Grats to Dean on the championship, and commiserations to Mark on missing out on 2nd place in the standings........that was an expensive glass of water!
Thanks to everyone who took part in this championship, which was a first using 2 different mods (GT's and Can Ams) through the season, but I hope the challenge was fun.
I think the recent heat wave ( 22C??) in the UK affected my brain, because I was convinced that we were racing F2 on Friday at Solitude. I knew that I had a half decent set up for that circuit.......so no need to do any preparation for the race. 30 mins pre race qually would be enough for any fine tweaking.
So when I fired up Igor at 21:00 I was startled to see Can Ams @ Zolder..... Oh yes!!! F2's are Sunday...doh!!!
So, no setup and not a single lap of Zolder in a Can Am ever...lol. I spent the whole 25 minutes that I had on race fuel trying to stop the car trying to kill me on each corner. I even applied a few adjustments as quali ended and we formed up on the grid!!
Fortunately for me ( although a little disappointing for the race) there was a small grid which meant I was not 12 cars back,plus one or two missed the start, so I was in 4th place on lap 1 and soon inherited 3rd.
I was still learning how to control the car and extract some pace as I followed Axel's Mclaren, which seemed a bit of a beast to control from where I was. Slowly I was able to pick up the pace and apply a little pressure on Axel until he made a mistake and I was able to sneak through into 2nd ...wow!!.
Sergio was way ahead by this time, but I had bigger problems. My lack of preparation meant that I had not checked the fuel consumption and at half distance it looked unlikely that I would make it to the flag unless I started some serious short shifting and fuel conservation. But then I found a large orange Mclaren right in front of me with Sergio's name on it and the chance of 1st place beckoned.
What a dilemma!! If I pushed hard to try and take the lead I certainly did not have enough fuel, but the racer in me decided that I had to push at least for a few laps!! Sergio seemed to be trying very hard to get away, but I was able to close up easily in the heavy braking zones.
Then he slithered wide and I was through and immediately had a decent lead as he recovered.
But now it was obvious that I would have to take a SnG to re-fuel and lose the lead...until Sergio suddenly dropped way back.
Immediately I stayed in a gear higher for each corner and short shifted everywhere trying to squeeze out the fuel whilst watching the gap to Sergio reduce lap by lap. But if I could continue to save fuel I should just make it to the end of the race...but only just!!!
Then I screwed up T1 with 3 laps to go, probably because I tried to stay in a gear too high,, and I got caught in the fencing.....Shift-R! which also meant an SnG with Sergio much closer now
I now had fuel to thrash the engine but cold tyres as I emerged from the pits with Sergio pounding down the S/F straight......I had to get to T1 first from my standing start and I did but only just!!
The last lap was 105% attack on cold tyres and an engine with far more power than they could handle, but I was just quick enough to stay ahead of Sergio and take my most unexpected win of this season.