then I caught Dave for a few laps. Again I was unsure if he had crashed or as it turned out he was running some strange pit strategy and I knew I had to make a pass.
Dave's tyres were obviously very tired and his car was not as fast as before. He got on the power a little early and lost the back and that was me back into 2nd.
Nothing particularly strange about my strategy. It was pretty clear that Gary was too quick for me to do anything about, but I was fast enough to consider not changing tyres to jump Brian and then seeing if I could hold him off, knowing how hard it is to pass at Infineon.
Aimed to stop and half distance and take another 8.5 gallons on top of the 8.5 I started on, but when we caught Spanner as the first lapped car the opportunity to pit 4 laps early and avoid any traffic presented itself and I took it. Told the crew to leave the tyres on and bumped the fuel up to 9.9 just in case as I hadn't got far enough to be absolutely certain of making it on just another 8.5. In hindsight that was a mistake as the car felt rather heavy for a few laps, and it turned out that I finished with over 2 gallons in the tank.
Anyway, after other cars stopped I was back up to 3rd, with Gary way off up the road and Brian just under 40 seconds ahead. I thought that would be very close when we stopped, and sure enough my double stinting strategy worked and he came out a few seconds behind. After a couple of laps getting his tyres up to temperature he soon caught me, and I had to start pushing hard in two critical places, the very fast chicane at the end of the lap and the exit from the long downhill left handed carousel type corner (T6 I think), as both lead to possible passing opportunities.
It worked for a few laps but I was pushing a bit too hard on old tyres and fed the power in too early on the exit of 6. The car snapped left and I couldn't quite get it straight before brushing the wall and letting Brian by. With some trepidation I set off again and realised immediately that the at least one of left suspension arms was trashed, making braking tricky and right handers downright scary. With nearly 20 seconds to the Sharks behind I pressed on, but at 4+ seconds a lap off my pace there was no hope, and eventually the car failed to turn into the first right hander of one lap and Simon scampered by.
With Mike having his own dramas I still managed to nurse the car home for fourth - actually, I didn't so much nurse it as slave drive it to within an inch of its life. Very sad to end my solid podium run like that, but with Paul H missing this round that's enough to ensure that
I am the champion! 
and also that
Team Shark are the champions! 
