Qualified 6th. I should have been higher, I got out in time to do two laps but right before the chicane the guy in front of me slowed up, and there was someone closing in on me so I couldn't really hold up. My first lap wasn't great, my second one I went into him at La Source and he slowed down and put me in the wall after the corner.
In the first few laps the leader made a bit of a gap, with 2-5 in a pack just behind then me with a Porsche in 7th. On lap 3 I noticed he was a lot closer to me than before, before I realised it was actually a GT-R. He ended up passing me a lap later. All of this is irrelevant because it was due to rain on lap 6.
At the end of lap 4, one German guy in a Beetle pitted. I thought it was too early. It was. Next lap, I and a few others pitted. Four cars stayed out, I'd passed all of them by the time I'd made it out of Stavelot. I wasn't sure how I'd jumped everyone else who pitted but it turns out they all added fuel. Either way, once we were past the dry runners I was in the lead.
Now, the night before this race I did a 20 lap practice session in changeable conditions. I ran through the first three shades of blue on the rain map and found that even just the second level was actually full wet conditions. Looking at the map for this race there was a slight burst of dark blue. It couldn't possibly be full wet, could it? It's not as heavy of prolonged as my practice, and with 16 cars on track it'll dry up quicker. It's not going to be worth having wets when the weather passes, just go for inters!
Everyone went for inters and we spent laps 6-16 skating around. It was horrible. I was in the lead for all of it with a BMW occasionally gradually closing in on me. Eventually he got on the power too soon out of Stavelot on lap 13 and gave me a bit more breathing room. This also meant the early pitting Beetle passed him.
The rain passed for the start of lap 17 and the Bettle passed me at Pouhon on lap 18. He had a wobble to the end of the race and I
could have gone for divebomb of the century into the chicane, but the BMW was still close and I would probably have just handed him the victory if I'd tried.
2nd place, clean race, 170-something points. I'm a bit annoyed I second guessed myself with the tyres, I'm a bit annoyed I didn't push the Beetle harder on the last lap since his tyres were also a lot more worn than mine with the extra lap of dry running but 2nd place and a clean race after 50+ minutes in the rain is hard to be upset with.
I was absolutely haemorrhaging time out of Raidillon as well. Losing as much as a full second on both of those cars each time. I don't know why, I felt like I couldn't go any faster without risking a penalty of hitting a puddle on the kerb.
