Nothing but problems in my race last night, and they all seemed to be caused by Porsches...
So I've decided to go with Jaguar after two seasons with McLaren. I'm DR-B, SR-S. But it’s a low B. One really bad race and I’m back in to DR-C, and I’ve heard scare stories about RBR being a punt-fest, and was in two minds about entering this event.
I missed out on Suzuka, so RBR was my first race of this season, and I was only able to do the 8pm slot. Practice had gone well, with me regularly hitting mid 1:30’s. I decide to enter, and I'm allocated door number 10.
Qualifying: Well, that was a disaster. My first flying lap was OK for about 3/4's of it, but then I encountered a slow Porsche that I couldn't get by, so I decided to abort the lap, back out of it and give myself a nice gap to try again. So I check the track map and decide that once the the Porsche has got past the first corner I would go for it. That should have been a big enough gap to a flying lap with no drama and no fear of catching anyone else up. I was easily on for a top 10 time when lo and behold 3/4's of the way round the lap I catch this same Porsche again, who decides he's going to block me whenever he can and then force me wide at the second to last corner. Over the kerb and white line I go, 0.500 penalty, which as it's my last lap gets rounded up to the full 1 second. I'm down in 19th. Thanks a bunch.
Race: Oh, I was enjoying that, right up until lap 9. Before then I had been making my way past the some people who had not taken cold tyres in to account (learnt from that mistake - decided to put TC to 2 for the first lap in order to at least keep me pointing in the right direction, before turning it off for the rest of the race). Some were running wide, spinning off and/or colliding with other racers. By the start of lap 9 I'm up to 10th. From 19th! Nice. And then I encounter two Porsches having their own battle, so I manage to pass both of them on the entry to turn 3. 10th to 8th! I'm really liking this. However... I think one of the Porsches didn't like the fact that he had been overtaken fair and square, and as I exit turn three there is a massive bump on my right rear, forcing me on to the grass and in to a spin, coming to a rest right next to the barrier. I got frustrated while trying to rejoin and managed to spin it round again! For a split-second I thought about rage quitting, but decided not to. I'm back to 19th, with only six and a half laps to go. 18th is 12 seconds up the road, but fortunately is not going particularly quickly, so I caught and dispatched him within two laps. A couple of cars were having a ding-dong battle up ahead, and I smiled as the both run wide allowing me to nip past. 16th. OK, not great, but making progress. And so that continued for another couple of laps, and entering the final lap I'm in 13th, which, from stone dead last with half the race gone, I was happy with. Coming up to turn 2 on the last lap and there is a Citroen in front of me who is going really slowly, perhaps on the verge of running out of fuel, so I'm able to nip past him with no drama and continue on to the flag. So 12th was my final position and a 200 point DR loss. I could have, and should have, finished much higher considering I was 8th until I was forced off the track.