Was quite a good tussle with Raimo in the end in both races. I knew I only needed a single fourth place to clinch the title but ended up staring defeat in the face in race one with Oily headed to the front after the qualifying débacle put him in prime position for an early triple tow past the rest of us down the Kemmel straight (though I think Gazza would like the paint you pinched from him in Les Combes back!), and then Fabio had some sort of drama that saw him rejoin right behind me, ending any prospect of retaining the leaders draft.
I dropped back behind him knowing that he was faster and hoping he could tow me back up to them, but that went horribly wrong when he dropped it on the exit of La Source and I t-boned him, leaving the steering straight but causing enough damage to leave me with half a second loss on the two very fast sections.
That left me a sitting duck to Raimo, who promptly demoted me to fifth. The only good news was that he was in the slightly slower Cup car, so I fought tooth and nail over the last two laps to retake and defend fourth,
just holding out for the points I needed to clinch fourth.
So for race 2 the pressure was off - and my job was to support Picnic in his attempt to seal third place from Raimo's challenge. Things started badly when I was too busy talking to Pete over TeamSpeak and selected the Cup car - for which of course I had no setup, and had done no practice - and then got far worse when my PC crashed (again!) on my out lap. By the time I'd rejoined the chequered flag had already been thrown at the end of qualifying and so I couldn't even do a sighting lap.
Luckily most people hadn't managed to do a clean lap and I ended up fourth on the grid again. I soon slipped behind Oily who joined the pack of weavers at the front and set about learning what gears I needed in the Cup car for each corner, having a few big moments along the way downshifting one too many times in places.
That let Raimo and Picnic catch up so I got stuck into Raimo again as he once again demonstrated that it's possible to race these cars closely without bouncing them off each other, even at a drafting track. My plan was not to beat him - it was to slow him down enough to allow Picnic to attack him. That failed when Pete made a little mistake on the penultimate lap and slipped back a second, so I dropped back and tried first to tow him forward, and then push him along, but never found a safe place to try a bump draft.
Luckily with all the aliens in the race Raimo couldn't score enough points to steal third so we ended up with a Shark 1-3 championship.
