Good but tough race for me.
New pb in qual landed pole with the slimmest of margins, so chuffed with that. Aston refuses to spin its wheels even when dumping clutch at full revs, so bogs down at the start. Thus expected Geoffers to grab the lead, which he did, and I was probably lucky only to lose 1 place. Got it back later on L1, when Geoff slid off on cold tyres in Canal Curve. Went as fast as I could, trying to build a gap. Expected Geoffers not to change tyres given the milder wear of the Merc, while the excessive wear of the Aston forced me to do so.
At the start of L14, the last before my stop, the gap was 17 secs, but I lost time running wide in Waterway on worn tyres, and damn near killed my car on the same stone wall that was Bob's bane. A tyre change takes around 20 secs, so clear I would lose the lead. While in the pits, Fulvio & Geoffers came roaring past. 1 lap later, Fulvio exited the pits right in front of me, so obviously he hadn't changed tyres. Figured he'd be easy pickings on his worn tyres, and did get past without much drama in Cottage Corner. Next corner however, I believe he failed to slow enough on those worn tyres and went up my inside as an escape route. Hadn't expected the move, so we tangled, with me spinning off. Fulvio kindly waited, but couldn't compensate the 10 secs or so I lost.
Beginning of next lap showed a 13-secs gap to Geoffers up ahead. Drove like mad to regain the lost time, and the gap was coming down, but never expected to make it in time. However, with 3 laps to go, I had pretty much caught up. My tyres weren't exactly pristine anymore, but Geoffers' were even worse it seemed. He took a small grass excursion, which allowed me to zip past and hog the inside line into Canal Curve. The Aston has a straight line advantage over the Merc, so if only I could avoid screwing up in the corners for the remaining 2 laps, victory should be in the bag. Thankfully that's how it played out. Grats to Geoffers on 2nd - and very impressive speed in the Merc (my offline pb was 2:03.9
), and grats to Matt on 3rd. We should probably also thank Fulvio for providing some extra excitement..
Commiserations to those who met with misfortune; not least Kurt who didn't even get to start - know how frustrating that is.
Glad also to see Clive make and complete the race - hope it wasn't in too much pain. Took a look at the server replay, which has cockpit view from Clive's car. Looked like you guys had some intense racing during the early laps - and I'm impressed with your slide catching abilities - there were a couple of times where I would surely have spun..
Incidentally, I got a mail from 'Classic & Sports Car' yesterday with a link to an article about iconic car design details. Check out the car in the first photo:
https://www.classicandsportscar.com/gallery/10-best-design-details-ever?utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_campaign=ENews%20Bulletins&utm_content=CLAS%20ENews%20Digest%2028th%20August%202019%20(28.08.2019)::Hyperlink_20180116_175007319&utm_source=20190828
