Watkins has frequently been kind to me, but that was a better result by far than I dared hope for. I knew I was the slowest DP, but I could see Darren was having trouble consistently hooking up fast laps and I duly pinched 3rd on the grid and the much tastier inside line into The 90.
After a few laps Darren was all over me out of the Esses every lap, but I just kept it neat and tidy, managed to play the traffic well, and stayed ahead, watching the battle between David and Jamie (and of course hoping they'd take each other out
). They both had self-induced spins which dropped them back which left me in the lead.
Was planning to pit a few laps ahead of schedule if Darren was still right up my exhausts, just to cover any sneaky pit lane shenanigans, but as it happened something that I didn't spot in my mirrors happened and he dropped around 10 seconds, so I stayed out until exactly half distance to minimise the fuel load, Darren coming in behind me, and then somehow losing not only a couple of seconds in the pits, but a few more behind two Mustangs in the Esses.
I knew he'd then push like crazy to catch me, and he duly did - but luckily for me, Jamie had other ideas and they started squabbling after they got to about 7 seconds behind me. I kept pushing as hard as I dared, especially when Jamie got into second, after which Darren started dropping back (short of fuel?) and Jamie was catching me quite quickly, but I could see time was running out and I got to the chequered flag with the gap down to under 5 seconds.
That leaves the DP championship in a fascinating state - with Jove and I both due to drop 83 points as our worst score, and Darren behind by about the same amount with a no-show as his drop, any one of us could take the title at Silverstone.
Well done to Simon on the win and thanks to the DP's who were great
Likewise - in some critical phases I was having to be much more aggressive in the traffic than I'm really comfortable with, and all the Mustangs were without exception super predictable and showed great awareness.
Well done to Simon on wrapping up the drivers title with a round to go, and Team Shark for taking the GT3 team title too.