First off sorry to Ken that I logged on with my other racing name, couldn’t help it as AC kept giving me error messages when I tried to fire it up but worked through content manager. Had a great race but was kicking myself over a tyre choice error on the grid. My wheel man has been royally kicked up the butt I kept within visual range of Ken for 20 laps whilst enjoying a great fight with Bob and was actually closing Ken down to 4.5 secs when I needed to pit. I was really hoping others were pitting but think other than Bob, nobody did So I rejoined in 6th but had great fun on fresh boots hammering after those who had got past while I pitted Got past all back into my 3rd spot but then decided to Semi cruise to the lights as just not enough life left in my tyres to close a 24sec gap to Ken. Well driven top two, your tyres must have been carcasses by race end
Not sure what % was left, but I was red all round with 20 mins to go. Having said that I hadn't pushed or punished the tyres up to that point, so was comfortable in keeping them under me to the flag. I knew I wouldn't have the pace to race with Laurent, when he was faster on mediums than I was on softs , so I needed to manage the potential race with Mark & Bob, which I managed to do successfully. But I was surprised when they both stopped, having started on medium tyres, I fully expected them to come on strong against me in the second half of the race, due to my running a no-stop, soft tyre strategy. You guys must really punish those tyres getting the lap times, so I can only suggest you work on a race setup rather than a fastest lap setup.
that was just it Ken, i was supposed to be on softs ! as i had fueled short to have two sprint runs, but stupidly had mediums on without the fuel to run longer and make use of them, so it was a completely compromised strategy from the off Typically that is the first time ive tried taking a stop in this series as i normally run mediums to the end
Race setup was great as consistent lap times showed early on. Strategy not so great and all the silly mistakes I made not great also. Enjoyed the close racing Mark cheers.
Interesting to see that Ken didn't stop on softs. I had a look at his lap times and although they were in the red for the last 20 minutes as he said in chat he was still able to go 0.5 secs per lap slower than on fresh softs (with full fuel load). That means that this strategy seems to be quicker than doing a stop and taking fresh softs. Mediums were about 1 second per lap slower than softs, so I guess that on the same pace Ken's strategy would have won. Interesting.. On this track pitting was not the way to go in my opinion.
I am amazed a set of softs lasted full distance here, sadly i only had a brief 20mins practise session before the event so couldnt test options. But Kens strategy would have only been good for 3rd if i was on mediums fuelled to the end (i think) as i was already closing him down after finally shaking Bob off, leading upto half race distance, and Ken would have had to protect his soft tyres when under pressure and that would have pushed them over the edge.
Perhaps indeed. You would have been about 1 second faster per lap on your first stint compared to the laps you did on mediums, that is if you were in front from the start. Would have been close!
