My profuse apologies to you, Clive. I obviously saw you coming what with me running in a very crippled Gordini and thought that I'd left adequate room to pass. In scoping my replay cap, no, I didn't. Bad that I took you down, a Blue Moose team mate.
Not at all pleased that my race was effectively over not even half a lap old. Double
No worries Doni, at least I have my 2 DNF's done for this season
. Kind of relieved that I did read the situation ( almost) correctly and had not simply piled into a corner and hope to get past.
The lap1 mess was not pretty and it effectively gifted the race to Mr Loynes ( why him??
lol ). He was smart enough to recognise that being in front on Lap 1 on this track meant that he only had to worry about HIS errors and not anyone else's.
Petr's incident was unfortunate and I could see Phil heading straight to the scene of the accident. In any other cars most of us would have been able to slow/avoid the shrapnel, but I had found that corner required a definite commitment on the gas to get through quickly so I presume that most of the leaders were doing the same thing??
I almost cleared Phil, but got clipped and spun to end in the middle of the track. No option but to try and exit the area as quickly as possible, but got hit again before getting moving. I was surprised to find myself so high up the field, indicating that almost everyone had been involved in the carnage. Once I caught and passed Fulvio's Ferrari I was up to 3rd place.
I had been slowly closing the gap to Jonny and his flying Gordini over the preceding laps and knew that in maybe another 3 rotations I would have a shot at 2nd spot.
Each lap I was getting closer and I could almost smell garlic and cheese when we came upon Doni and his wounded Gordini. I could have backed off and followed Doni through the windy bits, but it was clear from his pace that he was limping and like I said he appeared to take a wide line into the corner and offer me the quick route, so I took it. Again with any other car I could have locked the wheels and probably avoided contact, but in 55's I had boiled the brakes into T1 and used up the 10% that had recovered aiming for the inside line. So when Doni inadvertently closed the door I had nothing left
.
I found that I could take the switchback section smoothly and quickly without using any brakes and have enough for the tight hairpin, then recover again for the chicane, usually back to green for T1 where I used just about all that I had before going up the hill.
Grats to Clive on the win and well done Jonny in the Gordini for 2nd spot, Enrique again getting onto the podium.
