An epic finale to a very enjoyable season.
I went into this race with an outside chance of taking the title and knowing the the Z4 was going to be good car here. But with the quality of the field for this one I was always going to need a bit a luck to make up the points difference.
I was pleased with P3 in qualifying which gave me chance push H@l for title. However, in the early laps I was overtaken by TT and H@l putting my back into P5. A contact early in the race gave me some areo damage which seemed to slow my lap times from what I was expecting.
However, as the race went on I managed to keep close enough to H@l to give an opportunity when the pitsops came round. The Z4 was very kind on its tyres round here which meant only one set was going required. H@l pitted one lap early and as I made my way down the pit straight after a perfect stop I could see H@l at the point where I knew my plan had worked.
The next few laps were an epic battle to keep H@l far enough behind to make it difficult for him to overtake on the parts of the track he was quicker.
I didn't feel as comfortable as I would like with the cars handling but at his point I was in P2 with Jon and TT dropping back due to changing tyres. To complicate things I could see Jon was closing on us at great pace probably on fresh tyres. I made a minor mistake at the left hander before the corkscrew and expected to see H@l moving accross to try the overtake but instead he moved accross suddenly to reveal Jon with a massive speed advantage alongside me.
Jon cleanly made the pass on the outside but once he was in front I misjudged when he would brake and just went into the back on him unfortunately at very unstable area of the track. The car spun quickly into the barriers and gave me a front pucture and severely damaged suspension. I made it back to the pits but once I saw my teammates go past in good positions decided to call it a day.
Passing H@L and nsfast was easy with my speed advantage but I only just managed to get ahead of nsfast though, when I braked for the corkscrew he really had nowhere to go but into the back of me and span off.
No problem Jon. It was a fair move. I was just a bit unlucky this time.
It made up for the Mosport race where I benefited greatly from Jon and H@l's misfortune at the start.
Congrats to H@l on a fully deserved Championship and many thanks to all who have raced in this series. Fantastic result for the Team (nice racing guys!
) Nice to be back winning again (without the aliens).