Sorry to hear that Manfred, you had great pace on the qualy. And sympathies to everyone else that had problems.
It's great that Niko decided to join us. He is a very fast and fair driver from Germany. Hope he will continue here as well.
I started loving the car/track combo after just few corners. I am a big fan of the heavy understeery monsters.
At the qualy Hristo was able to take the pole just faster than me, just like in the training earlier.
I was calm though because i knew my car works best on the race session and on the qualy i was around half a second slower than my best time with 105 liters.
The start was OK, but the first corner was not. I thought i started braking early to avoid problems, but still the car went on the grass and i lost 2 positions to Dan and Erling and i was attacked by Clive.
I was able to stay in front of Clive and started chasing the front 3. I was worry that Hristo will pull away quickly so it was important to stay close to him.
I was able to catch Erling first and after i bump him on the acceleration from the last corner
on the braking for the second one the next lap i was able to overtake him. Now it was Dan ahead and i overtake him at the same place as Erling and they both tried counter attacks on the second corner but i was lucky to stay ahead.
So it was just Hristo in front as he had 3-4 seconds lead. And he started driving even faster, but after few laps my tires started working great and now i was the fastest car on the track. I was catching Hristo and just after the middle of the race i made my first attacks. Little by little i was waiting for my chance and finally i was able to overtake him after the first corner. We had amazing wheel to wheel battle though.
After that until lap 14-15 i was faster and then my car started to oversteer a little bit because of the setup and Hristo was faster now. He was able to terminate my lead and just few laps before the end of the race we started another chase.
Every tent of the second was important here as i was lucky to drive with more tire pressure that kept me in front of him at the straights. And man, the braking for the last corner of the last lap decided the winner. We both started braking a little bit earlier, waiting for the another to brake later and go wide.
At the end it was amazing and fair play battle that i enjoyed a lot. I hope you will watch the replay as it was indeed great race from my perspective.
https://youtu.be/Xhbv1lv2ZpMCongrats to Hristo and Daz for the podiums.