A hard race for me; with battles from start to finish.
Chuffed with qual, as I set a new pb, landing me 3rd . Retained it - barely - after the start. Aliens buggered off, while behind, an insistent Matt was chasing me. Staying ahead of him, while trying to conserve my tyres was no easy feat. 3rd was upgraded to 2nd temporarily, when we passed a recovering Geoffers at the final turn. Puzzled why Matt could gain so much on me in the long right-hander leading into the park-like area, but replay suggests he simply had found a more efficient line into it.
Twice in this 1st half, I had managed to build a small gap of 2-3 secs, only to see Matt gain a very strong second wind, cutting it in half over just one lap. Couldn't explain it the first time, as my own lap wasn't particularly slow. 2nd time however, I spotted Geoffers' yellow Alpine behind him, and figured he had scared Matt into going faster than he really could..
Heroically, he kept Geoffers behind for a few laps, but eventually he got past and reeled me in too. With tyres basically shot, my Ferrari was no match for the Renault - not even a wreck like Geoffers must have been driving, after two hard shunts, so he quickly got past.
With Geoffers gone, I first thought Matt was homing in on me again, only to realize the car (nose) was blue; not green. Turned out to be John in his Porker. Very bad news for me; he would be unaffected by tyre wear, whereas mine were ready for the dumpster. Fought as hard as I could to keep him behind, but it was a lost cause. With ever decreasing grip and corner speeds, I eventually ran wide, bouncing over the curbs, losing momentum and thus letting him past. Chased him as hard as I damn well could over the final few laps, but with no grip left, I couldn't mount any form of challenge, so he could just cruise home to take 2nd, after we had again passed a recovering Geoffers.
Grats to John on 2nd, and Ziu of course, for the win.
In retrospect, and with most of the series wrapped up, I think the 2x tyre wear has been a mistake. The Renault (which is by far the superior car) and the Porker are virtually unaffected by it, whereas the Ferrari is completely crippled. It has nowhere near the raw speed to compensate for it, and is basically a paper tiger. The only one who has bagged a win with it is Ziu, but that doesn't really count, since you could put him in a wheel barrow and he would still win
My fight with John was quite frustrating, since you sit with a feeling of not competing on even terms. If we return to this series in the future, I believe normal tyre wear will even the playing field better - Ferrari & Cobra will still have a lot more tyre wear than the two others, but shouldn't be quite as stymied as they are now. I shudder to think what it would be like, if we had stayed with the 3x tyre wear originally proposed
Cheers,
Erling