Must have used up all my racing luck.
I don't know why, but my start was not good even though I did nothing different than all the other races. That allowed Erick to try passing for 2nd. I wasn't having any of that, however, so I raced him hard through the first few corners. Unfortunately, all of that allowed Nige to pull away just enough that I lost his draft. Based on the splits, I was either keeping or gaining on him ever so slightly, but all the constant defensive driving I had to do soon after negated whatever gains I had.
Eventually, I was around 3 second behind Nige on Lap 12 when I decided to pit early. One great out lap later, I all but caught up to him as he pitted a lap later, except there was a problem. Directly in front of him was two cars that hadn't pitted yet, battling for position. We both got through the first car, but when I tried clearing the second one at Bit-Kurve, I got nudged just enough that I ate some dirt. With a lap on my tires, I slowly lost time from 2 second to 9 at the end.
At least my teammate finished 4th, so RDS did well. Yet, can't help but feel somewhat frustrated that I never had a chance to put up a challenge.