Apologies for the tardy reply on this, chaps...
Grats to Greg on a fine victory! You had us comprehensively covered.
Great job by Mark to nail down P2!
Bad luck for Axel on a couple of offs.
I'm reasonably satisfied with a P3 finish but considered that I'd be in the running for the win prior to the race.
Coming up to finish the 1st lap, I saw Greg peel off into the pits and thought, 'Hey, wait a minute! This might be a great chance for me
to scupper his chances and secure my victory.' I dashed in behind him, pulled alongside after he stopped then tried to block him by pulling
partially in front of his Lotus. Job done! But no... GT dropped the clutch at revs and pushed me aside! SWINE! I raised my fist in anger
and after a period of time fishing for 1st gear, pulled away. Sigh... At this point, I began to think that my chances for the win were significantly
hampered.
Finally getting back up to speed, I had the leaders...Mark, Axel and Andreas...catch me up and I decided to hang onto their slipstream and click
off the laps. Axel gave me quite a fright with a looping spin at one point and I held my breath as I skipped by. Made it!
At one point, Mark caught me rather easily and I tucked onto him for many laps til he dove into the pits for service.
After everyone had done their re-fuel and stop-n-go stops, I was trailing Mark by some 8-9s. I couldn't close and that's how it ended up.
I really enjoy running IMS as it's such a challenge.
(Ummm... Does anyone seriously believe that description above re the Lap01 business with Greg? LOL! I just wanted to seize upon his mention of
being blocked and run with it a bit. Just for fun, you understand. Anyway.... Here's what really happend.)
From the get-go, it was my intention to run with 60 laps worth of fuel and stop at the end of Lap01 for a re-fuel. In doing so, my stop duration
would be at an absolute minimum. OK, so my pace would be off those intending a half-distance refuel but not by much. Further, I decided to do my
compulsary stop-n-go on the very next pass, Lap02. In pre-race trials, I determined that the time consumed by these two stops would bring me out just
in front of the leaders coming up to put me a lap down but where I would then tack onto them and use their slipstream to keep up. This would nulify
my speed disadvantage of carrying upwards of 20usg more then they at that period.
As I came off T4 at the end of Lap01, I caught sight of a car peeling off into the pits. This was Greg. Was he using the strat as I? I followed
him in and to my utter horror, he pulled up directly in front of...or, at least, as near as dammit...to my pit stall board. WTF!?!? In a near-panic,
I pulled alongside and tried to get to my board. I think I was slightly out of position and was certainly not aligned with it. I raised my arm
hoping that the patch would kick in and waited. And waited and waited. No indication that I was getting my refuel. MERDE! Then GT sped off bumping
me out of the way. For sure, I was now not going to get my refuel. Sigh... I took off down pit lane and at least remained calm enough to realize
that I could now use my aborted refuel as my compulsary stop-n-go and that I'd go for the refuel at the end of Lap02 instead. Strat reversed, in affect.
Had I realized what was going on with Greg, I would have carried on a little further down pit lane and got my stop-n-go over and done with on Lap01 and
not lost a buch of time. 20-20 hindsight.
I lost a good 7-9s overall from my intended stop durations and that difference cost me the chance of a shot at Mark. C'est la vie...