Monza - the venue of last seasons' nightmare went fairly better this year.
This season brought a new concept to it - some actual practice.
Anyway, first things first.
Being a reserve I was sitting in the lobby waiting for practice 1 to end (26/28). Then, suddenly, 28/28 while lobby still showed Practice 1 (teamspeak2, a?
). Arghhh. Then, during practice 2, it showed 27/28 players, tried to join for like... 3 minutes but to no avail, didn't work (?). Finally got in while having a bad feeling I took a spot from FT driver. Did I?
Anyway, was running 1-3 wing on full load of fuel during practice sessions, times were fairly good (high 44s/low 45s) but with a HUGE fuel consumption, 4.15L per lap which basically meant 100L + 90L stints. A nightmare. Anyway, didn't do well in quali, way of PB, but still, wasn't that bad, was pretty sure I'd have a good race pace (judging by free practice session times from people in my grid-neighbourhood). Race started fine, although I have no idea why I did not attack Mo in T1 though, room was there I simply didn't take it, that Saleen is very poor on the brakes.
Settled in, waiting for tyres to heat up (med-med), then went off track in Parabolica due to Reign Man (I think) messing it up (will he bounce back into me or won't he?
) Overreacted, went to the left to avoid him and ran out of tarmac. Off to the gravel trap and into the barrier. Ignoring a slight nudge in armco I did my best to get out (didn't want to get back on track on ideal line through Parabolica so I eventually drove off at exit from old, concrete inclined Parabolica, ha!) but lost some 17-18 seconds, argh.
Drove behind Backo for few laps while we both tried to hunt down Mo. Turned out Backo was 1 lap down, lol, with a slightly slower pace than I. Pushed as hell only to (eventually) realise although running in P11 there was a car behind me doing amazing times (was in 44s-45s at the time, so I went.... Que? How can that be, there were no GT1 cars messing it up this early, I'd see them off track...
). Of course it was FreQ hunting me down like a banshee out of hell (with a car sound to match!). He caught up fast so I went "OK, I'm gonna be as wide as possible for a lap or so just to prove a point, then he'd better pass, no way I can hold him back for much longer than that". But he jinxed me, giggle, could not get it right through, you've guessed it, Parabolica with him on my gearbox (Parabolica being one of the strongest points of my setup. Ouch.). So he passed on main straight only to lose his position at Variante Ascari (worth a look 1580+ on the replay, god knows how a morgan driver felt while he was being passed by a Z350 on the right and lambo on the left down the back straight. Pure gold for you video buffs out there
), same process repeat itself soon after. And then again after the pits. Nice racing FreQ, thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's interesting how very different setup we drove, completely different wing AND gear ratios, very cool.
Then, as you all know, the sunday carnage at Parabolica happened.(it looked something like this
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=18303185 ). Fortunatelly I was not stubborn enough to go in at full pace when I saw clouds of smoke approaching the corner. Round the corner we go and dear lord, what is this, bowling alley?
But I missed them all, pheeew.
Gained, erm, 4 positions (I think), running 7th.
Pitted... not very late tbh, ran out of fuel fast, lambo's thirsty (I suspect it had lots to do with my gear ratios, high rpm in 5th gear @ Curva Grande for.... forever!!!). Actually gained some time on Reign Man (I'd say some 10 seconds) although pit time was 62 seconds. Anyway, went in 7th, came out 7th. Chase was on again. But guess what, Backo, still a lap down, right in front of me. Again. OK, at least he'll plough through backmarkers for me, cool. But it soon became apparent to both of us I'm slightly faster and he let me by. Thx mate.
Nudged Dan Minton at 1st chicane (he came out of pits on cold tyres, I passed someone right behind him, Dan "stalled" on the exit and I spun him around oh so slightly. Corrected the situation in a split second decision and nudged him again to point him into right direction because I knew there's a train of cars right behind us. Pheeew, disaster avoided
)
Had few semi-spins in second chicane (three, I think) not getting a single warning though (I suspect it was due to NOT being on throttle when returning to track). Lucky lucky.
Then the FreQ nightmare started to repeat itself, as mentioned earlier. He got by, of course. Was chasing Reign Man again only to realise there MUST be another alien behind me cause he was eating that time difference like crazy. But I did know there's not much more to go so I went "OK, let him blast around the track, I'm slowing down and he still won't catch me, only thing I HAVE to avoid is a mistake".
Which I didn't, of course, had 3-4 costly mistakes (must avoid rhythm changes next time) and had something like 4 seconds on him at the finish line. Him being CeeJay, of course.
All in all a fun race, endurance rules supreme.