Got a nice start to both championships today. An alternative strategy with the LMP1-H Audi and a surprisingly competitive Nissan GT3 brought home a good haul of points.
I did the first slot Nations race and that lobby was mental! Must've been 70K average DR or something silly... Then of course I had to botch the Q completely: penalty in the Dunlop chicane (0.4s only but still) and in the end I was a complete 2s slower than in my practice quali runs so started mid-pack at 9th I think. Thanks to my race sims from earlier I knew that a no-stopper was possible for Audi with some fuel map trickery and lift & coast and knew it would be ultimately quicker than stopping if I got some draft help from others who were going full throttle all the way. Well, got that kind of in the first laps and around lap 4 I commited to the no-stopper.
When the leaders pitted I was 16 seconds behind and still managed to get P1 with
@mthomas_95 and
@mclarenLB a couple of seconds behind when they emerged from the pitlane. At this point I knew I had to still do some heavy fuel management so I let mthomas by and tried my best to keep in the draft. Managed to do that well enough until the last lap after Mulsanne corner where I lost the Porsche. At this point I was already running on fumes and mclaren was closing in. Entering the Porsche curves he was right behind, but then dropped back for whatever reason. Also I managed to catch mthomas' Porsche right at the last chicanes as he was also slowing down (because of fuel or penalties maybe?). Crossed the line with nothing in the tank less than half a second behind 1st. Without the Q mistake could've won by a mile but I'll gladly take the 2900 points as well.
The no-stopper was a good strategy for penalties as well! Penalties at Le Mans are pretty much inevitable so having to lift & coast due to fuel strategy was perfect for burning those small penalties. I picked up a few penalties for minor short cuts (mainly going wide at few places) and one lift & coast to Mulsanne chicanes would burn away 0.5s. Pretty nice!
Manufacturer race at Suzuka was bit less chaotic, thankfully. Got second on the grid with the Nissan (a pleasant surprise) after RC_Miura. We battled a bit for the first laps and I almost managed to overtake the him in the Supra. After 4 laps or so my front tyres started to wear off and he started to pull away but then ironically he did a 'Timo Glock' and went off onto the grass in the final corner.
After that it was just nursing the tyres until lap 6 where pretty much everyone pitted. I was surprised I had used relatively more fuel than those behind me and decided to under fuel a bit, just to keep myself in front of Derek who I knew could pull away if he got in front of my Nissan. Exiting the pits we were around a second apart and that was the most it was for the whole second stint. Again, I was using too much of my front tyres and had to do some fuel management as well so Derek was all over my back the last two laps. Managed to keep first place without too much defensive driving (thank you Nissan straight line speed!) and took the checkered flag on 1st position less than half a second ahead Derek's Lexus. Whew.
So yeah, a successful day of racing! Can't wait for Saturday now.
then got 666 (
) points in the manufacturer cup, with an unfortunate spin that compromised my race with the Alfa 
still not bad, considered it was a full A+ lobby 
. Started 8th (not so bad in a room full of A+/S guys), managed to keep top ten until lap 12, I crached in that last lap, finished 15th lol. FIA isn't for me. I should better focus on my calendar predictions 
