To me the race server was the same as practice, so I didn't especially enjoy the car any more than after my first winge - that said it started to get more fun right at the end when the tires were getting knackered, as it finally started to move about!
I did enjoy the race though, as I had some cracking battles with Manteos and a good chase trying to stay with NFSW.
After my practice efforts I had no real high hopes here, I didn't enjoy the car and seemed well off the pace - So I decided to work on a consolidation setup instead (faster setups all struck me as too twitchy and risky for here - my Brands setup was lethal!).
This gave me a much more planted car that I could be rougher with and not slide too much or overheat the tires too easily, although it still had a few goes at trying to throw me off despite all that.
When I landed 3rd on the grid I was amazed, when I took 2nd and then held on fairly happily at the start (Thanks Baikal
) I was even more amazed - especially when manteos only slowly started to gain after clearing Alexy.
I didn't expect to hold him off forever so just drove as fast and cleanly as I could, which for the most part stopped him from being able to challenge me. I think I only bothered covering once in our first exchange.
Then Manteos was through at about 15 mins into the race.... and promptly threw himself off a few corners later
When a few minutes later I passed a rotating NFSW I suddenly found myself looking at a race I might even be able to win
So started to concentrate really hard.
It almost paid off - Matteo only passed me about 5 mins before the end, and had used his tires up so much I very nearly managed a counter attack despite my safer/slower setup. But sadly not enough time left.
All in all I'm dead chuffed with a 2nd considering my thoughts going into the race.
Well done Matteo on some serious pace, Congrats Alexy on keeping enough consistency to nab 3rd - and bad luck to NFSW, you should have been fighting Matteo for the top step!
Good racing from everyone else from what I can see.
I'm uploading my replay so will link once that's done