Race 2 tonight was one of the best races I've had. These Vettes are serious fun!
I did an hour's practice this afternoon and it paid off as I was able to learn how to drive these beasts and build a good setup - although apparently it wasn't to everyone's taste
I found that drifting seems to be the fastest way to drive them, at least for me, even though it's not natural to me as I normally try to be neat in my driving.
Race 1 :
I qualified in pole but had a poor start and Bert took 1st position. I was able to pass him when he went wide at turn 2 (the tight right-hander) and then spent the rest of the race pushing to try and build a gap. I won the race around 12 seconds ahead of Amir. I was really happy with that, as I was not entirely sure that I'd be able to keep sliding the car around for 20 laps without crashing.
Race 2 :
Again qualified in pole in the high 2.04s if my memory serves me right.
And again, terrible start and I found myself 4th after the chicane behind Bert, Amir and Matt (although not necessarily in that order). I passed Matt after a couple of laps, then Amir, Bert and I had a great battle for about 1/3 of the race. Very close with several position changes, huge fun! Eventually, I passed Bert when he went a bit too wide. A bit later he crashed at the tricky right-hander just after the left kink, and so it was just between Amir and I. I was faster but he was defending very well, until his pitstop on lap 10. I thought that now was the time to do a "Schumacher special", ie. push very hard just before pitting in order to pass Amir in the pits. Unfortunately I am not Schumacher and the in lap wasn't very good.
I refuelled and changed all four tyres - I didn't think of only changing rears tbh. Amir and Stuart did and so after everybody had pitted, I was not behind both of them : Amir with a 9 sec gap! but also 2 secs behind Stuart. I managed to pass him at the kink. Now with only 5 or 6 laps to go, I had to push very hard to catch Amir and pass him if possible.
That was another great moment. The gap kept decreasing, all the way to about 2.5 seconds, but then with 2 laps to go, I made a silly mistake and lost 3 seconds in the process. A bit further somebody had a spin at the chicane in front of me and I lost some more time avoiding him. These two incidents made me lose my concentration, not to mention that my rear tyres had seen better days (that's the drawback of drifting I guess), whereas Amir kept it under control until the finish line. My last couple of laps were quite poor and I finished 2nd 5 seconds behind him. Well done Amir, you stayed cool under pressure for the whole race, I was impressed.
A great evening again, thanks a lot Stuart for organising these and thanks to all who race tonight.