Well, what an end to my first ever season in a GPL league!
After Zandy I realised I was only a couple of points off Natan (this was before the moderation and his penalty) and realised it was all or nothing here at Monza.
Not being overkeen on the nothing part I spent last Friday night working solidly on setups and simply working out the fastest and most efficient way around Monza - When I said in the pre-race chat that I did 100 laps I wasn't kidding, the lap counter had just flipped over to 0 again when I finished my final test run in the qualifying setup (Named 'Crazy Qualifying' due to the mind bogglingly daft camber settings and wierd gear ratios
)
I was slightly disapointed with my qualifying result as the setup was good for consistant 1.36.9xs when I created it, just couldn't find that extra tenth on the day even though Pribula was telling I was good for 1.36.6something. All 3 of my fastest laps were good for pole though so I was happy enough anyway
Then the start:
Was double checking my setup and furiously bailing fuel out of the tank having noticed the race was 3 laps shorter than I'd planned for, I think I joined the grid with only 4 seconds to go!
Then proceeded to switch off all my pribula displays barring the gap behind/ahead display and nearly forgot to select first before the flag was raised
I made good when the flag was dropped as I made a perfect full throttle launch down the track, I was so pleased with this and the sound of someone behind bogging down (Jethro as it turned out) that I totally forgot about my unusual gear setup and plonked her into 2nd the instant I reached 12,000Rpm.
Major disaster! 2nd was geared long enough to take me through the entire Lesmos complex without changing so I was now at just under 8,000Rpm and watching Nicky making a slow advance on me in Prib.
Luckily the rest of my gearing was slightly more conventional so I'd stabalised the gap just before entering Curva Grande, where I managed to pull .1 of a second ahead, each Lesmos gave another .2 which had me at approx 1 second in the lead already!
The next two laps were a pleasure to drive as my race setup is so utterly controllable and easy on cold tires, lap 3 saw my first 1.37 and a gap of over 2 seconds to the car behind, It also brought warm tires and an end to my pleasure as the car entered race mode.
Gone now was the perfect balance of grip between front and rear tires, replaced with a slight tendancy to understeer that would rapidly snap to oversteer if a tire got too hot - it was however a very fast and consistant setup so worth the risk I felt, I have a few idea's to squeeze another tenth or 2 out of it for next time.....
I spent my time from here to lap 7 concentrating on fast clean laps, then I caught a glimpse of what I believe to be the temp guage showing nearly 120 degrees C!
As I was slightly pulling away from the field still I took to changing at 11,500 and occaisionally using third between the Lesmo's, this brought the temps down again and didn't seem to let Jethro catch me at all so I continued with the nursing....
Everything remained stable until about 2/3rds distance when Jethro threw out his balast and started to very slowly pull me back in, gaining a couple of FL's on the way - My 'safe' race tactics had to be thrown out of the cockpit now if I was to win so the 12,000 rev limit was re-drafted and where suitable I held 2nd between the Lesmo's (By this point the car was of course faster, I was hitting approx 13,500Rpm on these ocaisions!).
It slowed his approach but he was still coming, with about 3 laps to go the gap was 2.5 - 3 seconds when I caught (Burt?) spinning down the track on the exit of Lesmos 2. It seemed that each time I changed direction to avoid him his car would move that way
Thankfully he stopped spinning in time to see me and stay clear so I got past cleanly, at Parabolica Jethro wasn't to be so lucky - don't know what happened there but the gap went from an indicated ~2 seconds to showing the car I'd just past again (I couldn't seem to see more than 1 car back either) some 8 seconds back.
You shouldn't be penalised for your Shift R I'd imaging Jethro, and looking at the analyer I'm not 100% sure it cost you a win anyway.
It would have been damn close by the line (under half a sec by my reconing
) but unless I made a mistake under pressure I don't think you had time .
So, a very hard race despite the lack of wheel to wheel battles for position - thanks for keeping me sweating! (literally! I stank after that race
)
Thankyou to everyone in the league, you've been a pleasure to race against. I have fond memeries of battles with probably half of the field!
And - of course - A really big thankyou to the moderators and admin here at UKGPL, none of this would have happened without you
Now I just hope I can keep my seat in the Honda as Mrs. Fujikawa has sent recruitment 'officers' to my house to request I join them - They have big swords so I don't want to have to say no!
*edit:
Oddly enough my Replay analyser only shows peak water temps of 104 degrees and oil temps of 106
Seems my safety ploy in the midpart of the race was unnessary, I also need to study my dials a tad more carefully so I know I'm looking at the right ones!
