That was a much better performance from me. Picked up Picnic's shared setup and found it undrivably oversteery, so with some practice time available this time
I set about tweaking the worst of it away with toe and caster changes. Went out in qually on race fuel and immediately got a PB so I stopped after that first lap to focus on the race start, knowing I would be at best 3rd on the grid.
I was lucky that my only timed lap that counted in Q was good enough for pole. Dave got a rocket start from 3rd to lead the first two laps but he was very slow in T1 and once I got alongside coming out of there, he let me go.
Tee hee, I thought that might happen. The secret is to select first and have no revs on, then just stamp on the loud pedal when the lights turn green and let the automatic clutch carry you off the line (even with autoclutch on
).
Was determined to lead at least the first lap after that and duly did so, but knew I was having to be ultra conservative in T1 and Mike was soon in a position for me to do the sensible thing and allow him by. Picnic was also obviously faster and a few laps later he got a good tow coming out of the final corner and I let him make a soft pass into T1 and pull away.
Oily on the other hand was going to get no such courtesy
and I pushed fairly hard for much of the race, trying not to bite off more than I could chew in the really dangerous first and last corners and being somewhat concerned by the huge inconsistency in my pace, often 1-2 seconds a lap, and by my lack of concentration.
Eventually Oily cracked and had to reset and I cruised round for much of the remained of the race. Fuel was tight so I backed off even more, too much I think as I locked the rears braking for turn 3 on the penultimate lap and ended up wrestling the car over the grass trying to avoid the wall or a spin. With Oily taking a second reset and Mike not close enough to lap me I threw caution to the winds on the last lap and was rewarded with a decent time, slightly better that Picnic's FL but nowhere near Mike's.
I find this car so hard to get any feel for; I'm sure that on the right line I could take T1 flat, but even with a brief lift, if I'm so much as a few inches to either side of the right line I end up spinning or crashing.
In the end I was happy to finish on the lead lap and make it a Team Shark podium lock-out.