Considering I'd planned my cars in advance, before this round was changed to the 10K version I'm pretty pleased with the result here
Due to it's high top speed I had banked on saving some tokens while still keeping something that should have kept up with the big boys, so I picked the Vanwall - On 'Normal' Monza the 4 speed gearbox is less of an issue as you hit lower top speeds, but at 10K the added straights and banking really raise the bar!
In the race I ended up with a 1st gear set for Parabolica which would give me about 65-70Mph before changing to 2nd. This resulted in my 10th place start (didn't get a good draft in qually) rapidly became about 14th by the time I entered T1 as I was utterly swamped off the line. Sorry to the yellow car that got stuck behind me, I purposely drove totally straight so you would have been safe to pass either side - but of course you couldn't have known that.
Once up and running the Vanwall proved to have pace, and while I still haven't got rid of the understeer that annoys me so much, I did at least reduce it to the point where the odd intentional miss-shift or flick could start me rotating where needed. Getting a decent 4 wheel drift setup through CG was still very hard work though, I think I only managed it properly 3 or 4 times in the entire race.
I had a fairly major scare on lap 2 or 3 when there was a pileup in Curva Grande up ahead - it was pure luck I got through without contact as I was already sideways entering the turn when I saw the carnage up ahead. I had to get the car back to vaguely straight before I could start slowing properly and even then managed to loose the back end.
As luck would have it that fired me up onto the grass about half a car width which also happened to be enough to just miss a still spinning Mercedes ahead of me
From that point on I spent most of the race locked with Will - I had a definite advantage in the corners while he of course had power on his side on the straights due to having Silver (technically no) paint.
I was trying to make a point of passing him before CG each lap and then not trying to resist after Para so he could get back in front for the fast bits and we'd tow each other up to the front again (Or at least nearer), this didn't quite work as it seemed to be only in the final quarter of the race that Will finally got the big Mercedes to settle on entry to the banked corners. He was frequently sliding on entry and shedding so much speed I would often drive straight around the outside of him - A few laps before Greg caught us he finally nailed it and our lap times started to drop faster.
Greg caught us maybe a lap before we would have reeled Doni in, due to the tiny mirrors on the Vanwall and my being too busy to watch Prib I had no idea greg was even close until he suddenly darted between myself and Will like we weren't even trying!
Thankfully this allowed me to beat Will to CG and get right up onto Greg's bumper - the idea was to use him to escape and hopefully blow by Doni when Greg did.
This didn't work - the Slipstreamer had such a speed advantage that above about 150 it would just drive away. Despite the fact it would tow me upto 170+ I'd always be a minimum of 5 or 6 car lengths back after the really big straights.
To make it worse we then caught Doni just after Parabolica and there was a big enough gap between myself and Greg for him to move in and take the draft, my speed advantage at that point wasn't enough to get clear and Doni ended up pulling ahead again before I could complete my move.
Half a lap later and I got confused where Doni was trying to place his car while entering Lesmos 1, In my avoiding action I locked the rears and span off into the fence - somehow missing both Doni and Will (Who was just behind at that point).
I rejoined just as Axel passed me and used his tow to get back up with the group about a lap later. By the time I caught Doni and Will, Greg had scarpered off up the track and was out of reach.
We spent the next 5 or 6 laps swapping places between the 4 of us, Axel surprised me by passing me into the 1st banked turn on the final lap - I thought he'd have caught on to the fact I'd been intentionally lifting on the approach whenever I was leading and would therefore have waited till the end of the next straight
With Axel getting in front of me as we exited the 1st banked turn and Will/Doni too far back to slot in behind him it looked my end game was going to play out - I timed my draft move so I wouldn't pull along side till near the end of the 2nd banking.
This worked perfectly although with less momentum than I'd hoped for, I always made a point of leaving plenty of room for the driver on the inside as I was worried about lag smashing me into the armco on the exit - this set the stage for Doni's well lubed insertion onto the podium in the last 50 meters or so. I was just starting to drift back in towards Axel (who I'd been checking on using the look right button) to close any gap when a red nose suddenly appeared alongside
Doni had timed it just right and even got lucky thanks to my over-caution off the bank and nabbed 3rd by under 0.03 seconds, I crossed just over 0.01 seconds ahead of Axel to steal what had suddenly become 4th
To put Axels photo into context we were all doing over 150mph at the line 3 wide and nearly touching - had the line been 200 meters down the road then Will might even have stolen 3rd from the lot of us at the rate he was gaining!
That was an excellent end to a hard race - I don't know why but the 55 mod just seems to generate fantastic racing.
Well done to Greg, Sam and Doni. Thanks for the race long battle Will and for joining the melee towards the end Axel.
Big commiserations to those who Disco'd out. It might just be the graphical strain of the 55 mods here - I had 30 FPS at the start on a PC that runs almost every modern game at fully maxed settings. GPL just takes some grunt these days with the prettier mods/tracks..