I enjoyed that one, it was a good fight keeping Tris at bay in his Masser.
Because I'm missing the next two rounds I'm working to the original ruling and only allowing myself an extra 5 points at the start of the season (Feel free to edit your chart to suit Clive).
I took the Connaught because it's quicker than the Gordini (I didn't think this track would suit it), and I actually think it's a faster car than the Vanwall I drove earlier in the fun races, on circuits that feature 'proper' corners - I can't seem to make the Vanwall change direction as I'd like it to (Look at my laptimes for the fun race here last month).
The Connaught on the other hand does almost exactly what you tell it and has it has a nicer motor than the Gordini - the lack of power or gears doesn't really notice on shorter tracks.
I spent an hour or two tuning a setup for here using my Monaco base. I set myself the task of equalling my previous PB in the Vanwall as an absolute minimum (offline I had it down in the mid 1:42's - I somehow messed up the setup for the last race).
After half an hour it was obvious the Type B was capable of destroying the previous best.
I didn't actually expect pole to be honest - Tris has posted better laptimes on GPL Rank in all the 'fast' cars than I could manage in the Conn - so sitting pretty at the front was a happy surprise, and also a PB.
I'm still amazed by Tristan's start, it's like he had some secret Waza technology the way he launched - I thought I'd had a pretty good launch but was already behind him by the time I'd stopped wheel spinning
Bastian took advantage of my confusion (and car) and also jumped me into T1, luckily I backed off as he turned across my nose, he would have put himself into the wall otherwise.
I backed off enough to ensure I didn't brake for Turn 2 and could get a good exit and then fired down the inside of T3 at the hairpin.
Bastian didn't seem to see me coming so was easy to pass under brakes - Tris did see me and left racing room (thanks) but I couldn't get enough ahead to challenge him due to the chicanes just around the corner. I filtered back in behind him to avoid slowing us unduly and waited for the second hairpin. I expected a harder fight but I guess this is the dissadvantage of driving in the 3rd person view as Tris has to assume his brakes might not work at any point
This allowed me back into 1st for the start of lap 2.
Tris tried to return serve on me into the T3 hairpin but this time suffered brake failure at the critical point, luckily I spotted his car suddenly ceasing to slow in my tiny mirror and left him room to fall off in peace.
This gave me a gap over Bastian who was now slower having reached the point where the Merc starts to need it's brakes managed, he also had a recovering Tristan to deal with so I was able to pull away a little.
Tris got back around Bastian fairly quickly, who then had an off of his own and dropped a fair way back.
With my Connaught's lack of power my only chance was to maintain the gap and stay consistant - If Tris got close to me and caught the draft I'd be done for.
Luckily Tris must have equalled my own collection of small mistakes as I managed to maintain a ~2 second gap for most of the remaining race.
It only really seemed to vary when we were dealing with backmarkers. Sometimes they favoured him, sometimes me.
Well done Tris and Clive for the podium spots.
And also to the rest of the field, it all seemed very civilised when I encountered backmarkers (At least as civilised as it can be in these things!)
