Had a terrible Manufacturers race. Practiced about 20 laps, all of them between 2.02.2xx and 2.02.7xx.
Then qualification: opened some space in front and behind me, and started my routine, was doing wel until the corner just before the hairpin, in the esses I had to avoid a ghosted car, he immediately started following me and pit maneuvered me so I was doing 360s into the sandbox. Lap ruined. Next lap again a ghosted car in the esses, he steered onto the tarmac right in front of me (I had nowhere to go) and got solid in front of my nose, I did try to avoid contact resulting in, again, 360 and into the gravel. After that my tires were worn out, I did manage to get a 2.05 lap resulting in P17.
Race started and I immediately felt something was a bit off. It felt like the grip was much less then during the free practice session. The GTR on P18 started pushing immediately and eventually pushed me off track, placing me dead last.
I did manage to get back to P15 due to other people making mistakes and sightseeing in the sandboxes. I pitted after lap 9 and after changing my tires the car handled the same as during free practice again. Obviously I was not in a good flow so the fastest lap I managed to squeeze out was a 2.04.xxx.
Really disappointing race since the race pace of the leaders was around 2.02.6xx so it feels like a much better result should have been possible if only I would have been able to set a lap time similar to my practice session.
I think it's very strange that the car felt so much different during the race session compared to the practice session, but then again, maybe it was just me and I made the car feel nervous because of my own nerves, however, I never experienced this during daily races.