Epic race for me (I finally won one!)
I wish Jeffrey had put Fuji earlier in the season - I learnt more about suspension setups in that round than in the rest of the season combined!
While Felix didn't compete for me to benchmark against my pace, my time Vs Manteos suggested something of a step change for me, dead chuffed with taking both the records here
The race was something of a combined bout of terribly good luck though - first I only just got off the line without bogging down as I dropped the clutch slightly too fast. This though resulted in cracking launch and had me well clear in time for T1.
I very slowly pulled away from Manteos over the next ten minutes before misjudging my position entering T1, I clouted the concrete on the inside hard enough to fire myself back out over the kurbs on the corner exit and only just held the car straight while trying to rejoin. This was enough for Manteos to pass me and pull away a bit while my tires cleared.
3 or 4 minutes and several attempts later and I finally got my line out of Le Mans nailed, possibly as Manteos fudged his own exit and managed to get alongside on the straight.
I slightly over-shot on the final turn but managed to hold a small drift and power my way around the outside, I then took and held the left of the circuit into T1 which re-consolidated 1st again.
Maybe 10 minutes after this we caught the first of the back markers after I'd eeked out a decent lead again - 2 of them had tangled and were in the middle of re-joining as I flew around Turn 15 having not seen them earlier.
I took a very compromised line down the far right of the track to avoid trouble and then failed to actually make it through Le Mans and ended up in the dirt.
Manteos then took terrible advantage of my conflict with the back markers and jumped me into the final turn with his extra speed (You should join us in GPL with that sort of take no prisoners attitude
), forcing me to start chasing again
Somewhere around the 5 - 10 mins to go point I re-passed down the back straight, I think it was a lap or 2 later that Manteos had his spin (I only saw that in the replay - silly real mirrors in the Rift meant you simply vanished) and I danced off into the distance.
By that point my car was such a joy to drive with the couple of remaining litres of fuel that I didn't slow down despite the lead.
I set my fastest race lap on the penultimate lap I think - almost a second down on my online practice record on fresh tires/fullish tanks.
Thanks for not making it easy Manteos - my Rift was starting to fog up towards the end, I'll need to buy a fan for the summer I think.
Thanks Jeffrey and Pete for the organising and to everyone else for racing, I loved this series and had some truly cracking battles.
I particularly enjoyed the races where fuel was uncertain and people had to come up with different setup strategies to over-come it.
According to the odometer app which I installed just before my first practice session at Mugello; I've done 8,684 miles ( 13,975 KM ) over the course of this championship in the Porsche, to say I enjoy driving it would be an understatement