Grats to David who has become the silent assassin
He has won a couple of races by being very consistent and quick, maybe a little like Alain Prost, the Professeur??
Well done David to take the Cooper to a win on a track that should have favoured the winged cars
I enjoyed the race in the wingless Lotus 49, which was awesomely quick on the straights, but a real handful in any corner. After a great start and a slipstream on the first lap I was up to 3rd and tucked in behind Axel and Tim. I had someone in a Matra (?) chasing me hard and as a result I overcooked the Ostkurve on lap 3 and hit the barriers quite firmly. This did nothing to improve the handling, but it did not limit the top speed and I was able to slowly creep back up through the field. Something had been re-arranged when I hit the barriers and braking became a little bit of lottery, and that caught me out a couple of times when I ran wide entering the stadium.
A few of the leaders exploded their engines and I was glad that I had over geared my Lotus 49 to protect my whizzy bits, upshifting at 9000rpm as an extra safeguard. Even so, I was still seeing almost 200mph with a little slipstream, approaching the Ostkurve, but getting the darned car to slow down and negotiate the corner was an adventure on every lap.
I apologise to Ronnie for appearing to block him on the last lap, I was actually trying to command the inside line for the entry into the stadium. But I knew that Ronnie was close and I did not want to risk contact. Sorry if it looked like I was hogging the middle line.
The contact at the Stadium entry was probably as much me braking early to get the car turned in as it was Ronnie not seeing his brake marker, so a racing incident for me?. I was relieved that I still had 3 wheels and a car was the right way up, so I scraped my way to the line and only just held onto 4th place as Bastian was gaining far too quickly