Grats to Andreas and the podium finishers.
I cannot complain at my finishing position after risking the engine to break the 1:18 barrier, I should have been more restrained after I had taken the lead and concentrated on getting to the flag.
Qualifying was huge fun with Ziu and myself trading times to get to pole position. There was never more than a few tenths between us, with Andreas and Clive Loynes very close too. My pole time was done on race fuel so I was confident that I would be able to match anyone's pace when the real action started.
Ziu got a better start and slipped into P1 at the first corner, with myself in 2nd and several other cars in close company. I suspect that Ziu was being careful on cold tyres in the early laps, and I wanted to go a little faster because I was concerned about the 3 litre cars behind me when we got to the straights, but I could not see a safe way to get past and had to follow in his wheel tracks.
Then I had a bad moment with my shifter and missed a downshift, which sent me into the gravel and dropped me way down the field with 33 laps still to race.
I pushed very hard to try and make up some places and was able to catch and pass a few cars. After about 10 laps I could see a group of cars about 6 secs ahead, and Prib was telling me that the next car was Clive Loynes. The list on prib showed 3 cars ahead, Clive, Bastian and Andreas but it did not tell me where Ziu was. I was assuming that Ziu was away and clear in 1st place.
Slowly I caught the back of that group ahead and was surprised that when I got closer I could see a red Ferrari at the front of the group, so I was running in 5th place with the leading four cars all together right ahead of me!!! I was amazed that I had managed to catch them all after my "off".
My biggest problem was that they were mostly in 3litre cars and their grunt out of the final corner was just too much for my little 2litre car to match. But after a few laps I worked out that I was much better under braking into T1, so that would have to be where I made any pass. In turn I set up each pass by hooking up the slipstream and pouncing in the braking zone. One by one I eased my way through until I was closing on Ziu's Ferrari and working out where I could attack him. Then he ran wide at T1 and I was released into the lead
.
It was relatively easy to ease away and build a comfortable lead. My setup felt great and Prib was showing that a 1:17 sec lap was definitely possible. Maybe the recovery from my early incident and the chase back to the front had put strain on the engine, or maybe I stretched the revs just a little too much chasing a 1:17 lap. Either way, something broke and with 6 laps left I was driving a lame car with zero speed.
It was a hugely enjoyable race in a car that felt almost perfect and I have only myself to blame for throwing it all away. Looking forward to the next race