Grats to all finishers and podium places. Great to see such a large grid
I had not run 55's since the last championship and most of practice was spent trying to remember how to drive them and cope with the brake fade. So I was qualifying on race fuel and concentrating on finding braking points and getting consistent lap times and it was not until the last 5 mins of quali that I actually tried a banzai lap.
I did smile when it showed my pole as 0.021 faster than Clive
, but I fully expected either Clive or Ziu to go quicker.
My start was good and I wanted to hold the lead into T1 if I could...always easier driving these cars with a clear view ahead
I pushed quite hard when I saw that Clive was being delayed by Ziu, and my laptimes for laps 3 & 4 were in the 1:45's which was pretty good on race fuel and I was still controlling the brakes so things were looking good (ish)
Once I had a comfortable gap I was able to relax and re-discover the driving technique for the Connaught and the braking/downshift points. The gap slowly stretched as cars behind had traffic or grass cutting issues. Clive was, more or less, matching my pace but seemed unable to close the gap so I did not need to push any harder and drove comfortably and carefully. Prib was promising a mid 1:44 lap as possible but I was reluctant to go looking for that and throw my race away.
It was not until the final laps that I had any problems, when I caught some of the backmarkers. When I had to change my lines and braking points to find a way past other cars it showed just how close to the limit my brakes and tyres were. During the majority of the race my brakes were recovering in time for the next big stop and my tyres were always OK. But just the slight extra demand in tighter lines/heavier acceleration and fractionally later braking pushed them over the edge.
The first car that I lapped was not too bad, but when I caught Fulvio and Bastian things almost went very wrong
. It was clear that I was lapping more quickly because I closed on them so easily, I waited for a gap and Fulvio kindly allowed me through even though he was battling with Bastian. Then I tried to move past the Gordini of Bastian and thought that I could simply power through on the inside of one of the corners. The extra demand on the tyres sent the temps into the red and I got a horrible tank slapper that sent me onto the grass, allowing Bastian and Fulvio to retake their places ahead of me.
With just 4 laps to go I looked at the gap back to Mr Loynes and decided to play safe. I cruised along behind the 2 cars battling ahead and simply watched the gap back to Clive. There was a moment of doubt as we started the last lap and the gap closed suddenly, but as the final lap unfolded it was clear that provided I made no mistakes I had the win.
On to Spa and a whole different set of problems to deal with
