I hope this doesn't need mentioning, but I'd like to remind everyone that the pit lane at the start of the race is not a passing lane. That first bend is bad enough as it is. Having cars coming out of your blind spot on the right when you're not expecting them just guarantees mayhem. We saw enough of that at T1 two weeks ago.

Thanks Paul, yeah I caught some damage from Lucarno when he spun off the verge after the chicane, after that my Protos was a little twitchy to say the least. 

What can you expect when you put one of the original Papyrus tracks on an F2 schedule? Ten starters and ten finishers all on the same lap. In my case I took the Matra 5 and somehow managed to knock off one second from my PB in the practice session before qualifying. I had seen earlier in the day online that Matt and Dave were going to be in a different world than I was. I didn't know that David had the chops to join them. So when I turned a 2:04+ in qualifying, I spent the rest of the session rolling around with race fuel. I wasn't going to catch the three guys in front unless they crashed out.

What I didn't count on was the guy behind me --- RogUK? --- who was also in a Matra like mine and was just 0.04 behind me. I figured he'd had a lucky lap and I'd lose him after the hairpin at the bottom of the hill. I didn't lose him. We crossed the S/F for the first time. He was one second behind me. Matt, Dave, and David were walking away from me and this . . . this guy was still there. Lap 2. One second behind. Lap 3. The same. And this went for the following laps, with RogUK never more than one second behind me: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21. On the last lap I was down to little more than fumes in the tank, so I figured I'd distance myself from this leech and set a PB in the process. I did not. He managed to close the gap at the end to 14/100ths of a second.

I bought GPL the week it came out in October 1995. In all those years I have never had a race with anyone as close as this one was.

[Erratum: I just looked at the replay. It wasn't RogUK but Fabio behind me in the first two laps. I blame the error in my original post on the three bottles of wine I consumed in the first ten minutes after the event.]

A bit of pressure was always present but my mistake was due to a wrong steering angle.The car was flyng away suddenly.Shame,one position lost.
Anyway my compliment Paul.
About the podium,i don't know where they have found the secons less on each lap.I must analyse the replay.

My times were nothing special compared to the Pro pilotes
I had tried all of the FVAs and I got similar times with any of them
but the Matra5 just seemed to click best with the setup, so I took him

There was some contact on the Lap21 pass, I got bounced into the fence
but you waited, and there seemed no damage, so no worries.
Lap 22  pass I just messed up and spun without any assistance.

I know Rouen well, have raced there in other sims. I had never seen Blandford
but liked it very much, so did lots of practice. Didn't matter how much noise I made there
I could not make the birds on the telegraph wires fly off. Most unrealistic  

Of the upcoming tracks, I know Suzuka (depends on how accurate it is)
The version of Brands we are using next week for the 55Mod is proper mountain climbing  
somewhat exagerated elevation, but good

I know Snetterton (maybe.. I did a sprint there a few years ago on the short "100" layout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmnOv0yl9_M
There are loads (too many, maybe) on that site. In lockdown spectators were not allowed, so some
hillclimb venues did external live stream in youtube and there's a couple of my 106Rallye at Shelsley Walsh
and an in car of one of the runs.

I know The Glen well, but have never seen any of the others, so will need lots of practice.

I seem to remember that I can hover over a link in Series page? maybe? to see what tokens I have?
easy enough after two rounds, but I imagine it can get interesting later on.

Thanks Phil. I had done that, but was too impatient

It was fun until it lasted... 

After my mistake I found myself at the back of all racers and I tried to recover some positions.
Well, everybody was racing so fast!!
Anyway, I really enjoyed a race on my own and at least I wasn't lapped: I finished in the 8th place only because of Roo's and Billy's mistakes, sorry guys.

See you in South Africa, totally unknown track then it will probably be a different story...

Cheers from Monza

fL