That was certainly my worst performance in a race in the last couple of months. After a promising start with going side by side with Jet through the first 3 corners, I got passed quite forcefully by Neljack and 1600, sort of like TOCA-style. Was a good fight afterwards though until I first had an off in Turn 6, dropping to 6th. That was still ok, since I didn't lose too much time. But then, about 23 minutes into the race, I went off in the Rainey curve, damaging the car quite badly, went into the pits, the car didn't brake, so I went into the wall in the pit entrance and lost more time.
I had planned both for a 2 or 3 stop strategy, so that wasn't too far off from the 3-stop one. With the new tyres I managed to make up some time then and was close to the leaders when they pitted after 40 minutes or so. Of course, I lost some time again when my tyres started to fade. What followed was not very eventful, except for people spinning or swerving right in front of me when I was about to lap them (Fox and ADM twice), which cost me precious seconds. It was beginning to show though that I would have no chance catching up enough to contend for the podium.
When the leaders had made their final pitstops, I was sort of with them, but still had to make my own last pitstop. When I finally did, I was pretty far behind already, then ran wide again in Rainey, so I had to pit one more time for repairs. I came out with 1600 just lapping me, so I let him go. Jet also was closely following, so I wanted to let him by, and somehow went into the gravel again at Turn 11. I then managed to get it together and followed 1600 and Jet. It was pretty easy at that point with my newer tyres to follow them and watch their fight for the lead. Smuffy then came closer and I let him pass so I wouldn't interfere with the fight for positions.
Very disappointing race for me, especially since I felt I could have been there without all those mistakes. Oh, well.
