Well, I spent about 90 minutes before the race trying to get the Seat set up properly and was growing to hate it. I was still setting it up in qualifying and it was just starting to feel more comfortable, but 14th and last on the grid wasn't really what I had envisaged!
Never mind, a back row start is usually both safe and produces an interesting fight up through the less consistent cars, and a dry race was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Merlin was a tad tardy off the limiter and I was really very surprised to find myself dragging up alongside him into turn 1, but it was too early to be engaged in any outside line shenanigans so I backed off and let him go safely through, only to watch his car freeze on the way into turn 2 and then reappear in the kitty litter. Oh dear.
A couple of offs left me 11th by turn 2 of lap 2, and Jan in the other Seat had a big slide on the way out, but I couldn't quite squeeze through into 3.
The car felt a lot better in race trim and when Jan made a mistake coming out of turn 11 I was able to power past up the hill and into 10th.
The tyres were properly warmed by now and I got a great run out of turn 13 to pass Kit Kat into turn 1, and then Don who had gone off coming out of 3, giving me 8th.
I could see Adam and Edam ahead battling for 6th but couldn't make any impression on them, so I settled into a nice rhythm and held the gap over Don behind steady at around 5 seconds.
With just a few minutes on the clock I passed SpaceFox who had gone off into turn 1. I knew he would be faster but he was obviously not happy with his car, and his tyres were probably in worse shape too, so I thought that maybe, just maybe I could hold him off for an unexpectedly good 7th place, which then became 6th as someone (Zacari, I think) retired.
Up ahead we were catching Merlin to lap him, so it was headlights on and a couple of friendly flashes to say "I'm coming past, I'm in a hurry and I'm taking no prisoners!".
He did a really great job pulling over between turns 10 and 11 and letting us through
; I didn't do such a great job as I stupidly ran wide out of 11 and let SpaceFox past again.
I followed him for the last couple of laps just about matching his pace and hoping for a mistake that never came. Nice job keeping a cool head there.
I still don't like the Seat that much and I can well understand why Ruskus was dying of boredom on his own in the lead but when you have a good day at Brno it's a complete blast.
Oh, and I just couldn't make the Seat do doughnuts! It's an outrage!
Plus GTR2 crashes every time I get to the end of my client replay. What's that all about then?
