So, Croft... Very good Car/Track combo this time. Knowing the track very good I was confident for this one. First real practice I knew 34 laps on one tank was possible. But since the race was going to be 32 laps I was not worried about the fuel thing. Practice: Grip was very low at 96%. Not nice on cold tires Did a few laps but concentrated on doing the first laps on cold tires as I didn't want to spin the car on the first lap of the race. Did notice Kiril was using hard tires. In the low grip he was doing very decent lap times. At that point I had decided to go with Mediums because the hards were too tricky on the first 2 laps. Qualifying: Regretfully Dzintar had not joined the server yet. I would have liked to see what he could do here. Anyway, grip was still low at 97% so be careful on the out lap. From lap 2 on I was going for it as I didn't know what tires Kiril was on. Did a decent first flying lap and went faster every lap. Kiril made a good effort and got close to my time. Still, I had pole. Not that it really mattered as the front row starts next to each other. Race: I saw Kiril had chosen the hard tires for the race. I knew that over a full race both tires would give the exact same result with the mediums being faster in the first 3rd of the race, being on par in the middle part of the race and the hard being faster at the end of the race. My strategy was to create a gap on the first few laps and then try to hold that gap till the end of the race while keeping the tire wear under control. The start was great mainly helped by the extra grip the mediums had when cold. Had a healthy lead at the end of lap 1. Almost immediately started maintaining the tires. Kiril however again was doing some very good laps so I had to react. This went on for about 10 laps. At that point I came up to the first car to be lapped. No issue at all. He lifted on the straight giving me a clear entry to the next corner. However one lap after that the next car to be lapped wen off track at the complex. Not being sure where he would end up I slowed down hard. And lucky I did as he came back on track at the point where I would have been had I not slowed down. Avoided that one Soldiered on. Seeing a few cars do a pit stop. Then I had to lap another car. He went wide on the backstraight at full speed. That for me was a "brown moment" as he skidded back on track just as I came racing by at full speed. Narrowly avoided him. The rest of the race was uneventful and I was just maintaining the gap to Kiril. All in all a good race. Enjoying the car for sure. Now a long 4 week pause till the next race.
Was that me? Sorry if so, I am not fully sure but I went off at the complex and skipped the first right hander. But if I remember correctly, I watched our for traffic and as the car behind was still not at the apex of the turn, I rejoined. Anyway, better safe than sorry. To my race, I had done two laps the day before, but because of a cycling tour, I was not sure if could make it. Made it just for qualifying but did not do a lap. I had then to overtake some people, the fight with Rocco was good. After that I had 10 minutes of fuel more than I needed, respectively 4-5 laps. I thought it would be ok, to push a bit more. Other than the race before, there was no time to do a detailed calculation, so I relied on my gut feeling. On the one hand not ideal, but amusingly, the strategy that failed in Magny Cours worked this time. Roy turned up in time, and I could relax and avoided to save 0.5 litres in the last three laps. On the flip side, I was not fast enough to follow Ken/Phil and Kay. So thats something I have to work on.
Not sure if it was you, but it's all part of racing. Every time I see or encounter an incident like that I'm sure it's not deliberate. Plus we all make mistakes every now and then.
