04 March, 2012

Prototype/GT @ Spa - Close to perfection

Results (image) - Results on iRacing

Hadn't done any laps before the qualifying session preceding the race, despite having all day to prepare. This was an exceptionally lazy Sunday. Anyway, the time was good enough for 6th on a fairly solid grid and I was hoping to hold on to my position, but not wanting to defend with tooth and nail as I've had some bad experiences with that at Spa in previous seasons.

Got away cleanly and quickly found myself running in a pocket between Karsten Deschler a couple of seconds ahead and Aaron Jennings close behind. Aaron shadowed me for most of the first half of the race, keeping my concentration up and giving me plenty to think about. He was faster than me between Stavelot and Les Combes by virtue of a setup with less downforce than mine, but I was able to leave him by 1.5 seconds around the rest of the lap. He managed to pass me once, and it looked like he was going to get away from me until he lost some time with a backmarker; I stayed close with him before eventually zipping past him out of Pouhon. I then managed to build up a sizeable gap and got into a rhythm.

About 10 laps before pitting, I did some quick calculating to see what my consumption was like on a lap-by-lap basis, and also noticed I was closing in on Karsten Deschler. We entered the pits nose-to-tail and I actually managed to leapfrog him in the pits, exiting just ahead of him. He followed me close for a few laps, and had me preoccupied just like Aaron had done earlier, until he had a spin coming out of the final corner and I was all alone.

At this point, there was only about 20 minutes to go and I was running all by myself. I started missing braking points, and the comfortable gap I had was slowly dropping. In the end, I managed to build the gap back up again, but if there ever was a point where I could easily have lost the race, this was it. But overall I'm very pleased with this race, and I gained a lot of iRating and Safety Rating which is always nice :)

Final note: Inherited 4th when Matthieu Leroy retired.

No comments: