You know, I find it funny how a few of you just had to comment on an incident that doesn't involve you directly and then you come telling me how I should avoid raising up the point in the forum.
Let me assure you of something - once the report system works properly (and I hope it would, because I have a lot of things to report and send client replays of), there will be far worse things to moderate than what happened on lap 2 (YES TWO, NOT ONE, so forget about lap one moderation covering this).
As for the race itself and I'll try be as polite as possible (which will be difficult) it was an intense one, with lots of ups and downs, and despite winning it, the overall feeling was that of disappointment. The reason? Drivers who are supposed to be one of our top drivers were showing no respect or self-control whatsoever. The rest will go into the reports (but I DO want to submit client replays, so find a way to fix it please).
I had done no practice for this race, but having had a lot of races at Mexico and with a decent amount of experience with the Porsche now, it was mostly down to coming up with a setup solution. My Kyalami setup seemed to work fine and with a few gearing adjustments, it was good enough for putting me into top 3 on the grid. I think I was on a potential pole position lap right at the end, but caught up with Paul in the last corner and as much as I tried to go to the inside, it didn't work and we made contact.
The start was OK, but my longer 1st gear allowed Tristan to go up into 2nd and then we followed each other for 1 lap, in which I must say Tristan was driving like a madman and nearly lost it a couple of times as if it was the final lap of the race. I chose to settle behind and just wait for him to make a bigger mistake, because it would've been way risky to try and race him at that point.
We then reached the hairpin for the 2nd time, on lap 2. It was obvious, right from the start, that the pull you get from the slipstream is quite noticeable, so it was mandatory to ease off before the braking zones and brake slightly earlier, to avoid hitting the cars in front of you. Juha apparently did not acknowledge that and although I accept his apology, it doesn't change his responsibility for what happened next.
As I was spun around, I noticed the upcoming cars were still about 100 meters away, so I thought I had enough time to turn around and continue, but the car reacted slower than expected and JUST before I hit the apex, 2 cars approached at full speed and crashed into me. Now, I do take responsibility that perhaps I didn't judge the situation absolutely perfect, but I also blame the upcoming cars for the same thing, as they arrived full speed and very close to each other, as if there was nobody stationary at the hairpin and no yellow flags being waved. But anyway, moderation would shed more light on this, hopefully with taking client replays into consideration and not just server replay.
I continued, car damaged somewhat, with the rear end stepping out of line very easily, so it took a lap or two to adapt to that, and by that time Tristan and Sergio were just blobs of pixels in the distance, but there was enough time to try and catch up. It soon became clear that Tristan is slower than Sergio and was dropping behind him, and that allowed me to catch his slipstream within a couple of laps.
Catching is one thing, passing quite another, and Tristan still driving rather aggressively, but not really efficiently, I needed to make my overtaking maneuver as good as possible. The opportunity came when Tristan went wide at the hairpin and then had a bad exit off the next chicane, so I went for the inside of the following fast right. Tristan refused to give any room though and just turned full speed across in front, narrowly missing my car, but not missing the backmarker that was right in front of us. The speed difference was great and they made contact, with Tristan's car bouncing off the armco on the left and as much as I tried to slow down and go between the cars, there was some light contact as it was impossible to predict the trajectory of both vehicles.
All this gave Sergio a bit of an advantage and he was now about 3 seconds up in front, but I hadn't given up yet! Some fast driving for the next couple of laps and with some help from backmarkers slipstream, the gap started to shrink gradually, so once I had the benefit of using Sergio's slipstream, it was a matter of 2-3 laps before I was in a position to attack. Sergio's car was very fast on the straights though, as well as through the final corner, so despite him making mistakes in the corners, I couldn't really get close enough to try and pass him, so I just settled patiently and followed him around.
About 11 laps from the end we came up to a backmarker at T 1and it appeared as if Sergio didn't acknowledge his presence because he braked at his normal point and carried his normal speed through the corner. That meant he was suddenly forced to take evasive actions to avoid rearending the backmarker and as they both went wide, I sneaked through and into the lead. As I exited T2 I came up to Jason's extremely slow moving car and it was a bit of a close call going around him. A corner later I passed Jonny's very slow moving car as well, so I was wondering what the heck are they doing, cruising around like that, lol.
I had about a 2-3 seconds lead for quite a while after that, but with the very long slipstream that these cars provide and as I caught up backmarkers in corners while Sergio benefited from their slipstream on the straights, he finally managed to close up the gap and make an attack at T1 with 5 laps to go. He took the lead, but didn't get the best of lines through the next few turns, so with a better exit off the previous corner I had a run on him towards the hairpin.
I moved to the inside before the braking zone while Sergio kept going on the outside, but as we were braking he moved across to block me and contact was inevitable. We continued, with Sergio hitting the outside armco and thus straightening himself up, and we approached the next chicane side by side, but as soon as he entered it on the inside, he slowed down all of a sudden in the middle of the corner and I had to move to the side to avoid him. That sent me into the curb on the right and the collision with it spun me around...
I managed to continue but the gap was now about 2 seconds, with 4 laps to go. Not someone to give up though, I kept charging and using all the experience gained from the laps until this moment, I started to experiment with some lines through T1 which seemed to work and my lap times improved noticeably. That allowed me to close up on Sergio as the race was coming to an end and I did my fastest lap 2 laps from the end, despite going off out of the Esses, with the gap to the leader reduced to about 1 second.
Sergio lost the rear end for a moment on the exit of the corner before the hairpin, and so I slipped through in the lead, but as I turned into the corner, he just drove into me at much higher speed after totally missing his braking point. Arrogantly enough, he drove on as if nothing happened and I was back in 2nd, but the red mist kept me going and with some fast driving through the Esses, I made a move on the exit of the penultimate of the 2 left handers, tapping him slightly as he was going much slower but it was nothing major, just a taste of his own medicine and he continued without spinning.
I was fortunate enough to catch some slipstream from a backmarker on the last lap and thus compensate for giving Sergio the benefit of my own slipstream, and despite being very close at T1 he couldn't launch an attack. I kept the lead for the reminder of the lap and won one of my best races, overcoming all the dirty and disrespectful driving that I've witnessed and recovering from all the time lost.
Of course I'm sorry that my rejoin caused Raoni's retirement, but it wasn't as clear-cut as it he made it sound in chat, and it was done in good faith that the gap was enough and there was enough time and room, plus relying on the upcoming driver's judgement that it was a scene of an accident and that they should ease off a little. As for Tristan and Sergio, I'm very disappointed with the way they conducted their racing, so instead of it being a fun battle until the end, it was quite frustrating and unpleasant racing with them.
