Well, that was an awfully stressful weekend!
We in RMI had a driver problem during the week. Petter Kaasa had to leave the team, to race for the P1 - Torrent Motorsports car, so we was one man short, and Roy was going to rally sweden, and would most likely be pretty tired on Saturday. But luckily Hans Gunnar Hansen was able to step in before, and after the football matches that day.
Just to make things better, my "roomie" where I live, had visitors, friends of both of us. Two guys I hadn't seen for ages, so I really wanted to be with those also, it actually might be the last time I met them for, well, a lifetime (literally speaking, both are moving far, far away soon). So then I had to try to convince Roy and Hans Gunnar (or convince Roy, and then get him to convince Hans Gunnar) to race when I wanted them to
We managed that, so I was able to both race for around 4 hours, and be with some mates. I got very tired of all that though!
Oh well, I hear both HG and Roy had made mistakes during their stints, and when I saw I was faster than the guys in front of me when I got the car for my first 2-ish hours, I was just concentrating on making no mistakes at all. But then, I suddently hear "OH NOOOOOOO" behind me, as one of my mates suddently had forgotten a key or something... It was no big deal, but it almost sounded like one of them had died, so I went straight into the wall at Tetre Rouge... Oh well, I lost the front of the car, but only 2 seconds slower on the lap.
I then drove steadily until my pitstop, repaired the car, then the laptimes jumped from 3.23 to 3.33...
After driving 45 minutes I gave the car to Roy and joined my mates, and the plan was to drive the car again around 20:30-21:00 local time (19:30-20:00 GMT) and then drive the car home.
But, that wasn't to be. Roy drove one stint or two (I don't know). HG took over, and just drove on, and on, and on, before Roy stepped in again. So I didn't get the car before around 22:30 Local time. By now, my mates had been kicked out, so all I had to focus on was getting passed the Schroten/Schroten and De Wildt/Grönwalls car that was around two minutes in front. After I had done one stint, I was a minute in front of both the other teams. So mission was completed. Now I had a kind of a motivation problem. The car in front was 5 laps ahead of me. So, I just decided to find a speed to keep and then finish. But somehow I managed to drive faster, and faster. I knew I had the fastest lap of the team from my first stint, on 3.21.5, and I had already a 3.20.5 lap. But somehow I managed to drive steadily on 3.19 laps. When the race was closing to an end. I decided I wanted to unlap the team, and lap the team behind me, so I started pushing a bit. And managed that. So, we managed to end up one lap closer to the three teams in front, and one lap ahead of the team behind. And by doing that I managed a 3.18.2 lap. Amazed by myself!
The lapping in this race was just perfect. But almost every GT car had the lights on after the night, that was a bit frustrating. And I never had a problem with lapping - I thought.
A race with so perfect lapping during 11hrs and 59 minutes... But then, the worst lapping of the whole season. The second to last chicane, in the second to last lap. I was steadily braking myself past Simon Melhuish, and far behind Simon the #60 Ecuire SIMotorsport P1 car, decided to launch a lapping move, not just on Simon, but on me as well. Not thinking about the fact that I was on the far left, and Simon on the right. So he jumps over the kerbs, and how the bloody h*ll that car missed me, I think I'll never know. If they had been in a close fight for the third I would've understood it. But they were 30-40 secs behind, going on to the last lap of a 12 hrs race. It is just idiotic to launch such a move. And I think I made my feelings pretty clear after the race as well.
Oh well, thanks for the brilliant season anyway, looking forward to S4 which I expect will arrive!
![Luca [OT]](/data/avatars/s/3235/3235113.jpg?1697196734){kind=avatar}