Well that was fun.....I think
The grid looked like a Ferrari owners club convention ( or was it just a load of Italian hairdressers?), so I felt rather the odd man out in my white Honda.
Throughout qually I struggled to get the whale to turn with a heavy fuel load at Lesmo and Parabolica, whilst those red things posted lap times about 3 secs a lap faster ( Boy!! I was really hoping that they were all on qualifying fuel !!).
The start was a relief as a couple of the hairdressers bogged down off the grid and although at first I took avoiding action, it turned into a pass and I jumped at least one place
. Everyone appeared to be struggling with cold tyres and heavy fuel, so I was relieved to discover that I could run at their pace.
One by one cars slithered off or threw their pistons at the scenery until I was in second place about 300mtrs behind Natan. I was closing but only very, very slowly, until suddenly he pulled over with a blown engine and yours truly was in 1st place in a WAZA!!! lol
A glance at prib showed Art and Hristo about 500mtrs behind, so I knew that they would benefit from each others slipstream and close the gap. The next 10 laps were a case of watching the revs and trying to nail the braking and turn in points to make the chasing cars work as hard as possible
.
Eventually the inevitable happened and Hristo bridged the gap, but at least I had someone to play slipstream with. The Honda had a potential top speed of well over 200mph with a little draft, but the tricky bit was hitting that speed at where I could make a pass. Passing around the banking is only something to do as a last lap desperate move lol, so I practiced a few runs on Hristo's Fezza to see where I needed to start a passing move. After all we had about 20 laps to go, so there was no rush and unless I made a mistake Hristo was not going to escape ( even if he tried to sneak through the pits!!)
It transpired that the exit of Lesmo 2 and the run down to Parabolica was where I needed to start my move to be able to cross the S/F line in front....quite a bit earlier than I would have thought.
Because Hristo's Fez had more grunt out of Lesmo and Parabolica I needed to make the perfect exit from Lesmo to hang onto the slipstream. Then I had to get into Parabolica smoothly and be only 75mtrs behind H on the exit.
My advantage seemed to lie in my extra high 5th gear and I needed the straight past the pits + the first banking to wind it up. Coming off the first banking if I was close enough to the Fezza gearbox I could draft past before the second banking at about 205mph, or by just easing off fractionally I could wait until the S/F straight and if I was right on Hristo's tail i could jink out of the slipstream and beat him to the line........ So with 10 laps left I had my plan for a glorious win for the Wazamobile, I just had to sit and wait for the last lap
Then Art's hard work brought him into a 3 way dice for the lead. Even after I had to take avoiding action at Parabolica ,when Art and Hristo invented a new racing line
and lost a few hundred metres, I was still able to close the gap again...I was feeling quite happy.
Until,...............
Exiting Lesmo 2 everything went somewhat quiet!!! and I limped back to the pits somewhat deflated!!! Well it almost worked out.
Great having a longer race to survive and use tactics to work out where to make your move instead of a flat out sprint like most races seem to be.