Well, that went well. But holy moly it almost went to garbage.
I didn't save some of the replays, so text will have to do, but the ones I did save were put in a video that I'll share.
So, after mustering up some courage and telling my ladder anxiety to go 🤬 itself, I went into Race A. My DR wasn't going to push itself up on it's own.
It went pretty shockingly awful. Qualified 3rd, and there was a lot of DR on the table for me to take, multiple A-class drivers were on the grid as well as the odd A+. But I should've known better than to go to Race A...
Race starts, I get a good launch and I've got the inside to the first corner, carefully managing my inputs to not cause any contact; this race would be just for 2nd since the pole sitter was bloody quick. But it was not to be. Some knobhead fellow Argentinean decides it's a good idea to chuck it up the inside, pushing me and the brazilian driver wide into turn 1 and again into turn 2 and he comes out in 2nd. Myself? Cool 2 second penalty and having to bear the anger of the brazilian driver who thought I was to blame and pushed me off the track into turn 4/5. Rejoin in 8th and stay there for the remainder of the race. Damage limitation strategy worked out; DR hit was minimal (100 points or so) and SR hit was also minimal (99 down to 94). But it dawned on me and my ladder anxiety came back; telling me to not risk it anymore.
I said 🤬 it, I'm here to race, and went to Race C for three races.
First race, was myself on 2nd place and an Evo on pole position driven by a brazilian. My inner Hamilton thought "interesting tactics", as I, in my anxiety, went wide in turn 1 and almost got passed by 3rd place. The problem is, anxiety is a very big problem for me. When I get anxiety, I get cold, start to shiver, my hands get sweaty, and I feel like a mess, but I can only fight through it. It happened in my first ever Sport race, and it keeps happening to this day
.
Nevertheless, I recovered. I watched the gap to the Lancer. .850. Started going down on the straight. The McLaren has better top end, and I clicked together and quickly caught up to the Evo. My strategy for these races is to see if the person ahead of me is quicker than the rest. If they are, I'll flash twice and put my hazards on, trying to do some morse code version of "you keep driving, I won't pass you, let's work together".
I don't know if the Evo driver didn't understand what I was trying to do, as he started going defensive into some corners. To make it more obvious, I decelerated and let him reclaim the normal racing line, and I think he understood it then. We started pulling away from the pack, and a few laps later, after thinking my tyres were in good enough shape, I went for the overtake in what is, in my opinion, the best passing opportunity; turn 1. A clean cut move into the inside promoted me into first place and the Evo, even with draft, was losing ground in the straights to the McLaren. At this point, I began to push; I knew I was faster on raw pace from previous laps and if he tried to match me, the Lancer's F-AWD layout would bite his front tyres and wear them fast, reducing his pace and making him possibly back out from the push and conserve what rubber he had remaining. My predicition was correct and by lap 9, I had a good gap, taking the chequered flag in respectable fashion.
In my third race of the day, we met again, and exchanged a friend request and some kind words. He was still in the Evo, so I thought about the same strategy, but behind us there was a canadian driver in a GT-R. Things got interesting.
Off the bat, I could tell the GT-R was quicker than the McLaren on a straight and off tight turns. But, the previous strategy wouldn't work for me as the Lancer, on purpose or not, started backing us up.
"He's backing me up into Ricciardo! 🤬!", I thought, as you do when you follow F1 memes
. Clear cut decision; the GT-R would eat me up if he caught up at the right moment, and even then, by lap 2 he was launching it into the inside, trying to pass, but I held on. I passed the Lancer into the consecutive left handers after he went wide and the GT-R did too.
Change of plan, as I adopted the previous race's strategy but flipped on it's head. I would race passively, defending, parking it on the apex to conserve my tyres. The GT-R would be quicker, but his tyres would also be 🤬 by the end of the race, or, I could push when a mistake put him out of my slipstream range. The latter happened. The canadian went wide on the final corner, losing crucial speed and putting him back onto a 1-second gap. I pushed for the following laps, in healthier tyres, setting fastest laps one after the other and pushed the gap up to 2 seconds. He got into a battle with the Lancer, slowing him down further and by lap 10, they were out of the race entirely. I cruised to another chequered flag.
The fourth race was more "meh" than the others. GT-R on pole, makes a mistake on the consecutive left handers, I take first place and carried it without problems to another chequered flag.
And... I MADE IT!
View attachment 943799
See you all next week, hopefully. What are next week's races again?
Start of LAp5, yellow flags are waving 7 seconds ahead at T1. SOmeone quits. Well, whaddaya know? The SLophy quits. Hate that crap. 
