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It was a shame that there were a few "technical" difficultes with the track etc.
I was a little late getting home from work and so missed half of Qualifying, not that I expected any great laptimes. Fortunately my first flying lap was totally free of traffic and I got a 49 sec lap which put me 3rd on the grid behind Fredrik and Anders who were about 2 secs faster!!! ..oh dear , not looking good for the race
I was grateful for the 3rd spot and a front row position at the star,t as the 3 abreast line up was very tight. F & A got the Ferraris off the grid quicker than my BRM tank and I hope my slightly squirmy start did not affect anyone behind.
Anders looked very fast as he pulled a slight lead over Fredrik whilst I just managed to hold on to Fredriks exhaust pipes.
Anders, had a spin after about 2 laps and Fredriks and I slipped through to take the first 2 places.
I was pushing the BRM to speeds it had not seen before in a desperate effort to keep up with Fredrik and eventually the inevitable happened as we came across the first of the backmarkers, and I went wide allowing Fredrik to escape and Anders to close right up behind.
From then on the race was all about keeping Anders and his damned fast Ferrari behind and defending almost every corner ( fairly I hope ).
Although Anders was faster, I seemed to be able to brake late enough to prevent him getting an inside run anywhere and could just about hold him off for lap after lap.
The very short lap length meant that we were constantly passing lapped cars . BIG thanks to all those drivers who kept a steady line and allowed us a clean pass. It must have ruined all your races to have to compromise your pace to allow us past so often, and I am sure, causing you to have "incidents" because of it!!
At last I got some rest when with about 10 laps to go Anders made a mistake and I got well clear. Fredrik was well clear by then and out of reach ( as if I had ANY chance of catching him ). So, I paced myself towards the end of the race and a comfy second spot...
The gods of GPL had other ideas!! and with just about 2 laps to go I could see that Anders was closing but not quickly enough to catch me again so i weased back just to protect that BRM engine which had taken a severe thrashing. Then it happened,..... SCREEN FREEZE! RATS !!!!
Fortunately it appears that my early pace allowed me to have completed enough laps to actually be classified in 3rd place
, thus dropping only a single position despite the screen freeze, which was an unforeseen bonus.