What a nail biting race that was, eh
@Ben Campbell !!
Managed pole with a solid 44, was hoping for better but was very happy to start from the front, knowing that passing here is tough.
As normal, trying to keep my nerves in check in the first few laps was tough, but I seem to be improving in this space.
However Ben was ALL over my bumper and we were like that until he finally managed to sneak past.
A few laps later I spun at T4, either marbles or a blade of grass and I lost 10s to Ben and fell to 3rd.
I consoled myself and got on with getting back on track. I was the hunted before, now 'Time to Hunt'.
I caught up to 2nd within a lap or 2 and passed nicely and then set to catch up to Ben who now had a gap of 11s
Ben pitted VERY early on 15 (due to chewing through fuel) so I was able to take back first. I pitted lap 18 and now the battle was on.
I was very happy to see that the time difference starting dropping VERY fast and within about 10 laps, I was back on Ben's bumper. We then spend the next 5+ laps glued to each others bumpers until Ben pitted once again.
I still had 4+ laps of fuel so went as far as I liked then flew in for a splash and dash.
I pulled out of the pits with a 1s gap Infront
Now it was a 14 lap mad dash for the line. Ben stayed within 2s, most of it actually within 1s or less, which made the last 14 laps mental.
It was a few laps later that I went for broke and attempted the FL and broke it and gapped Ben by 3s, then I did it again on the following lap and re-enforced that gap.
I couldn't maintain that pace as fuel was on the line and burning those 2 laps of fuel put me under what I needed.
So now it was back to actual fuel saving for a few laps to eek out a few 100mL's of fuel to drag my car across the line.
By doing this though Ben caught back up and was within 1s yet again.
This time however I stuck to my plan and managed to maintain the gap until the end crossing the line in first with 0 fuel.
The difference in finishing time was due to Ben running out of fuel on the final corner
otherwise the finish would have been much closer.
50 laps of racing and it came down to less than 1s of time difference.
That was what a race should be!!
Thank you.
See you all next week at Suzuka, another of my all time fav tracks!!!
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