That was pretty hard work! For whatever reason I couldn't get the Morgan to perform in the way it did offline, even taking the 50kg of ballast into consideration, and Madd-RIP managed to take pole with a lap a 10th quicker. After the start Madd, myself and SBG were in a good little scrap for a few laps before it was broken up by the extremely erratic Corvette of Pedro, who seemed to be struggling to keep the car on the road at almost every corner. SBG dropped back after contact with Pedro, which left me chasing Madd, and he started to edge out a gap. I wasn't too concerned though, as I was full of fuel from the start and assumed he would need to add a decent amount at the pitstop. I pitted around half distance, as my soft/soft tyres were badly worn by then (I swapped to soft/soft because of the low temps), and changed to med/meds hoping for better tyre life. I came out behind a gaggle of GTCs who hadn't pitted, and spent the best part of 20 minutes struggling to find a way past. Pribero especially was driving a very wide 360, and the heavy Morgan had no real chance to pass without a mistake. All this meant that any advantage I might have gained over Madd in the pitstops was leaking away and sure enough, Madd came out of the pits just as I went past. The 4 seconds or so lead was never going to be enough, and he closed in quite quickly. In the end I was helpless to prevent a perfect pass into T1 from the Mosler with about 15 minutes to go - nice driving
. I spent the last part trying everything to put some pressure on, but I couldn't get the power down out of all the slow corners and had to settle for 13th and 2nd in GTC. I was completely knackered by the end, as the Morgan moved around a lot in all the corners and needed plenty of driver input to keep it pointed in the right direction. Great fun from the driving perspective, a touch frustrating for racing though.
Although I like the challenge of driving the track, I think I was right about the problems with racing on it. Without a faster car in a straight line it is almost impossible to pass. T2 might be doable because it follows T1, which is tricky and drivers make more mistakes there, but the kink before entry makes this much more risky. Several times in the race I was a lot faster than a GTC ahead, but getting past was pretty much a case of waiting for a mistake or a pitstop. Letting the GT1s past was 'challenging' to say the least, especially into the right kink at T4, but the GT1s were generally very considerate.
Congrats to Zacari and to Madd-RIP, who thoroughly deserved the win - great drive
Hard luck to SBG, who should have been in the thick of the battle with Madd and showed again that he's a force to be reckoned with this season - Go Kerbies!
PS No problem for the tap Zacari. At the time I was slightly miffed as I could only assume that you didn't know I was there and tried to take the line I was on, but watching the replay showed this wasn't the case, just as you explained.