sigh... Not a great race for me. A combination of things including lack of prac due to V8 league race on Sunday, being tired, non-wet capable setup and silly mistakes. On the positive side everyone I raced around was fair and patient. Well done to all who attempted this mammoth race. I don't blame anyone for bailing early as I came close to that myself.
Q: I knew I was off the pace so I just tried to get a decent lap in that was close to my PB. I did that but was last of Silver class in P24.
Race: The start was hairy but I got through unscathed. Lap 1 was good but coming around T1 lap 2 it was concertina city and a clown must have been playing a tune! I could hear the silly circus music in my head after I smacked straight into the back of poor
@SteveDrivingSlowly. There was no way to avoid it but I'm sorry anyway Steve. He and others were strewn across the track and I guess they were all hearing sad violins at that point. Somehow I didn't get spun but I drove off with some lovely front aero damage - clearly my Porsche needed to be even slower in a straight line (yeah I know - violins).
After that I think I had a decent stint. I can't remember a lot TBH but there was some cool battling including with
@kuda which turned out to be a race long thing
. It looked like the stint timer displays weren't working in my HUD so I got a bit worried I'd stuff it up but eventually my spotter confirmed the stint time was coming up so I took my first stop. That went fine and I thought things were looking good for a decent at that point. How wrong I was.
Later in the 2nd stint I spotted the weather indicator switch to upcoming rain. It was actually perfect timing for me as I was in the window for my stop. I decided to carry on a few more laps to see how I went. I was OK on the slicks for almost 3 laps but late in that 3rd lap my tyres went blue and I lost a bit of time. So I pitted for wets.
The stop was fine and out I went, but immediately wished I was still on those blue slicks. I literally had zero grip. For a few mins I thought maybe the game had put on slicks but no - they were wets. But they might as well have been made of ice. I've never had so little grip from actual wet tyres in a game ever. I couldn't keep the thing on the track and after a couple of spins finally ended up heavily in a wall. I crawled back to the pits in despair to get it fixed but forgot that I'd unticked the fix bodywork and suspension boxes earlier and of course the game is too stupid to put them on when you've got massive damage (grrr Kunos). So as my moron crew changed tyres again they ignored the bits of bodywork and suspension hanging out everywhere. They completely ignored my yelling at them too (which my neighbors may be able to attest to).
Facing the prospect of a perilous 5 min lap just so I could pit again I nearly rage quit. But as I left the box I realised I could escape straight back to the box and load a wet setup. So I did that and after waiting the 30 seconds of locked controls I got back out there. it was pretty lonely for most of the rest of the race with only a brewing headache to keep me company (so why do I sim race again? oh yeah that's right - for fun!). Then the damn rain started to clear and my wets became melts! There was about 10 mins to go and I thought I'm not going to pit again so lets see what happens to this rubber on a warm Belgian afternoon. Science experiment time!
Pretty sure I left most of that rubber on the track in the last three laps. By the final lap the car felt like a shopping trolly in an earthquake. I could see Kuda gaining massively and realised that he was going to catch me. He was on my tail by T13 and I defended weakly into T14. He had the inside at T15 and as I kept wide I expected to see him cruise past but instead there was a bump and I went off track. No blame though as I'm sure his tyres were giving up too. I recovered to the track but unfortunately I think he spun as I he disappeared from my view.
So I finished in P17 and I'll take that as it seems things were worse for many other drivers. Congrats to Andy on the win and to Terry and Dan on the podium.
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