Man, what a race! Some seriously intense battles up front and some very clean, close racing.
Q: Despite putting a very screwy lap in, I was happy to find myself 3rd on the grid with a 33.8. The top 4 were all within 98 hundreds of a second!
R1: Got a decent start and managed to keep my nose clean. It quickly became evident that the only way past a Vette in a Mosler here, was if the Vette made a mistake. I was all over the rear of Denis M. for the longest time, trying to keep the pressure on without taking to much risk. I soon noticed Abdul catching us and made a mistake glancing at my mirrors, allowing Abdul to slip through without a fight. Abdul soon found himself with the same problem I had been having. I new I had the pace to put it to Yves at the front, but getting around the Vette's here was a bit of an issue. Denis M., Abdul and I were nose to tail, battling hard for 2nd for a few laps now. We were super close to one another and just as I was thinking someone was bound to hit someone it happened. Abdul out braked himself at the bottom of the hill and forced Denis M. wide, allowing me to pass them both. The gap to Yves up front was in the 2-3 second range I think. I managed to close the gap with 2 to go. I applied some pressure, but was unable to find a gap. I finished 2nd just off Yves tail drenched in sweat.
R2: Starting from 2nd, I got another reasonable start and was able to maintain my position into T1. Then in T3 there was a bit of an incident involving two Vette's. Yves and I missed them by a fraction of an inch. In 5th now, I was following Tyler closely as part of a train of cars. After a few laps two of the guys up a head tangoed at the bottom of the hill moving me up to 3rd. Abdul, Tyler and I now upped the pace. Struggling to keep up through the twisty bits, Yves runs it deep at the bottom of the hill and uses me as a bump stop, I nearly spin, but manage to regain my composure. It's all good Yves, we were all pushing hard! By the time Yves and myself get back up to speed, the gap to Tyler in 2nd had opened up to nearly 4 seconds. I really started to push now, opening up a gap of over 4 seconds to Yves and closing the gap to Tyler to about 1.7 seconds. Then Abdul makes his big mistake at the bottom of the hill. Not sure if he was able to proceed after that one - looked like he had hit the bridge, getting it loose off the turn. This gifted me 2nd and I was closing on Tyler quickly. On the following lap Tyler got a little tangled with some lapped traffic and I move up to 1st. With a large gap over Yves in second I thought to myself "I can finally relax." Doh! I relaxed a little too much and as my mind wondered, I missed my braking point at the bottom of the hill. I ran straight off into the sandbox and rejoined just under 2 seconds down on Yves. I closed the gap quickly and we had a long battle to the finish line. I think the battle got more intense with each lap. We had ourselves a bit of a photo finish, crossing the line side by side. The gap between us was just .088 seconds at the line. Congrats to Yves on taking the double - I'll get you next time!
Had a lot fun and could it be that I finally broke the race 2 curse which has been haunting me since round 1 of ATCC S2? Finishing both races without any form of damage was a victory for me in itself! (*knocks on wood*)
Looking foward to next week at Hockenheim!
