Not the greatest race for me, but I guess I didn't deserve much more. It was a manic day! After driving for over an hour, I only managed to get home and join the server just before qually. With no practise and my Brands Hatch setup as a starting point, I was looking at an uphill struggle.
In Qualifying the the other 3 DP drivers were just too fast. My Best time, which was still half a second off the pace, was the absolute maximum I could extract from the car. Normally my optimal lap time suggests there's a few more tenths to gain, but last night my optimal was my fastest lap.
I started the race in 4th with the aim of hanging on to the back of Dave's bumper. For the first 16 laps I managed exactly that. However, when I started to lose contact due to lapped traffic I started to push too hard. This led to me taking too much kerb at the chicane, which sent me into a spin... Luckily I stopped within inches of the barriers, so no damage was done other than the 10 seconds lost.
With both David and Jamie having 'incidents' of their own I quickly found myself in 2nd. When I saw Dave pit I decided to join him. As usual the well oiled (or is it brine?) team shark pitting crew gained Dave another 2 seconds, and then to make matters worse, I left the pits to find Pops and Rob going two wide all the way down the straight, though the chicane and then around the Carousel. There just wasn't enough room to pass them safely. Not wanting to disturb their race I hung back, costing me 5 seconds, which put me back into the clutches of Jamie.
The race was on!!! With Dave 19 seconds down the road and Jamie only 3 seconds behind, I decided to go for it!!! I wanted to see how badly damaged Jamie's car was. Unfortunately the damage to his car wasn't that bad and every time I put in a low 1:43 lap, Jamie responded. Lap after lap the gap between Jamie and myself remained at about 4 seconds. However, the gap between Dave and myself was falling rapidly.
With 12 laps to go Dave was only 7 seconds ahead. However, my efforts quickly turned to defence with Jamie right behind me. This was short lived, and Jamie took full advantage of me being held up by a Stang at the last corner to take 2nd.
I pushed hard to try to regain the position, but with 2 to go I clipped the wall at the last turn; leaving me to limp home in 3rd..
Well done Dave. Faultless drive...
Silverstone is going to be interesting. Looking at the points I see there are 3 of us still in with a chance of winning the title. I guess it's winner takes all..