I could only join relatively late in quali because Windows had overwritten my GPU drivers for some generic Windows ones, and that after half a year of using my GPU without a problem. You can turn that update feature off, and I get that Windows wants to optimize stuff for the user, but come on... Last week AMD released a new driver for my GPU (RX 580), and probably other GPU's, I suspect that might have to do with it. Hope not many other AMD users are affected by this At least there is a help page referenced in the AMD Software that quickly got me back up and running.
But there was still plenty of time to secure a good lap and so I managed to secure pole. The pace was already looking very promising from the start and only got better with each lap, so I was confident going into the race.
But I knew that Tristan, who started in P2, is usually fast off the line, and my start had to be on point to defend into T1. Luckily I had the inside and could defend. Then some car already came very close to my rear, and 10 seconds later I already had a 100m gap on Pribluda to P2. So that made life easy for me, and I could focus fully on my pace and on nailing the track. Got into a very good rhythm, consistently in the high 33s at the beginning, and kept it in the 33s until the very end. It required a lot of focus to maintain that pace on this demanding street course, but using a 2-liter car certainly helped. Lapped cars were aware and courteous, there was just that one time when I tried to slip by Andreas on the inside and judging from my mirror, it seemed like he moved out of the way last-second during the apex. Sorry if I wasn't patient enough there, glad it didn't cause any further issues for you.
Congrats to Yannick for a great recovery drive after an early mishap and to Tom for a close P3, seems like you had a lot of fun out there!
Well done all finishers, bad luck DNF's, on this tricky track that can catch you out when you least expect it, especially over the bumps in T1... Hopefully Spa brings more luck, though I wouldn't bet on that...