Another mid pack finish. Got away ok with the pack and gained a few places early from driver errors. Patting myself on the back for such a good start this time and outbraked myself into Bolderalphabetsoupwhatchacallit (turn 8) and punted
@maximuscatticus off track. I slowed on the inside to redress but I though I hit him off a lot further than I had as he zoomed straight by. I had a WTF moment then took off but the next placed driver (
@Ford69xw or
@Mick I think) was already alongside so I tried to stay tight. I ended up cutting the chicane, bouncing my rear over the ripples and spinning. DAMMIT!!
I'd lost a fair few places by the time I found clear track to rejoin, and found myself now chasing
@anne for most of my first stint, which later became a Watson sandwich as
@arnold watson gained a penalty at the first chicane. For me now that chicane will be named Watson chicane, as a few laps later annewa also succumbed to the ripples and gained a penalty allowing me past.
So now as I'm coming up on my pit stop I see
@disturboed off in the distance just over 10secs and clear track behind. Turbo pitted a few laps before me and I put my head down while I had a clear track to try pick up some time. After I pitted and rejoined I had indeed made up a second or so but I'm guessing an error from himself lost him about 4 secs and the gap closed to just over 5 secs.
All of a sudden I noticed that
@Telum came from nowhere and was slowly closing, taking tenths out of me for every little error as I also slowly closed on turbo. Familia got the gap down to 3 secs before thankfully he pitted for some reason which left me to only worry about turbo.
My pit strategy seemed to be paying off, with seemingly better tyres towards the end after a long first stint allowing me to close on turbo, until with two laps to go we came up on some backmarkers. Turbo seemed to make it through fairly cleanly at turn 2, but when I came up on them at the second chicane I got baulked on the exit. I lost 3 secs to turbo and was left wondering what might have been if I'd gotten by, trundling home in 6th.
Well done podium.
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