Given the quali results, my only chance was to outrun
@Chris Down from the start and then try to keep him behind using Audi top speed advantage, but he had a decent enough launch and managed to successfully defend going into T1 (the one that's flat-out) and take the inside into T2. I tried a wide entry into Tamburello hoping to carry more speed and maybe challenge him on the next straight, but got a slight nudge from behind and went out spinning.
After waiting for the whole pack to go through, I rejoined in P17, but with a few other incidents ahead and a couple of overtakes I managed to climb to P12 by the start of lap 2. I was running in a pack of cars chasing
@Taj Johal's Lambo, but I got hit just before the braking zone which threw me to the left. Left-side wheels ended up on the grass, so the initial braking wasn't effective and I rear-ended Taj and went out into the gravel at Tamburello with the rest of the guys. After the dust settled, I got back to the track in P17, made a pass in Rivazza and started lap 3 in P16 catching up
@boomRoasted ahead. Unfortunately, he lost control after Variante Villeneuve and I was unable to avoid his spinning car, so my offtrack excursion #3 happened and I went back to P17.
Honestly, at that moment I thought I had had enough and almost quit, but then decided to try to salvage the race and kept going. A few laps later, running in P12, I was pursuing
@Kek700 and thinking about how I was gonna solve the Godzilla problem, but Ernie fell a victim of an incident at Variante Alta with some other cars, so I got an easy 3 positions bump which got me back into top-10. I passed
@640er on the next lap after his small mistake and a bad exit out of Tamburello, but the next car was many seconds ahead, so I kept running in P8 for a while until seemingly everyone went for their pit stops.
I stopped on lap 18, got out of the pits in P10, but due to a couple of incidents and also a pass finsihed that lap in P7. With nearly half of the race still lying ahead, a top-5 finish was clearly within the reach, so I kept pushing. After two passes where guys basically gave away their positions without putting up a fight and two cars ahead pitting late I ended up in P3 with
@Interslice 6-7 seconds ahead and 5 laps to go. I thought I could get him seeing his pace being 1.5-2 seconds slower than mine on the previous laps, but he then woke up and went much faster, so I could not even get close enough till the end of the race.
Despite all the misfortunes, it was a fun race for me as I had some battles along the way and getting a podium finish in the end felt good all thing considered. Congrats Chris and Brian, guess you both had much less interesting race
P.S. My Audi setup is attached. I was not very happy with it, but with quali fuel I beat my old PB by about a second, so it's probably not that bad
