Decided not to pit this time and see where it leads me. Well, tyres got up to 50 worn on the fronts and 40+ on the rear. I was losing 4 to 5 sec per lap in the end, compared to my best times. That means pitting in 25 laps race @ Suzuka would be better than not pitting. Considering I had three offs as I tried to drive on the edge with worn tyres confirms it as well.
Went with 37/38 wing this time. Ade must have had higher wing as I could get closer on a straight and he got away through corners. How were your tyres Ade, how much did they get worn?
Stayed with Ade and GT close on my tail. While my tyres were good I could stay close to Ade and edge away from GT. Then I made a mistake and lost a few places and had to repeat the process.
After Ade quit and my tyres were starting to go GT crept closer and closer and got past. Tried to stay close but made more small mistakes and was losing time. Fortunately GT wasn't immune to the same. I had a feeling between 10 and 5 laps to go that I could get closer a bit but at that time my front grip was so low that I had to lift off on the long uphill left-hander and was losing a lot of time there. Then in the last few laps I was just trying to keep the car on track. All in all might be just that we were differing on driving style where I was quicker on some parts and GT on others. My only advantage was in the first seconds of acceleration, then Benetton just drove away. Bad luck with accident on the last lap, GT.
All in all Arrows seems competitive inside mortal drivers class, but the tyres have to be changed. If Benetton doesn't have to change tryes then Arrows is out of league. At least with me behind the wheel.
Ade got some crazy speed out of it, my limit in quali spec was high 36s.
Hope in the next race I can use planned pitstop strategy and then we can fully measure and compare.
I don't mind standing starts but I'm not against our standard procedure if it means safer starts. Killing 10+ % of cars at start is not an option for me. Or you could practice standing starts, sbg.