Grats to Hrsito and Tim and commiserations to Tom who was pulling along a three car train for the first few laps before running wide at T2.
That left Hristo ( who else??) in the lead, closely followed by Tim ( who also might have taken the lead ) and yours truly tagging along behind
. The rest of the race was a slipstream fest between the BT7's and my Cooper.
I was happy to sit back and be dragged along by Hristo and Tim for the first half of the race, but then Tim decided that I should do some work and feigned an off at T2, forcing me into 2nd spot and the chase after Hristo who had eaked out a couple of seconds lead.
Always willing to do my bit ( well when my arm is twisted a long way up my back
) I started the painfully slow process of reeling Hristo in. It took a good few laps and almost ended in disaster at T1 when I gave the wooden fence on the outside the lightest of kisses on twop consecutive laps. OK, one of the "kisses" was more of a lip crushing snog...with tongues, but I survived it, although not without some damage to the directional stability under braking mechanism. Tim also discovered this damage when I braked the next time for T2!! I think he took a short excursion onto the grass
It took me a lap to understand the problem and drive around it, before concentrating on closing down Hristo. As a result of his diversion Tim had fallen back and the gap was growing by a tenth about every 2 laps, just as the gap to Hristo came down by the same amount.
Just as I got close enough and began to pick up a strong tow from Hristo, stretching the gap back to Tim to a beyond slipstream distance ( it seemed) , Hristo slowed to let me pass thinking that I was in a quicker car and would pull him along........I mean?? really??!!
It was honestly the slipstream that had pulled me up so quickly once I was in range.
My gearing was all set up for slipstream and was far from ideal for leading a race which was quickly obvious when Tim caught us and Hrsito launched himself past me again.
The rest of the race was a cat and mouse battle between Tim and myself that allowed Hristo to ease away to a clear win. A couple of corners side by side with Tim at full throttle in the closing laps, but I still could not force my way into 2nd without risking both our races.
3rd was more than I had expected against some of the faster chassis around Zeltweg, and the race was FAR more fun than I had anticipated.