Great to be starting a new season again.
Grats to Tris, Ziu and Axel for their podium places and to all finishers.
I was hoping to be involved at the front and I was confident about lapping in the 1:09's with race fuel, possibly even faster with some slipstream. But that all went wrong at the loop on Lap 1.
The start was a bit messy as the car in front of me bogged down and I was obliged to take to the grass on the inside of T1 to avoid contact. that made me slower up through the Esses. I was side by side with another car heading towards The Loop ( not sure who that was?) and I was going to be on the inside.
Cold tyres, full tanks and being Lap 1, I thought that I should be cautious so that we avoided a crashfest. So I did brake a little early, figuring that it was better to avoid any contact. Unfortunately I was punted from behind and flew into the fencing.
I was fully expecting that wheels would have been removed and that my race was over, but somehow I still had 4 wheels and an engine that worked.
Drove out of the ditch and set off after the field, at least I had 45 laps to chase them down? But it was not to be. The crash had bent the front steering and the car no longer wanted to turn right
.
By the time I reached the end of the first lap my front left tyre was glowing red, with temps up to almost 300F. The rest of the race was all about managing the temp in that tyre and keeping some grip for those right handers. Mike was also having problems with his Ferrari and our two crippled cars had our own battle for the rest of the race, which was quite entertaining, even if we were both 1-1.5 secs off the pace lol.