3rd Slot, Top Split again, and indeed the win WAS less than 200 points.
@mohitraina91 was in this one this time. In spite of being Top Split, DR ranged from A+ to B (yes, SR was 99), so the points for the win were only 189, meaning I had to win this to even have a salvageable score...so that's what I did.
I qualified 2nd, 0.083 off of pole, after turning my best lap of the night of a 1:29.3xx. I stayed in 2nd for the first stint, with
@mohitraina91 in 3rd making me a little nervous as he started to reduce the nearly 3s gap near the end of our first stint. I planned to do either a 1 or 2 stop based on what the leader did.
I pitted on Lap 7 for Hards, while the leader went another lap on the Mediums and made a mistake, I assume from getting the handbrake application wrong (he was definitely using the handbrake track from the puffs of smoke I saw at T1 and the chicane). That meant after they pitted I was now the leader. They began rapidly reducing the gap, leading me to assume they were on Mediums again. With a gap between 2nd and 3rd large enough for me to fall into if I pitted, I decided my best chance to try to win was to throw on some Mediums before 2nd place had a chance to pass me and open a gap. I came out of the pits in 2nd place and set about trying to reduce the gap to the leader before they had to pit for their Hard tires. Ultimately I won by 1.7s once they pitted for Hards on Lap 14. This was my 2nd time winning at Fuji but scoring lower points than I wanted to (I won during the last "real" season in Manufacturer's at this track for 196 points). No point in going again since the points would probably only be lower.