Another odd one for me for pace on race night, i cannot fathom out the difference. I was banging in regular 1:39.6's in practise in qually setup and the car felt pretty quick if not uber. Simiarly, my race setup in praccy was indicating regular 1:40mids to 1:41 lows so felt good for the event.
But on race night, it was another story
I had a dismal qually, only managing 15th on grid with a 1:40.4 putting me down with the Moslers.
Then from lap 1 the car setup felt pretty awful and a handful. I cocked up my start big time by getting all fingers and thumbs and changing gear instead of releasing the pit-limiter which made for a very tardy get away
...sorry to Tinman who got stuck behind me.
I then had a couple of very scrappy laps until i got into a rhythm and could start chasing Pauls mean sounding Mosler.
I watched a big tussle between Darren ahead and the two moslers, wheel banging each other through the infield and decided to sit back and see if they took each out but nowt happened. Darren dropped back and got a bit ragged up through turn 3 and seemed to slide from outside to inside on the exit and i think i may have given him a slight nudge as i took my normal line and saw his car oversteering up the straight.
Next target was Pauls Mosler which after a few laps hard chasing i managed to outbreak cleanly down at Turn1. It then took me quite a few laps to shake him off my tail with that menacing grumble (the car, not Paul
) and finally i built up a 4 sec gap after putting in a string of 1:41.1's. This also closed me up on Nevarn in his cool team oldie Mosler.
I could see he seemed to be struggling on worn tyres? and i caught him up at Gancho, where he kindly flashed me through (now know it was fuel) and i coasted home to 9th place, albeit about 13 secs behind 8th.
So not too bad a result but not great and still puzzling for laptimes.
Congrats to podium guys
