Coming into this race my best hope ( frankly my only hope!!
) was to win with Hrsito 2nd and Tim 3rd, or for Tim and Hristo to tangle on lap 1 and take each other out of the race. Not that I would wish that on anyone
.
If you won and I had finished 2nd, you would've still lost the title by 3 points according to my calculations, so the other scenario was more realistic. Or you winning and me finishing 3rd or lower.
I was struggling to come up with a decent setup in Qualifying. The one I had was quite weird, I wonder why I left it like that whenever was the last (and probably first) time I drove the 43 at Silverstone. Despite that, I could see that only Al and Tim were somewhat close, about half a second off. Eventually I managed to improve the setup and do a better lap near the end, but the positions didn't change anyway.
I knew the start was critical if I was to escape any risks of Lap 1 incidents, especially at T1, so was glad that the Lotus sheer amount of torque pulled me off the line despite not exercising the best throttle control at that moment.
Once we went going I could see people behind fighting each other, but I wasn't sure who's who as I had no time to check who is driving what car during practice. For some time I thought that white car behind is Evil but after 3 laps and paying attention to my pitboard, it was confirmed that it wasn't him because he was now up to 2nd in a green (so I thought) car.
The green turned to blue once I eased off to give him a tow because leaving Tim out of the fight was important for the championship and I suspected he was close in 3rd or 4th at the time. Thanks for the mod's insane long slipstream, it didn't take long for Evil to be powered up and come closer.
From there on I was just controlling my pace, looking after the engine and trying to keep it neat and tidy. Can't say the same for Evil who was frighteningly sideways in my mirrors on numerous occasions, but somehow always managed to catch it on time and continue. I was afraid that he might retire and promote Tim to 2nd which could've endangered the points situation (of which I forgot to get better informed before the race).
At one point of the race Evil was very fast and through sheer determination he was closing up at some corners where the odd handling of the otherwise powerful Lotus left me going into without much risk. At other corners though he would struggle and so we kept some sort of a balance.
Eventually I could raise up the pace safely as the fuel loads went down. Backmarkers were no problem at all as every one of them slowed down much earlier than necessary to let us through - thanks guys, but you don't have to go to such extent.
I went for a fast lap near the end and it was even better than my pole lap which just proved the setup changes were working in the right direction.
It's nice to win this Championship again, although this time it was much closer, partially due to what happened at Road Atlanta and Riverside, but it's all part of (online) racing I guess. Grats to Evil for a well deserved 2nd and Tim for the strong late charge in the 2nd part of the season and 3rd position at the end.
ALL OUR VICTORIES ARE BELONG TO HER!!!