After winning from pole at Monaco in the Sauber, I upped the difficulty to Legend for Canada. I then proceeded to put the car on pole again
.
Quali was mixed conditions, in Q1 I was sitting around 5th or 6th on pure pace, with Ericsson doing pretty well too (our car has been upgraded pretty well compared to others, due to my obsessive collecting of development points).
Q2 comes along and it's raining. Intermediate weather, so I quickly go out and put in a banker, in which I make a few mistakes and end up about a tenth ahead of Ericsson. I pit, and go out again, and nail the lap this time, and surprise the hell out of myself by putting in the fastest time in Q2. Ericsson qualifies 11th - his best of the season so far.
Q3 starts, still raining, and the track is very wet now. Everyone goes out on wets while I stay in the pits and switch to inters. The reason I did this was because I saw the weather forecast was for the rain to stop, and I figured the track would be ready for inters by the end of the session. The gamble went beautifully, as I left the pits with just enough time for an outlap (started my flying lap with 4 seconds left on the clock
). I was by far the last car on track, with a few cars not even making the switch to inters. Managed to put in a fairly tidy lap, with only a couple of tiny mistakes, and scored pole ahead of Rosberg (by 4 hundredths!).
I was pretty chuffed the wet weather had played into my hands, considering my pace was well off pole in the dry.
The race starts dry, and thanks to the wet Q2, I am given a choice of starting compounds for my strategy. My first instinct is to go with the hardest compound (soft), because the forecast is for rain later in the race, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make them last all the way till I can put on inters. I decide two sets of ultra softs would work better, as I'm doubting my ability to keep the Ferraris, Mercs, and Bulls behind me on the softs.
I start my warm up lap, and to my surprise, both Mercs, both Ferraris, and both Bulls, are all on softs. It's at this point I start thinking I've "done a Ferrari" and screwed my strategy at Canada. I'm thinking that hopefully my pace on ultras is enough to build a gap to the faster soft runners, to allow the extra stop, and hopefully catch back up to them before the rain starts. I'm also wondering if they will be able to make the softs last, if the rain holds off for a while.
The race starts fairly well for me, everyone slots in and we all settle in for the race. Hamilton, who had a poor quali, starting behind both Ferraris and one Bull, quickly makes his way up to fourth. The Ferraris both had pretty bad starts and ended up behind Hamilton and Verstappen. Verstappen and Rosberg trade second place a bunch of times while I am unable to pull more than a 3 second gap in my first stint
(dry weather pace confirmed lol).
I pit to put on the second set of ultras, and rejoined behind a bunch of midfield cars, including my team mate, the Mclarens, Toro Rossos, and a few others. I quickly dispatch the Rossos and Ericsson, and spend a few laps picking off the rest, until I'm behind the front runners, with a large gap to close down. Thanks to their old softs giving them a significant disadvantage to me on new ultras, I manage to eat into the gap before the rain comes.
By the time the rain has set in and wet the track enough for inters, a bunch of the soft runners had already pit for a new set of dry tyres. My guess that they may not make them last is true of about half of them, including Rosberg, both Ferraris, and Ricciardo. Verstappen and Hamilton managed to make theirs last, and we all pitted on the same lap for inters. I came out of the pits 15 seconds behind Verstappen, and about 20 behind Hamilton, who had fought his way past Verstappen before the rain had started.
Due to my good pace on my second set of ultras, and the Ferraris, Ricciardo, and Rosberg trying and failing to make the softs last, I had undercut them all, and found myself in third. Rosberg had good pace, but so did I, so while he was rapidly dropping the three behind him, he wasn't gaining on me, and I was slowly but surely gaining on the two ahead. The rain continued to get worse, and eventually I made the choice to take an early gamble on wets.
This turned out to be a bit of a mistake. I was ten seconds behind Verstappen before I stopped, and thanks to my strong pace on inters, I only lost one position, to Rosberg. But the track wasn't quite ready for wets, and my outlap was a slow one, dropping a full 2 seconds to Rosberg. However, from my second lap onwards, the wets starting really coming into their window, and I was suddenly gaining multiple seconds per lap on the guys ahead. I didn't have many laps left in the race, but was lapping 3 or more seconds per lap faster than the leaders. I passed Rosberg like he was trying to find a parking space, and was reeling Verstappen in at a rapid pace. I was expecting Verstappen and Hamilton to likely make a late stop for wets, as AI usually does in racing games when it gets too wet at the end. However, I was wrong. They stayed out and tip toed around, knowing I wasn't likely to catch them by the end. I finished the race third, a mere 4 seconds behind Verstappen, and less than 8 behind Hamilton.
Two more laps and I would've had them, but that's racing. Considering I'm in a Sauber, and made 3 stops to Verstappen and Hamilton's 1, I was mega pleased with the result. Was a very fun race. Can't wait to have my wheel working, because if races can be this good with the controller, they're gonna be a blast with the wheel!
