Fabulous team effort from Team Shark. Well done guys. All 4 Team Shark boys in the top 6 I believe.
Congratulations Greg, very solid win and SBG for the 3rd place.
WARNING! - LONG REPORT TO FOLLOW...
Having hardly driven a GT car in while, was a bit nervous turning up with no practice or tweaked setup. Took me all of practice to remember how to drive a GT car at all let alone fast. Boy do you have to hang on to those things compared to the NGTs. My hands were so firmly gripping the wheel I had to prise them away at the end.
NGTs seem a doddle compared to these vicious GT beasties. Mind you 40 minutes seemed a doddle compared to the usual 80 minute races, was over in a flash. Normally when 35 minutes is on the clock you know you are nearing the end, it was odd knowing it had only just got going, felt like there wasn't long to get racing.
I was very pleased with qualifying 5th with an ok time 1:39.5 as I knew I wasn't as fast as many of the other guys in the field. Top 4 guys with Greg in 4th were all into the 1:38s, something I've only ever done on one occasion.
Race got going, people were quite spaced out on at the front as we started and SpaceFox seemed to jump the gun a little, anyhoo...Looked like I was going to have a tough time from the 2 guys behind me SBG and my team mate Aagramn as they had qualified only just behind me on time. But it never happened, I slowly pulled away from them and Greg slowly pulled away from me ahead. I was driving in my usual steady, consistent, tyre conserving GT driving style, smooth but reasonably quick. Looked like I was going to have a bit of a dull race in 5th from start to finish.
Well Leuven decided that he didn't think I should be lonely
so he went off somewhere and rejoined a bit behind Aagramn and SBG (could only just see you on look back at that point). The next 5 - 8 laps Leuven passed them and caught me up. With only 15 minutes to go I decided he wasn't going to get by that easily and up'd my pace a little. Leuven checked me out for a couple of laps and then took me into T1. Good move. I knew Lueven was a little faster at that point, but I pushed even harder than before and managed to get right back to Leuven. I couldn't keep that pace up though and after a few laps he gradually started to pull away. I also didn't want to wear the tyres too much, tyre conservancy is very important in GTs for 40 minutes to get mediums to last nicely and not feel rubbish at the end of it.
In the meantime RichA had an accident in T1 and was out and a sometime in the last quarter of the race SpaceFox the pole sitter and for the most part race leader did the same. This left me in a unexpected 3rd. Even better was to come for me me as Leuven lost it under power in front of me and ripped off his front splitter (bad luck).
Couldn't believe it 2nd place and Greg now in the lead seemed to be coming back to me. I didn't really know what to do next. With only a few minutes left, push hard and try to get up to Greg or settle for an unexpected and very welcome 2nd? I guessed Greg was slowing a little to make sure of the win, so thought he probably had some more pace if I did get up to him. Thought better of it and settled for 2nd.
Fantastic result for me, really pleased.
Better yet was coming back to the pits and finding the Team Shark boys doing a fantastic job with 4th, 5th and 6th. Nice one guys.