Well, it's been another interesting evening for me. Began with the 19:00 Manufacturers, as the sole Mustang in a lobby shared with
@Lost Sheltie. Qualified 7th on softs with a time of 1:28.887, only three-tenths off pole. The Mustang felt good around Brands Hatch in practice, and I was fairly optimistic that a careful and cautious run would mitigate the more severe wear that soft compounds tend to give.
Began the race by following and trying to get a run on an orange Lexus, who ran wide on the exit of Graham Hill Bend. The Lexus forces me to the inside on the approach to Surtees, and we make contact as I try to back out and let him take his line. He slides, flashes his hazard lights at me, and I lose 7th to a particularly fast, but ragged Hyundai. Despite this setback, I marched on, retaking 7th and catching up to the Lexus once again. It dawned on me at some point that another decent points haul was potentially in the bag. Eventually, I get a run on the Lexus coming down Brabham Straight, only for him to shut the door on me and force me to move to the outside. The yellow flags come out, the pole-sitting Evo has binned it at Paddock Hill Bend, and we both move up another place. Not much else changes until Lap 6, where I accidentally upshift under braking for Surtees and slide off into the grass. A fast-charging Cayman breezes past me, but thankfully I manage to get back on the tarmac and keep going. Over the next few laps, I keep a steady beat as others falter. The fourth-placed Alfa loses control after hugging the kerb at Westfield; the Cayman nudges the Lexus at Druids; the Lexus shoves the Cayman off on the kink before Pilgrim's Drop and earns himself a 1-second penalty. Soon, I found myself up in 5th, but had to contend with managing a badly-worn front-left to the very end. Both the Lexus and Evo caught up with me just before I took the checkered flag, but couldn't take away my second-best score of the season - 1,581 points.
For Nations, I settled for the AMG GT3, and had earlier managed to get a 16:26 run in a test lobby. Qualifying went fairly okay, with my initial lap of 2:02.51 being good enough for provisional 6th. Having done a 2:01.819 in practice, I felt I had the pace to go one better for my second lap. But, despite gaining one tenth in the penultimate sector, I couldn't quite string it together and so started 13th, right behind the only other AMG on the grid.
Starting the race just before the Casio Triangle wasn't going to be advantageous, and the AMG felt very slippery in the opening moments. Even so, the first lap brought me hope - the 10th-placed Porsche lost control coming out of the Triangle, and one of the GT-Rs served a penalty on the run to 130R. To save my tyres, I decided to take a steady approach to the race, making sure not to drive too aggressively while following the other Mercedes as closely as possible. Thankfully, the AMG has a lot of traction and straight-line speed at its disposal, which proved useful as we gained more places on a twitchy Audi, then a Porsche struggling for grip on the penultimate visit to the Triangle. I gained a good run and passed the Porsche into turn 1, securing 9th place as he slid wide onto the run-off. Just before the line, I got another run on a NAPA-liveried Renault from the Triangle, missing out on 8th by just five-hundredths of a second. Still, another solid haul of 1,175 points (formerly 1,176).
And after those performances, my DR rating has officially crossed the 48K mark!
