This event was a lot of fun! Here's the rundown on how it happened from my point of view.
Qualifying was messy, I set a slow time on a first, and later when I was gunning for pole I got impeded in the last sector. Also, adding insult to injury, on the last turn I had to do a very wide entry because of the impeding car and, somehow, the current and next laps were canceled then and there due to track limits... This meant I couldn't do more laps and so, the slower lap held. Still it was good for 4th place, which isn't that bad at all.
Then the Race was fun! I had a strong start, got mixed in a cool fight with
@Hun200kmh for the lead in the first two to three laps, came out on top and then settled in 1st place.
Rain came and we all went in for wets. I think I was the last to do it, lost a bit of time as the last sector on the in-lap it was quite wet, and then I activated the pit speed limiter way earlier than needed... All that summed up meant I got out of the pits just in front of
@Hun200kmh.
I think I had the edge on pace on both full wet and full dry conditions, albeit a very small edge, but on the cross-over conditions I was just completely off the pace. This meant that when the track was drying up,
@Hun200kmh got by me and
@GTP_RPREGO was catching very quickly.
When the track was good enough for slicks there were 20 minutes left in the race, so I contemplated not pitting and taking it to the end on the wet, which I assumed would be the opposite strategy to
@Hun200kmh, and the one
@GTP_RPREGO was going for. So I had a decision to make, either I keep the wets and try to hold off
@GTP_RPREGO or I pit for slicks and hope the weather holds.
Since the pace difference was so big, I figured I wouldn't be able to hold off
@GTP_RPREGO on the wets in the dry, so I decided to bet on the weather holding and taking advantage of fresh rubber and low fuel to set some qualy laps and hunt
@GTP_RPREGO. Both options were big mountains to climb, but I figured this one was my best shot.
As expected, myself and
@Hun200kmh went in for slicks and
@GTP_RPREGO stayed out. After a quick and, again, very fun battle with
@Hun200kmh after the pits, I settled in second and set my sights on
@GTP_RPREGO. Shortly after this the radio call comes in: "We are expecting a major downpour in the next few minutes".
I don't think I would've been able to catch 1st place if it stayed dry, but when that message came through, that's when I was sure 2nd was the best result to be had. Myself and
@Hun200kmh stopped for new wets and by the time we got out of the pits there were 6 minutes left on the clock and a gap to the leader of over 1 minute.
Congrats to
@GTP_RPREGO, on a great and fully deserved win! I hope I can rise to your level next time!
Thanks
@Hun200kmh for organising, already looking forward to the next one!
Cheers all!