I was quite nervous before the round, because during testing I wasn't feeling very good and struggled a bit with the pace.
But race day is race day and Road Atlanta was always a good track for me, so I bit my lip and threw everything I got at it.
GT2 US lobby, very high DR B, 130 points, door 5
A GTP-familiar "face" was on the grid as well,
@MIE1992 if I remember correctly.
Qualifying went very well, a lap of 18.7 gave me 2nd spot (there was a chance of improving, but I caught a penalty on my last flying lap). As per my testing the strategy was to start on mediums.
After the start I held my position and it was visible that the Canadian Porsche that started on pole was driving on softs, pulling away.
The American Ford GT behind me was within one second for the first laps, but I ran a FLAWLESS (that doesn't happen often for me) medium stint, clocking high 19s with low 20s (best lap on mediums was 19.4). I was feeling so well that I started to gap the Ford behind and pulling in the Porsche ahead. When they pitted for mediums on lap 10 I was about 1.5 seconds behind.
I entered pits at the end of lap 14 (in testing I tried 12 and 13 laps on mediums, but I felt so well that I decided for one more).
When I emerged out of pit lane the Canadian Porsche was just a bit ahead (about 2 seconds I think).
I knew I had a chance to catch them considering my compound advantage, so I stepped on it and within two laps I was at their tail. They struggled in some corners and my softs were still working great when on lap 17 a bit wide exit from turn 7 allowed me to tighten the line and hammer down the throttle to get past the Porsche.
After that I never looked back. There was one lap in my soft stint where I made few mistakes (it was high 20s lap), but other than that I kept the Canadian Porsche honest and managed to finish victorious with 2 seconds to spare.
Well, that was unexpected, but something clicked today and I was able to give my best all race long and even something more as race time of 29:48 was a complete surprise (my best time from testing was 29:59), but this is all down to my perfect medium stint, this gave me a chance to fight for this win. And pretty fat 130 points (my best tally so far), with a big bump in DR 😬