Very hard race yesterday. Knew it would be a tough one when Johnw signed in, so absolutely needed the fastest car for me, which was the 375. Never liked it; can't dial out its vices via setup, so just had to work around them. Had to exceed myself to claim pole, getting into 1:37 for the first time.
Crappy start, losing several places, but made them up on L1, to claim the lead. John right up my chuff, in relentless pursuit. Any mistake was punished immediately, with the distance shortened. At one point he went slightly off, giving me a 3-4 secs gap. Should have been a small breather, but I made small mistakes myself, and then caught traffic in very awkward places, costing me more time than John, so he was soon breathing down my neck again.
Thus the first 30 laps was more sprint than enduro. When John went for the pits very late in the race, the gap was around 7 secs. Had tested offline that I could do 31+ laps, so planned to pit on L30. Fight with John must have eaten more fuel though - if I had waited to L30, I couldn't complete another lap, in case I missed the pits, so moved it ahead to L29 instead. Executed it as fast as I could, and probably looked more in my mirrors than ahead for the first lap after.
When I passed the pits after that lap, the board showed a 12 secs gap, and with 4 laps to go, I could finally relax a little. Caught some traffic on the final laps, but tried to stay far enough back so I wouldn't interfere with the battles going on.
Apologies to Clive, if I inadvertently held you up at T1 after finishing the race. Stupidly didn't consider that you had one more lap to complete
I know you ran out of fuel, but still shouldn't have been so thoughtless.
Thanks to John for a very hard fight, and congrats to him & Roger for filling the podium.