I just managed to get the pole away from Jethro on my final run, although it wasn't an ideal lap. My start was good, but his Lotus had more grunt down towards T1 and he lined up on the left in the braking zone. I tried to keep the utmost inside line and managed to do so, but Jethro disappeared and I thought we had made contact there, but couldn't be sure.
After that I had a very fast Kruger on my tail and although I was trying to preserve the engine my speed wasn't much compromised, so he had a genuine pace in those early laps, but the power of Honda saved me on the straights.
Eventually Kruger disappeared and was replaced by Lorenzo who was even quicker, but again I had enough engine power to compensate for my slower pace through some corners where he'd catch up completely. As long as I didn't make major mistakes he would've had a hard time passing though.
That fight went on until we came up to lap Phil before the hairpin. Phil kept the outside line on the exit of the previous corner and so I compromised my speed a bit to be able to go toward the inside and pass him. On my PC it looked completely clean, but apparently he felt a contact and was spun around, which then put Lorenzo in a position he couldn't avoid contact.
Now that I had clear road I focused on preserving the engine and going consistently, but then Jethro appeared in 2nd and he was going very fast. With a gap of around 6 seconds with 12 laps to go he just needed to close by about half a second a lap to jethronate me from 1st place as I had no illusions I could keep a Lotus behind on the straights.
So I put my head down and pushed as much as I dared but without stressing the engine and soon enough the gap stabilized and I could even increase it in some laps. There was no point relaxing too early though, so I kept up that pace until the end and scored my fastest lap near the end.
Apparently luck was more on my side in this race, but I think consistency won above all. Grats to all finishers!
ALL MY VICTORIES ARE BELONG TO HER!!!
-=Hristo=-