Very satisfying to see an almost full grid for this GT first round. Let's hope that each team pushes for every point they can at every race to keep this championship really close.
First of all... Thank you Fulvio for giving me a big smile at the start
, as we eased off the grid a Porsche came flying past on the outside of T1 and you could almost hear the "Doh!" as he remembered that it was a ROLLING START!!! When we passed Fulvio's car parked inside T2 I'm sure he was putting on some very dark sunglasses and keeping well down in the seat of his car lol
Second, hard luck for Juha to spin out and then disco, when he was one of the favourites to win this race with some very impressive qually laps.
After Juha vanished from the lead Al took his opportunity and put in some very quick early laps, followed by Samb and a little farther back I was trying to protect my rear tyres and keep them in sight. The 3 Lolas slowly pulled a gap on Alex Barresi in his Mk2 Ford ( great drive BTW Alex in a car that must have been a handful around this track).
After about 5 laps I noticed that Samb had upped his pace, just slightly, and was closing in on Al and dropping me behind. Waza training teaches you that in order to take advantage of any situation you have to be in the right place at the right time! So, if there was going to be some "action" I needed to be there when it happened. A few banzai laps and the gap started to close as Samb's pressure on Al caused some defensive driving and they both lost a little pace.
I was about 50mtrs behind when Al and Samb made contact and Al unfortunately was spun around. I was fortunate to be able to grab both door handles and pull hard, thereby making my Lola 20cms narrower so that it would fit through the gap without any contact or losing any speed.
That put me into 2nd spot
with Samb not too far ahead, but just out of slipstream range it seemed. The next 10 laps were a case of pushing as hard as I felt I could without making a stupid mistake. I needed to get closer to Samb and pick up the slipstream before I could hope to make a pass...he was obviously pushing hard as well, as the occasional minor mistakes showed. Slowly the gap came down as my fuel level dropped and I found that I could attack T1 and T8 with full power until I was sat on Samb's tail.
Like Samb said, this is a very difficult track to find a passing spot and although I felt I was marginally quicker than Samb, it was not enough to give me a clear passing chance anywhere. The best option appeared to be braking into T2 after giving everything through T1 to close up and make a move down the inside. But Samb was wise to this and kept the door well closed!!!
Backmarkers added some spice to our battle and I had to make some very "positive" moves in order to follow Samb
as he passed people in the braking zones.
Eventually Samb made an error as we came on to the main straight and I used my momentum and the slipstream to make the pass down the inside to T1 and then go defensive into T2 to hold the place. Now it was Samb's turn to find a way past and although I tried hard to put some distance between us, I found that I was overheating my rear tyres and losing drive out of some corners. I felt that I could hold him behind, if I had to, for the rest of the race. I will have to look at the replay later to see what happened when I spun
and apply a totally fair and impartial 10 place penalty
.
By the time I had extracated myself from the grass bank, Alex was past me and I was down to 3rd spot and the horizon was taking on a very red misty colour!! With great self control I waited for a few laps for my tyres to cool and then set about regaining 2nd place. Once I got the tow from Alex it was quite easy to out brake the Mk2 into T2 and then ease away for a comfortable finish on the podium.
Grats to Samb for the win ( subject to impartial moderation of course!) and for a great ( almost) race long battle.
