I really don't think the chassis differential is that great - if you look at the results the 9 resets for Ferrari v 1 for Lotus says more to me.
The 2nd part of your statement negates the 1st - in my opinion it was because the Ferrari is a bit more of a handful and has worse torque out of slower corners that led to Santas having to push harder and therefore ended up making mistakes and having to reset. And also, I couldn't really tell who was a Ferrari or a Lotus unless I was already side by side with them, so it didn't really help to distinguish friend from foe.
It was fun though, especially the opening laps, but also Qualifying where I didn't really think it possible to beat Joe and Tim for pole initially. Then some improvement in my time brought me a tenth behind Tim's time and so I went for a final push right at the end of the session. The first flying lap was quite good, but the 2nd one felt even better, but ended up a tenth slower because I started running out of fuel before the final corner.
I had a good start, but was overly cautious into T2 and the following corners, which bunched up the pack behind me, with Tim nowhere to pass though. The Fezza was really sluggish off the slow corners with all that fuel onboard, but it had quite good top speed, so my only concern was making the most of the 2nd hairpin and the right hander before the backstraight.
Joe was on fire early on and due some minor mistakes on my part which involved cooling my tires in the snow off the track a few times, he was able to pass both myself and Tim who was stuck behind me at the time and still couldn't find a way by. Joe was surprisingly quick though and was soon almost a second ahead, having blown me away in the section out of the first hairpin up the hill until the long straight.
I tried to respond and managed to put some pressure on him by closing the gap a bit, and not before long Joe was doing his pirruette, surrendering the lead in the name of Santas.
Tim was a different story though, since I couldn't expect him to make any big mistakes, but eventually he must've done at least one such because he dropped out of contention and the hard-to-break-from tow which I was giving him for the past few laps.
The race felt rather long and lonely for the reminder of the distance, with the ocassional Elven backmarker blocking me more than they should, but without any bad consequence. One particular bad elf was Ronnie who raced me with a lap to go just to lose it under braking going into the first hairpin and launch himself into the tire barrier - no hard feelings, but I had a laugh and I'm sure Santa Sr. did as well.
All in all quite a good event, and I'm sorry if it irritated someone in the chat before the race, for I was having fun commenting and interrupting the process of choosing drivers. A voice inside of me was telling me to shut up so we don't delay it further, but it was too amusing to pass. Besides that, I agree with Artiglietti that it's really confusing when people either use a totally different nickname from their real name or change their nickname too often. I mean, it's OK for a forum and even in a race, but not for a live chat and team assignments.
Grats to the Elves for the gift they got from Santas, because it really was just that had it not been for several Santas retiring early on. I'm sure everyone had a good reason to do so though and perhaps the penalty for a shift-r was too severe. It led to a situation where the team would lose less points if the driver retires than if they shift-r.
Looking forward to another such event though, it was entertaining! Perhaps Tom (van Ostade) can transform the next fun race track for winter conditions, because TBH I really like driving them with such visuals and the fog settings.
-=Hristo=-
