Great video Dimitar and some nice commentary. Grats to Hristo on a commanding win and to the podium.
I had only got around to re-installing the car/track details for this series late in the afternoon and joined the server to check things out. Hristo and Dimitar were already on there doing their race prep. I selected the big Rover simply because I had not used any cars from that group before and started working on a setup. Hristo saved me some time when gifted me his Enna setup for the Rover, which was very similar to the values I was heading towards, but it only needed to be "adjusted" a little to be comfortable for my unique driving style
.
It was a good battle with you Dimitar, right up to the first pitstop, then it all went wrong for me. I was fortunate that the extra power in the Rover allowed me to outdrag you off the grid and up to T1. I was tempted to have a pop at Hristo too!! but I quickly made the decision that we both could end up in the gravel. So I very graciously allowed Hristo to stay in P1
.
I knew that your Alfa was probably quicker in true lap times, because you were quicker through the corners, but I was able to hold P2 because I could get just enough of a gap on each straight to take the optimum line into the next corner.
The pitstop was a disaster as I could not find the sweet spot to bring up the pitboard, despite doing it twice perfectly during qualifying
. I wasted about 30 seconds rousing my pit crew into action and by then the red mist was getting thick. I was going to take tyres and fuel and knew that I probably would still need a splash and go in the last 3 laps, but in the panic I forgot to ask for fuel. I thought I had totally screwed my race then as I only had 3 litres of fuel left in the tank. Surely not enough for another lap to get back to the pits again??? Well, nothing to lose so I did a lap in 5th gear and rolled back into the pits as the tank ran totally dry. Another fiddle to get the right spot and take on fuel meant that I was dropped right back to 11th place and almost 20 seconds adrift
The focus then was on seeing if i could claw back a few places before the end of the race. Slowly I was catching the tail enders and I was very aware that Dimitar was just behind and about to lap me, but until he got very close I was not going to back off
gradually I picked off cars and climbed to 6th place which was probably more than I expected after the pitstop.
Apologies to Hristo for blocking him towards the end, by then my tyres had taken a lot of abuse and I was fully focused on keeping the tank on the road and did not expect him to close quite that quickly.
Despite the pit stop(s) from hell I enjoyed wrestling the big Rover around the track...at least I came first in class
@ Tony. I was in the Rover SD1 and with the gearing that I was using ( which did not hit the rev limit, in 5th, at the end of the straight ) I could only manage an indicated 11.5 laps at full racing speed?. If Hristo had not lapped me near the end of the race, I would have needed a 2nd proper stop for a splash.
Also, as I can be seen in Dimitar's video, but which not might be obvious to viewers, when he had his offs and gave me some breathing space I was trying to save fuel and stretch the fuel for an extra lap. The extra lap at my first pitstop on the last 3 litres was painfully slow and theoretically stretched a tank of fuel to 12 laps, but certainly not at racing speed.
