What a race that was!! I'm still running it through in my mind and wondering how I managed to take the win.
I found myself with an hour to kill over the weekend, a chance to re-aquaint myself with the 49b and Zandvoort. I took a look at the GPL rank site to see what the WR & fastest laps were just to gauge where my pace was, only to discover that I was about 2 secs off WR pace.
Knowing the quality of drivers in UKGPL, I was sure that pole would be much closer to ( if not better than) 1:18.
Experience has taught me that Zandvoort is like Monaco in that track position is everything. There is really only one overtaking place and that is into Tarzan, so pole position is extremely desireable
.
I had to abandon my usual tactic of running quali on race fuel, because the pace was so hot and I was going to be several rows back.
So, I dumped fuel and set about building a gap to run a banzai lap in clear air. That put me on pole with about 10 mins to go and Tim was winding up his challenge in another 49b.
As the seconds counted down he was getting closer and closer to my time, but he ran out of time and laps and I held onto pole by about a tenth of a second. In my infinite wisdom, or maybe my foolish optimism, I had 2 setups available for the race.
One setup was prepared for the possibility of getting pole position and defending the lead on every lap into Tarzan.
The other was built around being able to attack another car down the straight and making a pass into Tarzan. This second setup was a low downforce/ max speed
::)option that might give me the chance to make a pass.
But it was the "defensive" option that I needed and that was set so that I could get off the final corner super quickly and hold a tight line around Tarzan. For the first few laps I was able to pull out a gap on cold tyres, but then Tim hooked it up and slowly closed the gap. I was not too worried at that point because catching me was one thing, passing me would be something else!!
For lap after lap Tim sat on my tail, but I was able to squeeze a few metres extra space off the last corner and a safe entry into Tarzan. I knew that provided I did not make a mistake through the back of the circuit Tim would not be getting past, but there were several "minor moments" where I dropped a wheel off the grey stuff and Tim was sniffing for a gap.
Tim's only chance was to risk it all on braking into Tarzan, and I made sure that he would have to go the long way around by keeping to the right on the straight
It did compromise my entry into Tarzan but probably gave Tim more issues avoiding the sand on the outside. Even so, he got mighty close to pulling it off on a couple of occasions when he managed to get on my tail off the last corner and use the slipstream to throw his car down the outside.
We avoided contact by giving each other room until on one occasion when we took Tarzan side by side and something happened on the exit that sent us both onto the grass. I was fortunate in finding myself momentarily behind Tim but facing the right way whilst he was nose into the fence.....so I scampered away and ran for the finish.
I have to thank those cars that got lapped for moving over as soon as they were able, even so ( and this is no criticism of you guys ) I caught some cars just where they were way slower than I was and gradually the gap back to Tim dwindled and he was soon licking my gearbox again!!!
The battle into Tarzan resumed lap after lap, sometimes I squeezed a gap and was safe, at other times Tim was looking for a chance. The pace and the pressure were intense for every lap until suddenly Tim was not there in my mirrors
Still not sure what happened to Tim but I was able to cruise to the finish...TBH I dare not cruise!!! and I was watching the gap back to Tim on prib VERY carefully and matvhing my speed to his. I did not want him back on my tail before the finish.
Huge thanks to Tim for driving at close quarters with care and precision for all of those laps. It would have been so easy to make a small mistake and take us both off. Instead we had an epic battle for 95% of that race.