I should have known that Samb would be "on the pace" now that he is back racing with us.
maybe I hoped he would take a little longer to warm up??!!
I knew that I could hustle any of the F2's around Monaco at a respectable pace and would normally have taken my favourite Lola BMW. But in offline practice I found that BMW powerplant just does not have the low down torque for pulling out of the slow corners and no matter how low I made 1st gear I was losing time out of every hairpin against the FVA powered cars.
I picked the Brab at random and tweaked the ratios and diff just before the race and joined with about 30 mins of qually left and quite a full server. Space for a flying lap was going to be difficult to find around here!!
I went out on race fuel to get a few settling in laps and quickly found the space to set a quick lap...maybe pole?? That lasted a few mins until Samb blitzed around and relegated me to 2nd. I would normally be quite happy with 2nd spot in any race, but at Monaco getting past a driver as quick and capable as Samb is almost impossible, so I went into "qualimode" and dumped a load of fuel to try and find .03 secs and regain prime position.
Ironically the harder I tried on empty tanks the slower I got
and I had resigned myself to 2nd spot and having to hope for an opening to pass Samb in the race. So with 3 mins left I reverted to race fuel and went out again just to remind myself how it went on cold tyres and heavy fuel. I was as surprised as anyone to pip Samb on my last lap as my sector 1 time was 0.4 down and I had given up all hope of pole.
From the start I pushed as hard as I could to try and build a safety net and found I was able to ease away into free air.
I was happy cruise the middle part of the race and monitor the gap back to Samb. But then I began to lap a few cars and although I have no criticism of anyone who had to allow me pass, each episode lost me a few tenths... and Samb was speeding up!!!
With about 8 laps to go I could see Samb exiting corners behind where before there was just empty track. Strangely my Brab just would not go as fast on empty tanks as it would on full race fuel and it was going to be close!! Luckily Monaco favours the car in front as passing is VERY difficult and I was able to hold 1st place as we crossed the line. I'm not absolutely sure if I could have held Samb off forever (but it would have been interesting trying
) and I was glad that the flag dropped when it did.
A great race and a close finish. Grats to all those who survived and commiserations to those who got involved in a crash fest at Saint Devote.. all too frequent at Monaco I'm afraid which is why getting to the front of the grid is a distinct advantage