It took me almost 9 months since the last one,but yesterday finally I got the small glory of winning something. Allthough it was practically a duel between me and defending champions,still it was quite tough race with a lot of concentration needed during these 3 hours.
After first few laps I saw that #1 car isn't actually that much faster and I knew that with stable pace without mistakes I can challenge them. My first stinth was planned just 1h and not full tank,which is where I lost a bit,as I had to drive heavy car sooner,so I put 100% in first stop to match opponent's strategy. Payed off very well,as I was able to catch and pass Blacky,who went soon after that for (I believe) early pitstop to change back to their faster driver Mathi. But he went in pitlane too fast and destroyed the chance to win by earning a speeding penalty. Rest of the race was rather focusing and keeping safe line then pushing and trying to increase gap,as 22 seconds gap for 50 minutes racing was safe enough,so I knew I'm in control of outcome,as Mathi had to be more then a second per lap faster to have a chance.
One thing did did threw a negative shadow over yesterday's race. After making mistake and not being able to catch me,the 2nd GT1 entry from eXR did some weird and somewhat suspicious actions. At one point he screws up last turn and returns on track by diagonally crossing the raceline right ahead of me. At that point I thought - well,that was stupid off-track recovery,but $#!t happens,let's hope he never does that again. Then after weird 5 minutes pitstop he (of course completely coincidentally) returns to track right between me and his teammate,who at that point still leads the race. Not that he really was blocking something,but he did few weird lines,at one point slowing in hairpin somewhat below normal race pace,so I had to brake hard to not smash into him... But the action where I started to think he does something intentionally was the point,where I was side by side with him after exiting 2nd hairpin. I knew that I don't have the drive off the turn to go past him,so I eased off throttle to jump behind him and use his draft for overtake - as soon as I was behind him,he suddenly slows down. I mean - if you want to let someone by because of blue flag warning,why not ease off throttle when cars are side by side? Why do you slow down,when the lapping car is right behind you? Maybe not to give the opponent of a teammate the draft advantage? Well,I might be paranoid,but that made me suspicious. Anyway - he quit,I won the race,but the bitter aftertaste somewhat shadowed my thoughts over the team,will deffinitely make a protest if something similar repeats...
Ups,that's a wall of text again,sorry...
Even I got the win,I was a bit sad about lack of competition in GT1 class... Come on,guy's join in - it's just a 3 hour race,while 4th round is twice as long,but most likely also with twice the competition,as it's also the usual between seasons CityLiga endurance race.
