Really great race for me, was really pleased with the car in the second stint and felt great driving it
Qually was as Simon said, difficult to get a lap in with all the GTC's around. After my 2 flying laps were both baulked I think everyone thought Ginsters would hold on to take a deserved pole, but I was very lucky and
*just* had enough time to rush round an out lap and hot lap and stole it right at the death. About 2 seconds after I crossed the line the session changed, so I was seriously relieved!
I was expecting Zacari to be the main threat again, but he managed to bin it warming up his tyres - doh!
After that, Simon SBG and me all pulled away in a group and I struggled to go any quicker than them. It was quite scarey going into T3 (left hander) as SBG had such a different line to me and went in tight and much, much faster. Luckily we both had a consistent line so we could manage the gap fluctuating round the lap.
We hit lap 8 and I tried to make a break before we hit traffic - if you can get a car or 2 between you the gap just opens up and luckily I think I pulled just over a second before the first GTC's, and after that it just grew and grew until it was about 10 seconds.
The stop went ok, but a weird problem before it...I was hammering the pit in button and getting no response. One of the perks of running a full tank at the start is you can be flexible on when to stop, so I started exiting the last corner, switching to the chase camera and looking at how busy the pit lane was by going up against the pit wall! There were a few cars at the front of the pit lane but most of it was empty - curse GTR for being so stupid allocating boxes!
On checking the replay, it's lucky I didn't pit in as Darren was in my pit bay! Sometimes it is best to be careful
That screwed up the pit timing as I stayed out for 2 laps longer than I planned, but with plenty of fuel on board, I didn't lose much time.
After the stop the car felt terrific. In previous races when I've been out front, I would lose concentration and go off at some point; so I decided with the engine healthy, I'd attack to get the best lap but for 6 or so laps in a row I caught one or 2 GTC's
every-single-lap. Soooo frustrating! They were all great mind you
Zacari pipped me by 9 thou as well - my best lap involved overtaking 2 Vertigo's at the last 2 corners but I wouldn't have got CJ's record so it doesn't matter
Saw SBG retire....try GTR XD or whatever it's called. At least then you can see when your engine is feeling rough and be kind to it.
Congrats to SBG on a stella early pace and
Simon (what?!) on keeping right at the front. Epic improvement and if I were you, I'd use whatever setup you have there as a solid base for most other tracks. It could see you up front a lot more often!
Tough luck to Zacari who had a bit of a nightmare race and somehow managed 4th
No doubt we'll be battling at the next one
Congrats to Freq on yet another win ([cough] ballast [/cough])
Way ahead of you. Me, Kerr and Zacari have agreed to run 20kg for at least the next UE race and probably the rest for this season depending on how amazing SBG is in qualifying
In all fairness though, we have a very similar pace and have a great time battling each other (when some of us aren't spinning on the warm up lap
) even if we do shoot off into the distance, so we're testing it as opposed to commiting to it. The whole point of the ballast is to make your races more fun right? I think a 3 way battle sounds pretty awesome!
Well done on your win too Paul - maybe you should consider running the Verti-slow?
Haha. Nice one to TT as well, one of your on-form races
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