For me, qualifying was frustrating. I started off taking big chunks out of my PB's, then I lost my rhythm and wasn't getting close to it. I could have perhaps improved my position in the dying seconds of the session, but ran into traffic and stayed in 10th.
The start of the race was surprisingly clean, I was expecting something nasty to happen at T1 but everyone got through with very little paint swapped.
Widdow started behind me in 11th place, which gave me a good view of his truly epic start, I think he jumped 5 or 6 places on the first lap. Top quality racing from him.
I went for an early pit stop this time because I wasn't too comfortable racing on this circuit, and that showed when I had a collision with Gerdoner early on at the chicane (sorry about that).
When I pitted on lap 6 I was trailing Dadge and gAg which looked like it was going to turn into a heated battle.
Other than a short fight with Franky and a little later with de Souza, it was rather quiet for me until I ran into Dadge exiting the pits on Lap 34.
At this point I was already knackered and my arse was numb - and I just knew Dadge wouldn't stay behind me without giving it a bloody good go.
Around lap 40 he had moved into passing range, and for so long that's where we stayed. For the next 5 laps or so we were swapping position constantly. I didn't think the racing could get any better.. then gAg joined in between us after his pit stop.
There was plenty of times I thought they got the better of me, or I got the better of them and the tight racing was going to end. But it just didn't, none of us were willing to quit.
From there on we were all jumping between 2nd and 4th, the last 10 laps were particularly special. And it really did go down to the wire.
On the final left hander of the last lap me and Torpaa made contact, there wasn't much, although a little bit of lag turned into a pretty nasty bang and caused him to spin (If it wasn't for that, Kamo might well have seen himself drop to 5th).
gAg got caught up in the crash too, and pulled out just ahead of me. I took over coming out of the final turn, and was convinced I had 3rd. But he moved into my slip stream and stole it, 0.02 ahead of me.
It was an amazing race, it's definitely up there with the best I've had. Hat off to Dadge and gAg - and thanks to the pair of you. Top racing!