That was an eventful race and the result was not perfect, but I was happy with all the commotion in all 24 laps. It's probably perverted but that's my idea of a good race, lol.
I managed to do a good lap in Qualifying and narrowly snatch pole from Mike, but knowing how I need to drop the pace in the race to preserve the engine, there was not much hope in keeping him behind. And surely enough, even though I got a good start, he was soon in my slipstream and passed me on the s/f straight, and there was nothing I could do.
Unfortunately for him he disappeared with a d/c, so I was back in first, but not for long. As we approached the hairpin, I kept my eyes on the mirrors for too long, partially trying to figure out if Mike has appeared again and to see where JR is. In doing that I clipped the outside grass in the braking zone and spun off.
By the time I rejoined in 4th or 5th, the leading 3 (JR, Clive and Lorenzo) were already some 7 seconds ahead. Realizing I need to up the revs and risk the engine if I was to catch them, I put my head down and charged on.
Lorenzo was replaced by Clive in 3rd and for a few laps he managed to keep the gap at 6 seconds, which surprised me because my laps felt very good. I could see all 3 of them close to each other in the distance, so at least catching one would mean catching all.
To get an upperhand I extracted all the horsepower of the engine where it counted and the oil temperature went quite high, but there was no other way. It worked and the gap began to come down.
When we were passing some backmarkers I could pick my lines better than the top 3, so that was another advantage in my favor. I was finally able to catch Clive at about mid-distance, and when he had a bad exit off the penultimate turn I got into his slipstream and went through up to 3rd.
It was going to be more difficult with Lorenzo who was trying to pressure JR, but was very fast in the middle sector, so I couldn't get close to him for a draft attack. There were about 10 laps to go though, so I thought there's plenty of time.
All that went out the window though, as we closed up on Evil before the hairpin and he slowed to let us through, but then accelerated into the corner and clipped me just as I was turning in (np, Evil). Didn't even see him in my mirrors, so that caught me by surprise.
Back to 4th place and some 5 seconds back on Clive, I completely forgot about saving the car and just drove Qualifying laps. Clive was still very fast and I couldn't reduce the gap as quick as I'd have wanted to, plus we had a lot of traffic which compromised some of the laps. In the meantime I noticed that Lorenzo and JR have pulled quite a gap ahead and my chances for 1st were all over, but the least I could do is try to get 3rd.
Clive's Lotus had too good of an exit out of the slow corners so I couldn't quite catch up his slipstream. On the final lap all I could do was put pressure on him and hope he goes wide somewhere. He actually did, on the last slow righthander and we drove side by side towards the last kink.
Of course his acceleration pulled him ahead almost immediately, but I kept into his blind spot and forced him to think I was still side by side, so he opened the door into the fast right and I just managed to squeeze through and grab 3rd.
Grats to John for the very stable and consistent run (and a pb) and to Lorenzo for the Cooper effort. Of course to Clive for the fun battles too.
May UKGPL live for at least another decade!
-=Hristo=-
