Ok, so that went much worse than planned. It started well enough though as I managed to snatch pole by 0.03 or so from Jammy. Held on to the lead at the start and in the first 3 laps Jammy was constantly at my tail which distracted me a little. The Mustang accelerates a lot better out of the corners, so he would always start overtaking until the Toyota's top speed advantage kicked in in the middle of the straights. I then ran a little wide in the second horseshoe and he went past, which resulted in a little role reversal - he would charge ahead onto the straights and I would catch up at start/finish, sometimes braking earlier so as not to run too close into turn 1. I then let a little off, but stayed inside of a couple of seconds as I saw we were getting away from the rest and there was no immediate need to risk more.
That's until lap 14 when I took a slightly wider line on the bank before turn 1 and just when I stepped on the brake I hit 'The Bump' (which I'm sure many of you have experienced before). What makes the bump so bad, is that you're a) late on the brakes as it is, b) you're already turning a little, so your car makes a jump closer to the wall, and c) there is a barrier sticking out of the wall a couple of car lengths further down the road. Well, said barrier brought my 2000GT to a halt from approx. 275kph to 0 in about 3 milliseconds. The car naturally was utterly destroyed, but not only that, I had to drag it around a whole lap to get back to the pits, which cost me about 2.5 minutes. After the repairs I was running 8th in class and more than a lap down on at least the top six, so the race was basically over.
I thought I could maybe try 2-stinting the remaining 55-56 laps, but after another 20+ laps the back of the car suddenly stepped out exiting bus-stop and I went into the wall again. There went my 2-stop plan. I had another mishap later on when I came in another time for repairs, but the car turned left too much on pit entry, which caused me to be reset to the right and the stop to be canceled, so I had to go around damaged another time. It didn't change much anymore. I finished just ahead of Fox, but a lap down on him.
Oh well, chance of the championship is surely gone now, even with double points at Le Mans. Going to enjoy the rest of the races and try for some good individual results. Just need to find a little more consistency.
Jag to follow.
