Thoroughly enjoyed this race. The track has gone straight to my favorites list. Love the elevation changes, the downhill zig zag and the fast curves
After some initial indecision about which car to use, I settled for the Datsun. Have done a 22.6 lap offline, but try as I might, I couldn't repeat it in qualifying. Thus had to settle for a somewhat disappointing 5th on the grid. Got an ok start and managed to pass De Martini. Clive shot ahead, but ended up on the outside of Bill's Beemer, so I could squeeze in front of him on the inside. Slipped into 3rd when Marc ventured onto the grass.
Chased hard after Bill for the first half of the race. Got close enough to pressure him a couple of times, but he quickly extended the gap in both cases. Eventually he edged away. Behind me, I had a 5-sec gap to Marc, but then I tossed it all away. Bungled up my downshift at the end of the long straight, and entered the curve in 4th, rather than 3rd. That was too fast and I ended up on the grass. Gap was now 2 secs, but further errors reduced it to nothing! When I went wide again at T1 the following lap, Marc was past.
After some laps, it seemed he would slip away. However, I hunkered down, focused and got some fast laps in (well, fast for me..
). With that, I started to reel in Marc again. Was shaping up to be quite a fight, but then he spun in the zig zag section, making it easy for me. It was late in the race, so if I could keep myself from screwing up too badly, 3rd would be in the bag. Some 6 secs up ahead was Bill, and I got some tantalizing glimpses of his orange Beemer in various spots on the track. Started to get greedy - could I possibly get him too ? Nope; some less than stellar laps brought me no closer
- and I then ran out of race to chase him in.
Very chuffed with 3rd though, considering the company. Grats to Jose and Bill on most convincing drives. Great to see such a large grid, but sorry that so relatively many had problems.
I had my by now seemingly regular problem, of disappearing tyre mark textures. All looks normal in off- and on-line practice, but come qualify and race, all bar the start- and end blotches disappear, except for maybe the odd one in between. Anyone else have this ? (I can illustrate it with a couple of screenshots, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, as the problem carries over to the replays too).
Cheers,
Erling