Well that was a night to forget for me!
Struggled in qualifying, just kept messing up the last corner which ruined the lap I was on and the next lap - I think I scared vasilisk too at one point by reversing up the straight to have another run at the start...
So started 6th but managed to gain a couple of places on the 1st lap but lost 1 again to Anythingbut at the hairpin so back down to 5th in that lap and then Sejanoz got me on the straight going into the 2nd lap and I was back down to 6th. My plan from here was just to take it easy with no big risks and hope the guys ahead slipped up, and it did work for a while with
GHG falling off after the hairpin,
Sejanoz on the esses and
JamboGT on the slow corners at the end of the lap and I was up to 3rd. It couldn't last tho and I lost the back end on the first slow corner to let
Sejanoz back through and then on the 2nd slow corner to let
JamboGT through too. From there I was just on my own to the finish line, tho it was a good job I'd opened up a bit of a gap as I dropped the ball again on the last lap but had enough time to retain my place.
So race 2 I decided to do a bit of a different strategy on the TC as it was that catching me out in the slow corners so I'd flip between TC1 for most of the lap and stick it back on TC2 for the last few bends. The problem was at the start I wasn't on the radar screen and after the chaos of the first corner I was getting swamped by faster cars coming through. Found myself on the outside of the hairpin trying to avoid rear ending
CLR_CMOS and then it took only a small nudge from
AbandonedTrolley who was battling
cooldawn to send me into the gravel trap and I spun the bloody thing getting back out. Down to last place, wonderful! Got my head down and my composure back over the next few laps and start to reel in the guys ahead (helped by a few guys going off). I was feeling pretty good having managed to close right up to
cooldawn in 6th and I could see
JamboGT ahead in 5th but got a bit carried away on turn 1 when I saw an opportunity to pass and had a big off. Time was running out now and I was pushing hard to try to close the gap when I had another off and that was it, 7th place :-(
Don't know what happened to my pace tonight, I went quicker in the practice beforehand but just couldn't find it in the race. Hoping for better next week! :-)