Well, this was certainly eventful.....
Very difficult track; those tyre-delimited chicanes were pure Russian roulette.
Completely agree with this, almost a lottery...I also concur with Geoff, once the tires have been hit they show some strange behaviour indeed, sitting on the spot and spinning violently for one, invisible for another...
I have no idea where the pace came from for Dimitar and Ziu in quali, again I was content to make the race setup as good as possible, and wanted to be able to lap consistently without getting thrown so violently off the kerbs all the time. Eventually seemed to manage to come up with something half decent, in fact the quali lap was done with a slightly damaged car, so there was a little more pace to come, but I was miles off the top of the pile for sure.
Got an OK start, losing out to the nitrous powered Erling off the line, but just about holding off Mr. Rocket Dan himself. He squeezed past when I had to come off the throttle so I did not hit Dimitar though. I then found a line around Erling into the 3rd chicane as he braked early on the inside (hope that wasn't one of the crazy chances) and inherited 2nd as Dan had clipped the tyres robbing him of speed.
Then the 4th chicane, Ziu clips the tyres, they are doing something strange on screen which throws me completely, and I'm in them too and stopped in the middle of the road essentially. No chance to hit escape before Dan smashes into me, flipping his car good and proper from watching the replay, and I'm sent scudding up the road. I was narrowly avoided by others, but saw a lot of contact. Initially I did wonder whether it was my fault totally, but the replay shows the contact for Ziu that I hadn't spotted/remembered at the time (blame concussion
).
I got going, the car felt quite bent, but maybe not as bad as I feared given the size of the impact. I thought I would be missing wheels, so was relieved that it was not the case. Was frankly astonished to find myself in 3rd, further evidence of how many people had been involved I realised, which became 2nd when Ziu went off as Erling described. I then found I could just close up on Erling, and then made a move past him when he ran wide as described, and then attempted to pull any kind of gap. None of it was easy, the car was not 100% at all, but nor was anyone else's I think. I had steering that was around 30 degrees or so off the centre, and the car preferred lefts to rights, but it was still driveable. From that point kind of just pulled away gently, keeping it away from the kerbs, the car was not fast at all (1.5 seconds off quali time) but keeping it consistent was more important as I certainly didn't want any further damage.....
Brought it home for what felt like a ludicrously lucky win in all honesty. All could have been so different for just about the whole field, not sure anyone escaped totally scot free from lap 1!
On L2, Ziu got out of shape on some kerbs, ending up nose to the wall and thus handing me the lead. Behind me, Daz was inching closer lap by lap, in that frustrating relentless way.
Sorry Erling, I'm just a pest by habit
When he had gotten close, it was my turn with the tyre barriers. Hit the right one in the first chicane, which sent me across track and into the left one, ending up sliding sideways in the infield, while Daz zoomed past. Annoyed over myself; the aliens are advantaged enough as it is - no need to hand them things for free (not that I entertain any delusions of being able to stay ahead, but still...).
That's a bit disingenuous, you've stayed ahead of many people, myself included, many times, with no trouble at all
Ahead, Daz was pulling away, and I didn't want to risk everything in the chicanes trying to keep up. Seeing in the replay how damaged his car was and how violent he was hit in the L1 shunt, I'm even more impressed with his speed. He may be even more superior than what we've seen so far.
I was just very lucky I think Erling, the car could have been much worse, or even just been dead on the spot. I have a little bit of experience of driving things with a bit of damage in GTL, and practise offline with said damage if I cause it to replicate these types of scenarios. I'm not as good as you may be fearing/implying from your statement, honest guv. Perhaps Geoffers can give an impartial view from his many years of racing against me, but I usually feel I'm none too far from an accident of my own making, particularly when leading!
