Well now... That started off a bit ghastly but ultimately turned into a ripper of a race.
Qualifying went reasonably well if a bit congested at times and I had to be content with a lap a full second off my previous best in the Chaparral. We actually got a clean roller start! Take a bow, guys.
Coming off T6 on Lap01, the race was on and I gassed it up to T7 with Fulvio in close company. There, I suddenly found cars going very slowly indeed and I went left to miss them but collided with Alain's Lola to spin to dead last. Turns out that Phil had bunted Pete and caused a bit of a drama. Picking up the pieces, I pressed on passing a few cars til I ended up some six seconds down on Fulvio on Lap08. Over many a lap to follow, I slowly whittled away the margin as he was having a fierce duel with Alain. It wasn't until about Lap18 that I actually got a whiff of his slipstream as the gap was now down to all of two seconds. Lap19 and a major development as Alain got the Lola well out of shape entering T9 and Fulvio slipped by for the place. I was close enough to get position on Alain for T1 and scampered by to follow Fulvio. A hard lap for Alain. It almost looked like Alain backed out of it and voluntarily gave me the place. Perhaps his tyres were cooked.
This left me close to Fulvio with Alain not that far behind. A good trio having at it with seven laps to run. Following Fulvio onto the back straight, he could out-pull me coming off T8 but I could close further along the straight. Clearly, he was sporting a bottom gear lower than I. My 1st gear was substantially taller which let me run from T9 all the way to T8.
Comes Lap22 and I'm close enough exiting T8 to catch a good tow on the back straight and I position off Fulvio's right. I was surprised in that I think Fulvio got out of the throttle early and I surged by going into T9. I wasn't really making a serious bid but one musn't look a gift horse in the mouth, right? We rounded T9 virtually side-by-side and in the run down to T1, my taller first gear paid dividends as I maintained the place. Alain had fallen back a couple of seconds but was still in the mix. Fulvio made an easy pass on the back straight on Lap23 and I could hear the fat lady warming up in the wings. To start Lap26, a mere 1-1/2 seconds spanned the time between Fulvio and Alain with me the filling in the sandwich. Sadly for Alain, his threat evaporated with a spin in T1 on this lap. In many cases like this in a close battle with someone of equal performance, I would ask myself, 'What would Fulvio do?' Knowing that he is the cleanest and safest of GPL pilots, the last thing in the world I would want to do is bungle a pass attempt and shunt him off. Coming off T8 for the last time, I was really close to Fulvio this time and got a fine tow. I took up position on Fulvio's right and breezed by into T9. My Chaparral ran very slightly high and I feared that Fulvio might get position on me in the run to the flag but no, he came up just 1/10 of a second down. Fabulous race! Great job, Fulvio!
I scored this one 4/5 over at GPLWeekly.
Some terrific battles up and down the field not least of which was for the lead. Only resolved by a massive shunt by Clive in the late laps. Bad luck there, mate. Yannick fully deserved of the win. Nice turn out of entries, chaps.
Thx Doni, it was a pleasure to race with you.
