I almost missed this one because I thought it's later (as the usual UKGTL races), so thanks to Dimitar for messaging me about it.
Joined with about 16 minutes to spare and was shocked to see the lap times of Markus and Geoffers. It made me realize I must be driving the cars wrong somehow, so I went out and experimented with even earlier braking and acceleration, trying to rotate the car early. It worked well on my first run, then after some setup changes I even managed a 55, but was still half a second off Markus.
Messed up the start, forgetting 1st is very short and thus lifting up too much. This dropped me back to 5th, but I was soon behind Dimitar who was up to 3rd. Managed to overtake him, but then made a mistake and he was back in front, then we made contact in the last sector and after he went off, I moved up a spot. By then Markus and Geoffers were a few seconds in front already, so it took a lot of effort to close up the gap.
The car was working well, but I was wondering whether my tyres would maintain their grip until the end. Just when I was catching up on Markus, he managed to get pass Geoffers, so I knew I had to do the same ASAP. Fortunately for me Geoffers lost it under braking for the hairpin and dropped back.
Now another problem during that time was that I had something to do on my mobile game and was trying to tap on my phone on the straights whenever possible, even the short straights and easier accelerations. That kinda distracted me, so my lap times were inconsistent. It appeared that Markus was either having issues of his own or not pushing to the maximum though, so I was still within a second of him.
Near the end of the race my tyres began to lose grip noticeably, so I couldn't quite push too much anymore. With 2 laps to go Markus suddenly eased off on one of the straights and I went by to grab 1st place. I didn't know he had a problem with his throttle though, but that he was just letting me through on purpose. Even though I had very bad final 2 laps, with little grip from the tyres, I managed to keep him behind. Didn't want to win this way though, so I eased off the throttle on the exit of the last corner to return him the favor (which it turns out wasn't a favor
).
You deserved the victory anyway, Markus, as you were marginally quicker overall. Also, I don't think I could have passed you even if I could somehow close in on you, because you were faster on the straights (higher tyre pressures perhaps?). Congrats for the win and to Dimitar for 3rd!
