Grats to Uli on a hard fought and deserved win and also to Andreas on a good 3rd place. My commiserations to Ziu for yet another DNF with an engine failure when in a good place to take a win
It was clear from the qualifying that Ziu and his Ferrari were going to be too quick for the rest of us to catch. Even Uli's time in the 2.7 Brabham ( which was impressive!) was still a good few seconds slower.
I had opted for the Honda again only because of all those long straights and had practised on race fuel to get the setup correct. Even after the setup adjustments, when the race started, I discovered that 5th gear was still too low. I had the power to get off the line and take the lead ( explained because Ziu could not see the start flag
) and the extra speed and power of the 3 litre engines dropped Uli on the straights. But when we reached the twisty bits the nimble Brabham closed the gap very quickly... far too quickly for my comfort!!
After a lap Ziu swept past in his Ferrari to take the lead, and I thought that was OK because I could just use his slipstream on those long straights....but this is where I discovered that my gearing was wrong and my engine was over revving at top speed.
I dropped back a little and had already decided to let Ziu escape when I ran wide and lost a few seconds anyway ...one problem solved, but another caused
. Because, it brought Uli back up to my gearbox and into my slipstream. I felt that I could hold him behind because I could build a gap on the long straights, which he closed up through the twisty bits.
Then we passed a Ferrari parked on side of the road, which was Ziu
with yet another engine failure. So now the battle was between Uli and myself for the win?
It was the same for every lap. My Honda could power away on the straights, but as soon as the brakes were needed the Brabham closed up until we got to the straights again.
I was probably feeling a bit too comfortable on the last lap
, because I knew that I could outdrag Uli after the last corner even if he got ahead. HaHa! right!! I was too busy watching where he was in my mirrors as we approached the final corner so that we did not have an "incident" and as a result I totally missed my braking point!!.
Let us be honest here, I could have braked 50 mtrs early and simply blocked the inside line and used the power of the Honda on the run to the flag lol, but I didn't and I hit the bales on the outside of the corner. By the time I had recovered Uli was too far ahead to catch
.
It was a great battle between raw power and nimble handling for almost the whole race and I really enjoyed the battle.......just wish I had won LOL.
I cannot believe that Ziu's problems and Fran's similar failures are connected, but they are both in Italy I think???
I'm sure our thoughts are with all of our friends in Italy, and their Coronavirus problems, so just stay safe guys
I think the UK is about to face the sudden rise in cases here and we will quickly move towards the "lockdown" state.
BTW.. I just heard an absolutely classic quote from an MP on a BBC tv news bulletin, commenting on the fact that a member of the government has tested positive for the virus ( last Thursday!!) he said....
" this shows that even people like us can catch this virus"
ROFL.
At least simracing is virus free, well so far anyway.
