My Race review
Pre-Race
I wanted to make a big impression on the LMP field and start off with a bang. Even though this was a preseason event I decided to do as much testing as I could, helping out with the car specs also helped out as it gave me more opportunity to see what pace I had to be at to be competitive.
I generally have better tuning capabilities on more flowing tracks, and it showed once I quickly found my preferred setup that correctly balanced speed and consistency. I also took a lot of time to determine how the hybrid system works on the Toyota so that I can utilize it to its fullest potential.
I spent the large majority of Saturday determining what my strategy would be. I eventually decided on a two-stopper starting with RH tires, followed by a RM stop with a full tank fill up and then a final stop with just RM tires, no fuel. If I could keep out of trouble I would be good.
Qualifying
I set up the goal of 3rd place for qualifying since I just knew
@rcb929 would be faster and
@PJTierney typically qualifies better than I. I was also very curious as to how the Nissans would do, to my bittersweet dismay, not too well.
Since I wanted to start my race on RH I immediately pitted for RMs, I took one or two laps to warm myself up and then I just went for it, I posted a very good time of 1.01.316, a tenth slower than my fastest RH time at that time. With that time I set myself for pole. I was extremely surprised that I received pole and now understand why since
@rcb929 qualified on RH.
Race
Now it was time for the real test. My heart was racing so fast it would've qualified on pole for this race. I was very nervous for the first few corners because even though I trust the drivers started behind me, the hybrid system on the car gets a bit oversteery. As I predicted, the car did oversteer a bit but I caught it without losing any time. I battled the Audis for the first few opening laps until
@rcb929 made a mistake and
@PJTierney spun, that gave me some time to relax and focus on my tires.
I traded positions with the Audis during our pit stops but I held the upper hand for majority of the time thanks to my consistent and fast lap times, but I did notice
@rcb929 was faster so I was never at ease.
For my last pit stop,
@PJTierney was 20 seconds ahead with 20 minutes to go, I calculated that if I take him 1 second a lap I would get him, It was a huge sigh of relief when I saw him run out of gas. Maybe if he had pitted on the same lap as me it would've been a shootout.
After that debacle I took the win. This was the most dominating performance I had ever achieved in a race and to beat a pro driver and my rival made it even more epic.
The hardest thing about this event was the overtaking, trying to pass the GT cars wasn't too difficult but overtaking lapped LMP cars was hell, especially
@GTP Ziggy who didn't make passing him any easy chore
I hope I can continue this string of success through the rest of the season, I'll need it if I want to take down the monsters in LMP. I can't wait until this Sunday so that I can truly test my skills, I'm usually not too good at Silverstone but I almost always have great battles there.
Cheers guys