I was so intent on making sure that everyone remembered the rolling start that I was too late joining the grid!! I suppose I could have tried to regain my slot on the warm-up lap but I thought that was a sure fire recipe for disaster, so I trundled around at the back of the field.
My race was doubly complicated, because the server automatically had me as a lap down from the start so the only way that I could judge my position was by remembering which cars i had passed. Also I could not expect other drivers to know that I was actually racing them for position if they were relying on the info from prib. Each pass had to be made very cleanly and that meant it took longer to work my way back up through the field.
In clear air I could lap close to 1:31 secs, but I had very few clear laps!! lol. My progress was steady and the setup on the Mirage worked quite well, provided I did not abuse the rear tyres with too much sideways action. At about half distance i caught Dave Ranier and I could see a little further ahead the rear of Phil's Ferrari. Passing these two would get me up to about 4th or 5th position
. A good plan, but of course, the higher that you progress up through the field the tougher the opposition becomes. Dave proved difficult to get past and I had to push the Mirage very hard to try and make an opening, but after a few laps of pressure I made it through. Then there was Phil who made the most of the extra power in his Fezza and used clever defensive driving to keep me behind him for quite a few laps. I was trying increasingly hard to find a gap and it was beginning to heat up my tyres. several laps later I had still not managed anything better than a partial overlap that was never going to become a pass....ruddy Fezza power on the straights was just enough to negate my faster speed through the corners. The inevitable happened as the tyres reached a temperature where I lost the rear and went wide. Dave reagianed his place and I had it all to do again.
It took a few laps until I caught and passed dave again and I was just beginning to close on Phil again with about 5 laps to go, when I lost it again and the impact deranged some engine components. A quick look at prib ( which I was using to tell me the gaps to the cars around me) showed that I had a good time gap over the next car but I might NOT be able to maKE it to the finish. So a 10 second pitstop finished any chance of a better finish and I cruised home behind Dave Ranier.
Grats to Hristo who showed that the Porsche is a force to be rsckoned with and to the other fast boys who enjoyed a race long battle for the podium slots. Grats also to Phil who defended his position with some very clever driving and prevented me getting past ...the swine!!
Just a reminder that the last race at Le Mans Sarthe Will be approx 90 mins long, so maybe you had better start your endurance training and bladder control exercises??
