I was a bit disillusioned before loggin in tonight cause I knew I messed up the qualification. Even more after doin a 2'05"198 during the warmup..
At least I knew I could be quite fast if needed.
I took a pretty good start and managed to get in front of Cicua in S curves.
It looks like Jashugan has still some problems with cold tires at the beginning of the race cause I had an oportunity to get him at spoon.
It didnt work though..
Then I made a mistake at the first checkpoint, loosin the 7th position to Cicua. But I closed the gap and overtook Jashugan at the end of the 4th lap.
And Cicua at the beginning of the 7th lap.
I was 6th and confident I could come back onto another group (Josh, Falcon, GV27) in front but made a series of mistake in the 7th lap costing me ~20s..
Back to the last position. I was quite surprised to see Filip, Falcon and Josh stop at the 8th lap and decided to try a 3 stops strategy without the medium compound (something like 13-26-39).
First pit on lap 12, before Josh and Falcon could come back on me.
I had Jashugan on sight again on lap 14 but I couldn't get in front of GV27 who exited from the pit.
I did try to apply some pressure while he had cold tires but it just resulted in a net loss of 4s on this lap.
Nothing special till the 23th lap except a few mistakes from me and Jashugan;
But it allowed Josh and almost Falcon to overtake us before our 2nd stop.
Out of the pit in the 9th position in the 24th lap. It wasn't not lookin good at this point cause I knew the last stint would be longer than expected..
On lap 28, GV27 get out of the pit in between me and Jashugan again but this time I decide to stay behind him and get as much draft as possible.
On lap 32, I was in 5th position; Josh and Falcon pitted and I was sure they would have to do one more stop. Hopes are back.
On lap 35, I did try to contain Falcon as much as possible but my worn tires did not help much. he overtook me on the outside line at the end of the S curves.
On lap 36, I made a mistake on turn 1, lettin Josh pass. I was loosin too much time cause of my worn tires and decided to pit a bit earlier than planned.
On lap 42, back in 5th position. Josh did his last pit stop and Falcon exit from the pit in front of me. I decide to secure my 5th position by stayin behind and gettin as much draft as possible again.
I slowly lost contact with Falcon till he spun his car in Spoon in the 47th lap. He made sure to not get in my way before goin back on track though. 👍
I'm now in 4th position. Not sure what happened to Josh. I can slowly cross the finish line (last lap 2'11"xx). Pretty happy with the result of this race