wow, that was a roller coaster of a race for me with varying fortunes.
First off, Spa in changeable weather conditions over an enduro length is just fantastic
..thats exactly how Spa should be and makes it part of the challenge of racing on what is already a superb track regardless of weather. Loved the strategy it forces, great fun.
Joined late in qually as got my times all wrong for the sessions, thinking it was practise starting later
Only managed 1 flying lap and on 2nd lap around i was 2-3 seconds up on my time with 2 corners to go when the session ended
So qualied 16th, only for some numpty to rear end me on the warm up lap and punt me into the scenery
...cant believe this still happens
Dropped to 2nd or 3rd last as a result and now really fired up !
At the green flag i drove like a demon, slicing through the traffic and made it back upto 16th before the first couple of laps were over, taking no prisoners
A few laps later i was upto 11th and chasing 10th when the rain started to fall. This was where my first tactical error showed itself as i had picked my dry setup, tweaked for a possible wet race rather than a wet setup tweaked for a possible dry race.
and gradually the car got slower and slower as i corrected the oversteers and understeers through the corners. Did a few laps like that then dived in for some rain tyres.
Thats where tac error number two came in !....i put blinking soft wets on instead of hard wets in my haste
They actually worked great for a number of laps and i soon found myself fighting Jan for 5th place as people started falling off or pitting later for their wets.
Me and Jan had a bit of a dice in the tricky conditions until near flat out in blanchimont when my rear end broke away and i had a multiple high speed spin that gave Jan a whack as he flew through behind me. Sorry about that.
Alas the exact same thing happened a few laps later to DG as he followed me up through Eau Rouge
I was actually pitting at the end of that lap as my soft wet rears had decided to catch fire in temperature and turn to melted cheese, so apologies also to Dave as my spinning top car collected him..i was just a passenger half way up the hill
I pitted okay but with an RSR shaped like a 50p piece, took on too much fuel as brain couldnt quickly calc what i needed and hard wets and set off to chase the top 10 once more as i had slipped to 14th :'(
Re-caught a few guys in last half hour and finished a semi-decent 9th place, considering my dramas.
997 was great, really enjoyed driving it in the mixed weather conditions. A valuable learning curve. My problem is the ideal wet and ideal dry setups are so far apart it makes it hard to compromise for changing conditions, but guess that applies to most cars/drivers. It was superb in the dry but quite tricky in the wet, but thats also lack of wet weather experience for me. I only had 7 wing on the car,
so no wonder it was oversteery when it really tipped down.
Big congrats to TT on his maiden win in the F430, superb job, and congrats to the other podium guys and finishers.
