As soon as I brought the car on 3 wheels to the finish in the previous race, I vowed to prepare so well for the next one that I wouldn't have to deal with the likes of Nat whatsoever, so I started practicing one very same night back then, and kept doing practice runs throughout the 2 weeks period before yesterday. The fact that the track layout seemed rewarding towards driving ability more than car advantage was in my favor and so the only thing I had to do is get used to my new wheel and work out a good setup.
Neither was easy to do as braking while holding the wheel with one hand and dealing with FF at the same time took a while to get used to, and then the setup part turned out to be much more complicated than usual. In fact, I came up with a setup that felt both fast and consistent just yesterday before the race, after an hour or two of practice. I probably have about 20 setup revisions for this track alone now, lol. Although the setup didn't allow me to reach or better my PB from earlier days (which was a 23.7), it was easier to drive lap after lap and handled both T2 braking zone and the jump very well.
Qualifying went better than expected, as it appeared the others were simply not as prepared as I was, taking wrong lines or lifting up where they shouldn't, but still Raoni, as in all previous races, managed to do a very good lap and come within 6-7 tenths in 2nd place. I would imagine this must be a very difficult track to do with keyboard, so well done to him!
The start of the race was good and as always, Raoni dropped back because of using keys. I went a bit cautious in the opening laps as I haven't practiced with more fuel, but the car felt OK. The problem was you never concentrate fully when you ease off, so after a few laps I made a mistake in the braking for T2 and went off into the grass on the outside, but managed to rejoin just as Nat arrived.
From there on I drove just about flat out, only looking after the engine, and didn't make any big mistakes anymore, apart from a bad landing at the jump on one lap later in the race. By the time Tim appeared in 2nd place, he was too far back and so I only focused on dealing with backmarkers, most of which were in the form of Bernie learning the track during the race.
It was a close call during one of those times when I caught him up at T1 as he was going much too slow, so I narrowly missed him on the inside and then we braked side by side for T2 and he choose to go off to avoid hitting me.
Looking at the remaining races, Spa is going to be impossible to win or maybe even get a podium, so my only option would be to win all other races and see how the championship turns out in the end.
