Still chugging along...
Quali: 2nd
Sprint: 2nd
Enduro: 1st
Quali
As in Suzuka, it seemed as though the quali pace for the drivers was quite slow when compared to the times achieved in practise. I did what I always set out to do - complete one 'safe' banker lap and then push a little harder during the second lap. Best I could do was 1:22.2, just a few hundredths quicker than what Cod achieved, but it was good for second. What was going through my mind throughout the quali was that it wouldn't be too beneficial to be on pole anyway, given how good the Audi is off the start, so I was happy to have put the car on the front row of the grid alongside eol, especially when considering I hadn't done any testing on race day (due to a family engagement) save for a few laps once I'd joined the race lobby.
Sprint
Got a decent start and held onto second through the first few corners. Even managed to hang onto the coat-tails of eol for the first half of the race. It was evident I didn't have the pace to fight for the victory, though, and so, having managed to build a decent gap to 3rd, I'd settled for 2nd place, focussing on bringing the car home safely rather than pushing. Wish I did though - eol had made a small error at the end which, had I been closer, could have maybe capitalised on. Never mind - 2nd it was.
Enduro
Finishing 2nd in the Sprint meant I started 2nd in the Enduro for the second consecutive race. The formation lap went reasonably well, although I do remember that up front some of the drivers were a little too close to each other. I almost got caught out by Cod at the start but regained composure to hold onto 2nd into the second corner (Lot's of 2nd's so far
)
For the first part of the race I was losing time to the rampant eol, who was galloping off in first, and was just about keeping Cod at bay, who in turn was doing well to keep Racingline behind him. It was pretty much a procession for the first third of the race... but then Racingline comes into the pits at around the 20 minute mark. I could see he was pumping in some great lap times on the fresh Mediums and so after a few laps I decided to come in to see if I could prevent him making the undercut... and boy was it close! I literally came out side-by-side with him into Turn 2 but yielded the position straight away to avoid losing time to Cod, who had followed me into the pits. At this point, all three of us (Racingline, myself and Cod) are running within a couple of seconds and we continued this way for a while. eol had decided he was going to stay on his Hards for a lot longer than any of us and so when he did eventually come into the pits, we had managed to undercut him by quite some margin, which was surprising. So now it was all three of us, line astern, in 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions. I had no idea of the strategy Racingline was using and just assumed he was on his Mediums till the end of the race so I started to push a little harder, knowing that to have any chance of winning I'd have to make the pass on the track. I got a little luck out of Turn 3 - he didn't get quite the drive out of the corner I'm sure he would have liked and I had managed to get round it quite well. With Turn 4 approaching, Racingline goes off the racing line to defend and I pull out from his draft and manage to put a pass on him around the outside, taking the lead in the process. Afterwards, I watched in my rear view to see the battle for 2nd, but then Racingline comes into the pits for a second time and from then on it's a case of managing the lead which, thanks to an incident involving Cod, extends to over 10 seconds. The fact that eol has put on Hards again just makes managing that gap a bit easier, as I'm sure he would have made a late charge had he not made that costly error.
With about ten minutes to go till the end of the race, I found myself in a reasonably comfortable position, my Medium tyres not doing too badly given that they'd been on as long as the Hards were and still not looking like giving away too much in terms of performance, which meant I could take it easy and make sure I didn't make any big errors before crossing the line to take the victory
Well done to all who finished and to eol again on his Sprint Race victory.
I won't be around for the Fuji race due to work commitments but hopefully I will be for the final race at Nurb 24H.
I think on that weekend I'll also be taking part in the upcoming GTP Spa 24Hr race so I'll know closer to the time if I have the energy to take part as it's likely I'll be up all night on the Saturday, fighting for honours with my team. It'll be a case of Red Bull at the ready, no doubt!
Good luck at Fuji crelou - hope you get a good result 👍