chance of catching the leaders...then Greg appeared
in his Fezza with dodgy gears!!
I was able to carry enough speed through Lesmo and Parabolica ( if I shut my eyes and held on!!) to stay in the draft. Then my extra long 6th gear would pull me right up to his gearbox on the straights....a nice feeling.
I was able to stick with him for quite a few laps and although I could never hope to pass him and escape I might just be able to snatch a place on the final lap if I did it right. But one small mistake several laps from the end dropped me 40 mtrs behind, and Greg took his chance to escape. I tried everything to get back in the draft but slowly lap by lap he edged away until I was completely dropped.
A few late retirements promoted me to 5th place, which was far better than I had imagined at Monza. Glad I did not quit and thanks for the tow Greg ;
Looking at the results the sprint for the flag looked epic after such a fast race....nice racing guys!!