That was a very tough race! I thought I could challenge Evil for pole until he probably went low on fuel in the last minutes of the session and improved by nearly half a second, but at least I just managed to pip Sam for 2nd on the grid.
I dropped a bit of time at the start as I didn't expect Evil to accelerate before the last corner
, but then managed to close up a bit with the aid of slipstream. The gap stabilized at about 1 second for maybe 2 laps, then Evil decided to lift up and let me through for his own reasons. Once ahead, it was clear that I was at least half a second slower, but Evil refused to pass me and was just lifting up a couple of times per lap to stay behind. At the same time he was really close in corners and sometimes I even thought he might hit me on corner entry as he (typically) braked later. I must say I was not happy about all that, because it allowed Sam to catch up and if Evil was leading instead, we would've managed to pull away with his speed and myself benefiting from the slipstream.
Anyway, I tried to go as fast as possible, but the Mirage was a bit of a handful on more fuel and I couldn't really carry a lot of speed through corners. There were some issues with backmarkers - one choose to slow down right on the ideal line on the top of the s/f straight, another kept going off the line but not lifting up much, so with Evil glued on my back, it was a close call.
I noticed Sam closing up as we entered the final 1/3rd of the race, and with double pressure from both Evil (who had finally decided to speed up at this point as he had to defend himself) and Sam, I had to take bigger risks. Braking for T1 was always a problem and unless I kept modulating the braking pedal, the car wouldn't stop efficiently. Eventually I failed to do it properly and went wide into the grass there at T1, but didn't lose too much time, just dropped to 3rd.
I thought I had nothing to lose at this point, so I started experimenting with handling the car, and found a way to throw it into corners sideways and then balance on the throttle to exit the corner in a drift, and surprisingly it could carry a lot of speed that way and be consistent, as long as I didn't make a mistake. This little change in driving style gave me some additional pace and with the help of slipstream from Sam's car, I managed to close up within 3 laps and make a move on him going into T1.
Evil was a different story though, as he was some 2 seconds up ahead and I needed more laps to close in and I wasn't even sure he doesn't have more speed in reserve. Maybe he didn't, because I kept reducing the gap at a consistent pace and was soon benefiting from the slipstream of his 2F. There were 3 or 4 laps to go at this moment, so I started attacking as soon as I got close, but Evil was defending well by taking different lines, even though I'm not quite happy with how that went on in certain moments. One particular such moment he decided to move to the middle of the road and I was caught up by it and dropped a full second or something, which decided the outcome of the race. I managed to close up again in the last 2 laps, but it wasn't enough.
Top result for the team though and grats to Evil for having such a great pace, but I think he could've won without all those games early on and in the final few laps, his 2F was just fast enough on the straight to make a move whenever he wanted to. Grats to Sam for adding to the excitement as well.
