Last night summed up my season quite nicely...
Slot 1: Decided to use the Corvette because I was quickest with it in FP by quite a margin, and the tire wear wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I qualified 9th, 3 spots behind
@Geauxgreddy even though I was less than 0.1s slower. In fact, much of the field was rather close in qualifying, which usually bodes well for me because it usually means a good chance of making up places since I'm usually better in race pace than in qualifying pace.
I got a great start in the Corvette (another reason I chose it), but by the time we got out of the Senna Esses, I was back where I started in 9th. I then made a stupid error in T4 and forgot to downshift into 2nd instead of 3rd, which caused me to understeer wide along with the 2 cars in front of me, causing me to lose a spot when I potentially could've gained 1 or 2. Thanks to
@Geauxgreddy's battles further up front, I could see a bunch of potential positions right in front of me, but I couldn't make any inroads and was still running where I started on the final lap when 8th place ran wide at the exit of the penultimate corner and picked up a 1s penalty. The dirty tires that resulted allowed me to close in to under 1s and steal 8th place at the line when his penalty was applied for 229 points. That was below my 250-point goal, but I should've taken it...
Slot 2: Top Split and Door 14, so I knew I needed a miracle to make something happen. Qualified 13th and once again got an amazing start, but didn't make up any spots through the Senna Esses. Chaos happened in front of me though, and I was up to P10 by Lap 2 when my stupid car broke loose in T5, and I had to take to the runoff to save it, costing me a spot and giving me a 1s penalty. The penalty dropped me back to P15. Eventually worked my way up to P12 when it could've been a Top 10 without my car forgetting how to car. On to Slot 3...
Slot 3: My car still forgot how to car in qualifying - this time in the Senna Esses where it kept trying to kill me on both of my qualifying attempts, resulting in qualifying P13 of 14. I made my way up to 10th due to 3 crashes by the end of Lap 2. A Mercedes spinning at T2 on Lap 9 promoted me up to 9th. After pitting on Lap 12, I somehow caught up to the train of cars in front of me and was now at the back of a train extending up to 5th place, but yet again didn't have enough pace to threaten most of them. The Porsche ahead of me lost it in the final corner on Lap 18 and in rejoining forced me into the outside wall on the front straight to avoid contact, but somehow I escaped with no damage, although it cost me 3s and now meant instead of easily gapping him as he recovered, he was now right behind me. It now also meant the group we were a part of was now long-gone. The Mercedes that had been battling the Porsche then lost it at the final hairpin on Lap 20, gifting me P7. P6 then also made a mistake at some point and fell back into the clutches of our group on Lap 23, but unfortunately they were able to stay just enough ahead of me that I couldn't attempt a pass. On Lap 24, the Porsche that had forced me into the wall earlier was tired of sitting behind me and divebombed me into the first hairpin to force his way past. I wanted to pay him back, but the worse brakes on the Corvette (and wanting to avoid damaging myself) prevented that from happening, so I crossed the line in P8 for 222 points, which improved my points total by a whopping 4 points... at least I got a CRB somehow.
Now for the championship results:
On paper, not bad I guess, but after last season having 2 consecutive wins resulting in 2 consecutive 300+ points results, I can't help but feel disappointed that I followed up that season with this one where I got only 1 Top 5 resulting in 1 result over 250 points...