firstly a massive well done to matt horst , my txl teammate who was on another level today!
a cliinical race for him.
glad I turned up for this race.
I had very limited practise and after driving a lola for God knows how many hours, i found this car a handful. the back end spinning out under braking. understeer, oversteer, you name it.
in the practise and quali i could not get the car anywhere near where it should have been and it certainly wasn't setup - just my technique on throttle and brakes.
in quali i did a couple of 1.15.4s with the later behind a backmarker. p4 i think wasn't too bad. however, with my daughter on youtube and my wire not plugged in plus others with south american (?) internet connections, it was a recipe for disaster. an annoying tangle (no doubt innocent) and then another and my car was looking a little mangled! that said, i cannot excuse my pace as i did a 1.14.7 early on which lasted a few laps. i knew i didn't have the pace anyway so i was aiming for p3. i started closing quite quickly to the guys up ahead and then saw that one had a spin. he pitted and i had a large gap which increased. i suspected he pitted too early as it was 30 minutes left but i kept going in case, trying to build a bit of a gap. after a bit i realised it was better to not push too hard. i thought one more hit and the wheel will stick at 45 degrees permanently! in the end, i pitted late but taking care not to get damage fixed..i had no idea if it would take 5 minutes etc. strangely the car felt much worse after pitting for new tyres (warmed up after 1 lap). i had a couple of minor offs but only lost about 5-10 seconds to the car behind before building the gap again.
i left the race frustrated that i should have at least competed for p2.
although there wasn't much stuff happening on track after the first few laps, this was a really worthwile practise. afterwards i went back on server and did a 1.13.5. i know i could have gone faster but bedtime calls (now lol). so each car drives differently but all these driving styles are building in the memory bank. all the similarities stay and the ability to adjust will help in future.
tonight after reflecting and returning to the server, i realised i was a better, more knowledgeable driver than before the race.learning and improving, racing and having fun...that's what it's all about.
cheers guys.