Grats to Al and the podium.
I guess I really threw away the chance of getting some points here.
I had done a few laps of practice here and decided that this circuit had not been designed with Wazamobiles in mind. I was cooking my left side tyres within about 5 laps and only getting into the 1:38's on race fuel. Usually I can persuade the white whale to get within about 2-3 secs of the WR ( 1:33) banzai lap, but at Anderstorp I thought that I was going to be way off the pace.
Qually was therefore quite a relief
when I discovered that even Al in his Lotus was only getting 1:37's and there were a lot of people playing token saving games with the BRM, which elevated my start position to 2nd!!!
I wondered if I could outdrag Al down to T1 and control the race from the front...ha! some chance with the whale fully fuelled and against a Lotus
. so I tucked in behind and waited for the tyres to warm up. I had modified the setup during practice in an attempt to control the tyre temps and I wanted to see if it was working.
Apologies to Al and everyone else for the chaos at the hairpin on lap 1. Al braked a little harder than I had anticipated and was slower through the apex. As a result I think I gave him the merest of "love taps" on his rear which, instead of firing him into orbit as is usual with GPL, caused him to just spin through 90 degrees and form a perfect road block. I had nowhere to go with a wall of Lotus across my bows and had to stop whilst Al recovered..I suspect that there was some interruption to normal service behind me
I trailed the Lotus for a few laps as Al dragged us away from the chasing pack. When the gap reached around 6 secs I decided that Al was having it too easy and closed up behind him to try and exert some pressure as it seemed that my setup change was keeping the tyre temps down.
I found that I could get onto his tail easily and could take the apexes of the corners a little quicker, but I just could not match the acceleration of his Lotus!!?? For several laps I hounded him hoping for a mistake, there were a few wobbles but nothing that I could exploit.
Then I got just a little too close under braking for the T3 and rather than rear end Al, I put a wheel on the grass... the rest is history, as the long slide across the grass ended with a 3 wheeled waza resting against the armco.
Maybe I should have been more patient???
Grats to all the finishers.