I mostly tested different setups in Sunday's server test session and while It did feel like a good setup and found way to drive lap so that the hairpin corner was only 2nd gear corner, I had no idea how it would compare to others. As Kurt had visit in test session as well, I shared the setup I had in that moment with him and while I did some small adjustments after that, I could not match my PB from Sunday (1:39.8xx) in Monday.
So based on runs I did on Sunday, I was expecting able to keep lap time average in 1:41.0. In qualify I was surprised to be on my own second. However as the other fast 850ccs were doing 1:41.lows, I did not expected the race be easy one. I did have guess that I might had picked up longer final gear than the others so It might mean some troubles on start.
Race started as well as it could have been. I did nearly perfect start and only evilClive passed me before the coppice corner, which meant that I just needed to keep close and try to overtake in front straight with the higher top speed. However when closing the mountain curves I was already very close and It strike me that Kurt told me in sunday that He somehow just could not drive the right hander of Mountain on 3rd gear full throttle... Could it be that driving those on 3rd was actually something? Oh yes. I was shocked how much of a difference driving line could make there. I had to go outside from very narrow line to overtake EvilClive as otherwise I would have simply hit him. Next I was worried about me to block him in Hall bends. My worries were not reduced a one bit when I saw EvilClive spin in hairpin corner and then vanish.
It took me few laps to ensure myself that while I might be part of the happenings, There's no use of worrying it now. After race jury could do the possible penalties, but that is after the race ends.
After that I steady started to just beat lap after lap. I was surprised that I was able to do 1:40.5 as my lap average. It was about half a second faster than I was expecting forehand. Somewhere in around lap 20 I had lead over 30 seconds to next driver in same class, which was unheard thing to me. I started to wonder when I last time had some car physics work done ... Maybe I was racing with "accidentally cheating" car that I just could not remember to be editted. (after race I checked to physics file dates and they are exactly same as in car pack so my mind was again just playing games with me. I also watched the replay from bird eye view about what happened to EvilClive and was at least bit relieved. ) Somehow I was able to suppress these ideas as well and keep my concentration locked to main thing.
In the end of lap 30, Markus was close to lap me second time, so just after finish line I turned xd display on (I race xd display set off as it provides too much of information to my engineer mind who loves some statistics.) to see if Markus already finished the race and it was close that I did not crashed as I accidentally drove off road on right shoulder. Luckily I did not do anything too hasty but lifted off gas and slowly got back on track. I once more recalled concentration and drove last lap steadily to the finish.
Thanks everyone joining for this race and Markus for the Overall & 1000cc class win.
