After that it was just a case of staying in front of Bernie who was 20secs back, but after i got a Pit In sign for an 'accidental' short cut i could see the leaders approaching.
Sorry about that - I thought I had waypoints disabled but couldn't be sure due to the race list not being up
I know it's a bit late now but you could have ignored the mesage and continued. Had you reported it after the race I could have re-instated your position when the results were finalised (I'd have to check the cause of D/Q first, and then figure out how! but it can be done)
My own race started well enough leap frogging from 4th to 2nd off the line and I settled in quite happily behind Hristo with Clive rapidly jumping Goran to take 3rd.
For the first lap or so it was fairly tight with me staying as close as poss to Hristo and Clive all over my own gearbox.
After a couple of laps I'd lost a tiny bit of distance to Hristo but gained a few hundred yards on clive which was making things easier - It was becoming clear that I was unlikely to pressure H much unless his tyres gave out early.
I therefore chose to work as hard as possible to use the slipstream to loose Clive - this eventually worked and after opening the gap to 150yds on the main straight clive lost my draft and started going backwards finally.
All was well for a few more laps until I made a mistake, this disrupted my rythem and overheated my rears which allowed Clive to regain the draft - Without Hristo to tow me along the straight this allowed Clive to get on my rear in no time.
Hristo then rejoined us and the 3 of us set off in tight formation, me desperate not to loose ground on Clive.
My still over-warm tyres didn't help this and resulted in Clive pulling away from me after a while, he in turn lost Hristo's draft shortly before they lapped Bernie - Clive appeared to loose some time in his passing maneuver, which combined with my drafting Bernie along the entire S/F straight allowed me to catch right back up.
2 laps later and with Goran right behind me I lost the rear into T1 when I got the transition from concrete to tarmac wrong while trail braking - I span off and handed 3rd to Goran.
I rejoined and went like the clappers - eventually my tyres returned to a sane temp (Again!) and I could start turning decent laps. This allowed me to stop Pod's own attempts at gaining on me and eventually resulted in my regaining a couple of seconds on Goran (After the spin I'd reach 5 seconds down - this was reduced to roughly 3 seconds by the flag).
Again the results suprised me somewhat as I'd chosen Dijon as a 'power' track*, perhaps Tom would have helped vindicate my choice had he been here with his BRM although Goran's pace in the BT11 seemed good enough to challenge for a win in qualifiying.....
Due to my expectations in the race results (Which were wrong again!) I'd chosen to go with an experimental setup featuring positive rear toe
Thinking I don't have a chance at victory so what does it matter!....
It worked perfectly as intended but made the entry to T1 tricky during the transition across the concrete/tarmac under braking which was to eventually cost me 3rd. I can't see many circuits where this setup will help me but it's deffinatly one I intend to use again when it gives gains
Well raced everyone.
Well done on a podium for Black Night, Goran.
And I supose a well done to those fiendish Waza's too.
* When the mid season review goes up I'll appreciate honest input into my track choices this season - I thought I'd chosen a good spread of power Vs Handling/technical circuits but going by comments after races it looks like I misjudged - So please use the mid season to help me address that for next time
(If only to stop Hristo winning again
)
