Overall the race was great, qualified 9th behind Paul and less than .01 ahead of BACKO. Despite the cold temperature I stuck with loads of fuel and mediums for the race.
After the carnage of the opening lap, (The leader should aim for a target speed on the straights of around 75mph, not 175mph
), I was struggling to keep in touch with Paul for the first few laps. My front tyres were under 60 degrees with the low track temperature, and after 7 or 8 laps Don had closed right up on me. We had a good battle for a few laps and in the end he made a good move stick through turn 1
A couple of laps later I had a similar battle with BACKO, great racing and very close and fair. Mo was closing on both of us, BACKO got a great run on me down the s/f straight but broke slightly too late into T1 and wisely didn't try to turn in fully- flashing me back by on the exit afterwards. I think then he and Mo got into a tussle, and I was able to pull away slightly, but it was a great few laps
Around lap 15 I suddenly found some more speed, the track temperature was climbing and my front tyres were behaving better. By this time, Don had overtaken Paul and I managed to get passed into T1 after a few laps of chasing. I was amazed how much earlier the RS needs to be on the brakes! At half way the car was still quick, I was able to be within a tenth or two of my fastest lap every time round.
I steadily gained places as everyone pitted, ending up leading for a lap
before pitting with just under 20 minutes left. I totally messed up my stop, I only needed a small amount of fuel and I took new tyres when I really didn't need to, and I forgot to turn the engine off too
ended up taking almost 50 seconds which is shocking
maybe my pitcrew had been at the legends alcohol stash while waiting for me to come in
I came out of the pits right in front of Pete who had Don right behind him, but I had just enough time to get into T1 in front. Jeff was way in front, I had no hope of catching him but I put in some fast laps trying to pull a gap on Don. Then TT had two more pitstops which put me in 6th. Don was about 7 seconds behind in 7th, when I noticed my engine health was very very bad
so I backed off as much as I dared for the last few laps and thankfully the engine lasted
Very happy with 6th, and 2nd in class behind Jeff who was as fast as ever
As the pitstops approached though the tyres were starting to wilt, and Zacari was biting at my heels. In the end he made a clean pass into T1, and i was just thinking about pitting when he broke earlier than I expected at the 2nd chicane and I had to go off track to avoid rear-ending him. After extracting myself from the gravel I then compounded things by overshooting Lesmo 2, purely because I was chuntering away about the daft mistake a few corners before
By the time I was up to speed, Zacari was long gone and I was fighting for 3rd at best.
I'd forgotten about that
, I was having to be careful into the 2nd chicane as I'd already had a cut warning there, and the TVR was really unsettled over the bumps under that bridge. I appreciate you missing me anyway
though of course that's scant consolation
Grats to Jon, Jeff and Dave for their class wins
