Was a fun race, first couple of laps I was amazed how slow
@andyo450 was. I was thinking wtf, then after we came across some traffic and he got a smallish gap. He fired up the afterburners and gtf out of there in a hurry, I think I suffered some burns as the space ship took off.
From there I knew the only way I could beat Andy was if he beat himself with some penalties or got tangled up in traffic, knowing the Porsche was not fast in a straight line and not good on tyres in the heat, I was just happy to not be a total sitting duck as I held up the guys behind me. As it got hot my tyres were well cooked and I planned an earlier stop soone after 65 minutes to make it home within the stint limit. I messed up the last chicane on my inlap as I braked too late and didnt have enough rubber to make it. There I lost a place to Terry and Jesus, crossed the track and pitted in with about 63 minutes left in the race.
I went fairly high pressures on stint 2 with the hopes of the car getting better as it went into the night, it was a bit crappy before sunset but the car got much better as it cooled off. I was about 8 to 10 seconds down to Terry and Jesus, but Jesus kept on going as my times started improving. Terry however was a few tenths per lap down and I started to claw the gap back, I got it to about 3 seconds with 20 minutes to go but had a small mistake losing about 5 seconds. I then clawed this all back to catch him with a couple laps to go.
I saw my stint timer wasn't looking good as Andy was well ahead and even though I had about 2 minutes to go as the clock got to 0. I was a lap and a half from finishing the race. My stint timer ran out into the final chicane on the last lap after Andy had already crossed the line, but I got an 80 second penalty for going over my stint time.
I think for future races we will set this stint to 70 minutes, being 65 minutes the crew chief warns you stint is running out and at 60 minutes he says your stint is over. Maybe Kunos special here of 65 minute rule being a 60 minute rule, adding the extra 5 minutes will mean anyone stopping with 65 to go should be able to make it to the finish within their stint time.
Here is my final laps of the race and you can see the time of the DT which was when my stint time ran out @2:35
This is what the 2018 Spa regulations say. I did ask in the official forums and Panky replied its as designed, he says the stint limit is 60+5 overtime. However my reading of that rule has it as final stint is from pit exit line until the end of the 24hr period which I read as clock reaching 0.
Click to expand...