It's Kate's birthday for this one - if I'm not there you'll know why
Well, I made it. But after 'having' to help finish off half a bottle of wine before the race I made a massively stupid mistake - and while transferring some settings from the qually setup to the race one I changed everything apart from tire compound.
Exiting T3 I was amazed how easily I was gaining on the car in front, and after a few more corners realisation that something is probably wrong dawned.
This resulted in a few mistakes while I was distracted checking compounds, followed by a couple more while hastily editing a pitstop routine to change to mediums once the Softs were dead - not an easy task here when operating by touch due to the Rift!
I stayed out and pushed hard to at least get some advantage from the softs, at first I was easily pulling away. Then after about 7 minutes I was about the same speed as the cars around me.
By 10 I was well into the red and having to drive very consciously of the rear left.
Cue my pitstop.....
I came out just as Syd and Larry came blasting side by side up the S/F straight - had it been a single car I'd have probably stayed inside the line and then seen if I could maintain position through the chicane. For 2 cars I made sure to leave room for whoever it was on the right as I didn't want to be caught up in any of their fight
A lap later once my tires were getting up to pressure and I was able to start moving forward. Either the 10 minute rubber advantage was helping me or I torpedoed myself out of a podium capable setup today, I spent the entire remainder of the race looking at green numbers to the entirety of the field on Ptracker.
Not by much, but enough to really annoy me during the race (the red mist may have helped).
Fairly pleased with 9th I guess when all is considered, well done to the podium and everyone who actually ran the correct setup!