Hopefully brands runs smoother than rome did. And also hope to see
@Gueven Art back with with a more improved connection.
As for the race itself, it was a great race. Too bad eol and skeng had to go though. That would've been a great battle.
Started in first and the decided to hand the lead off to logic immediately, half a lap in
. Got a little greedy with the apex curb and the wall kicked me out in the chicane - left side damage. I proceeded straight in to the pits after that.
Then I knew my pit strategy was going to be tricky, so I winged it pretty much. With free track ahead of me I decided to make good time and make the front left last. I went from 10th to 3rd in the first third of the race, because many had pit for damage early also. I made my first real stop at minute 22.
Came out in fourth behind karsten, logic and seven. Still pretty much running my own race. I had passed everyone through the pit cycles up to this point. My next decision was to change my pit and race strategy. I went for pure speed and one more pit stop since saving the front left while making time was next to impossible with my setup. I figured that if I was to catch up I'd need to cut over a full second a lap to make up the 40 second gap that would come from a necessary extra pit stop.
Pitted again at minute 32 to make it two 14 minute stints of quali pace till the end of the race. Got to say, after that I really got into a groove and was doing consistent low :05's. Still have been quite lonely at this point
. But then I finally caught sight to first place at the time, karsten, who then pitted and I took first place for the moment.
I then took my last pit stop two laps after karsten. I then once again and quite luckily had a clear track to desperately make up a 15 second gap to logic. Set a personal best lap here and running high :04's at this point. Then I catch up to three cars with 8 minutes left: logic, snake, and fili, the latter two being lapped cars battling for fifth right in the the middle of the battle for 1st. I ride around for a few minutes to see when I can pass or if they blue flag themselves. Snake gave way on the front stretch after flashing my lights, then fili did so half a lap later on the back straight, both very close to logic. In front of traffic now I could now work on logic. Immediately after fili gives way and right behind logic going into the chicane and logic does Exactly what I had done in the first lap; gets a bit greedy on the apex and runs wide into the wall where I had to avoid him after his lose of speed. I just barely avoided hard contact with logic and managed to slide pass on the inside on the exit of the chicane.
In first, but still not out of the woods yet, "do I have enough fuel to make it?". Fortunately I had a big enough gap since logic was on much older tires. So I took the racing equivalent to taking a knee and letting the clock run out so I wouldn't have to make another lap.
Other than my first lap crash, I'd say the race went absolutely perfect for me to do what I needed to recover. A very lucky and anomalous race in that I dealt with no lapped or slower cars until the very end.
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