That race was cursed! CURSED, I tell ya!
My poor performance in the first slot had been eating at me all day. I knew I could do better than the 69 points I'd scored in that race. If I had just remembered to switch to RMs for my 2RM-18RS strategy, I was sure I could have finished better with some laps in clean air.
Finding myself with some free time in the evening, I decided to give the 8PM EST slot (GT2, Americas) a try. I was in door #1, with 97 points up for grabs. I qualified Q3 (1:16.5s) and was feeling pretty good about my chances; that is, until I got to T1 and was pushed off. Rejoined mid-pack. Punted wide on T4. Rejoined towards the back. Punted into the wall on T10. DFL at the end of lap 1 with a large gap to the nearest car. On the bright side, I had lots of clean air. I did one more lap on the RMs, then pitted for RSs and I got to work on making up the gap. The race was mostly uneventful from there. I managed to work my way up to P9 in the end, for 68 points.
68 points? That's even worse than the 69 I had in my first race. So into the final 9PM EST I go.
I'm in door #2 this time, with 97 points up for grabs. I qualify Q4 (1:16.4s). This time I manage to escape T1 without incident, and even pick up a couple positions, coming out of it P2.
I maintain P1 into lap 2, but give up a few positions to some faster cars on RS before pitting, still in P5.
I come out to clean air, and focus on putting in fast laps. I'm picking up positions as I pass cars in the pits. I'm feeling pretty good about the race. Everything is going great. I end up catching up to one car ahead and am close on his bumper for about a lap before he lets me by. Then it is back to grinding out laps.
In the final laps, I manage to catch up to a car in a Ferrari livery for a battle for P4. We have some nice side-by-side battles in laps 18 and 19, but I'm not able to get by him. My opportunity finally comes on T1 of the final lap. He leaves the door open on the inside, and I take it, getting a nice run out of the S.
And that's when the penalty message pops up. Huh? It seems I had passed under a yellow flag without even realizing it. 3 seconds to wait out at the finish line. Gah!
When I get to T4, the Ferrari car goes rocketing off the track on the inside, barely missing me. It turns out, he'd been punted by the car behind, who was awarded a 2-second penalty.
I pushed as hard as I could on the final lap to try to minimize the number of positions I'd lose due to my penalty. I got there in P4, and moved to the right of the track to let others by. The car behind me stayed on the racing line serve out their 2-second penalty. This left us neck-and-neck accelerating to the finish, with about a car-width of space between us.
We weren't nearly up to speed. One car zipped by cleanly to our left. The car behind him was on the left side of the track, too, but the pit exit line was coming up on him and the other penalty-taker was too close to the edge of the track to get by without incurring a track-limit penalty, so at the last possible moment the driver swerved to get into the space between us two penalty-takers. He crashed into me, then bounced off into the other penalty-taker, sending us both into the track walls, while they cruised on to P6.
I got myself back on the track and hobbled across the line in P9. I ended up finishing in P8 because the Ferrari-livery car had forgotten to pit.
And for my efforts, I walked away with -- wait for it -- 69 points.
69 points! That race was cursed, I tell ya!
, plus it took me a lot longer to get good at it. I love high-downforce cars though, so I was expecting great things from the SF23 regardless of the track.
