Soooooo, Manufacturers 1st slot. In the Jag.
Not ashamed to say that I bottled Nations last night, after doing a few practice laps and having a think about it I didn't fancy a slipstream train (potential) penalty fest that could wreck my SR with little time to recover it before today, and in lobbies I'd shown good pace for Spa, so here we were.
I knew from lobbies that the cars good on tyres were ridiculously quick at the end, but if there were enough Jags or Lexus etc to block them coming through... if you qualify far enough ahead then they
shouldn't get close enough to be a problem. Just need to stick it on pole and hope the other beasts do the business 👍.
Didn't stick it on pole though! Qualy was decent from position point of view but mediocre from a time point of view, took 4th with a 27.0. Pole was a Brit in a Merc who did a (in my eyes) stunning 26.0, and sandwiched in between us were a Renault and a McLaren - so much for the beasts keeping the dogs at bay! My lap was done in clean air and they may have had slipstreams, but I was disappointed not to be mid 26s, anyway.
Chose to start on softs, which was always the plan if near the front and I felt I'd find out pretty quickly if those around me were or weren't on the soft tyre. They weren't, they were also doing fuel saving by the looks of it, so it was time to take advantage of Jaaaaag power and soft tyres. I was going to post a very long message, but I'll throw the disclaimer that on L1 I couldn't see my braking reference for Rivage (luckily didn't collect anyone) and I'll leave this here...
First five laps and then L6 after the pit stop are where most of the action happened before I became the proverbial cork in the bottle for the rest of the race. In all the excitement though I did forget to save the race replay so I couldn't get to see any of the shenanigans that went on behind me as I backed everyone up!
First FIA win!! And 265 points, a great start to the campaign
