Feel free to discuss the race in this thread, as long as it is within the forum rules.
"Not sure what to say, I guess after Bono retired in the formation lap it would have been worth to test a little more to make this an easy win, but then again I was too careless and preferred to enjoy other things.
Wasn't very nice to drive here because the Mod has too much grip and the beauty of Suzuka was destroyed, as a consequence the field was very close and qualifying was important, luckily I did a good lap in Q2 and was 4th, effectively 3rd.
To the race start and I passed Lapchin into T1 which was crucial. Then I noticed my fuel calculation sucked and I was forced to shortshift almost the whole race.
In lap 15, Morand passed me, in lap 16 I passed him back on the outside of T1, but he pushed me wide in T2, so couldn't make it stick. Went back to do some shortshift waiting for what would happen later.
Pitstops saw not much change, eventually Morand got past Mikko, I tried to stay close as good as I could for the circumstances. Mikko once lost it slightly in spoon, let him back past because I just couldn't challenge for the win if I wanted to finish.
Good result anyway, the team wanted us to get P2 in the constructors which we kinda did, so, nice."
Q1: Quite difficult again, definitely not my biggest strength. P10
Q2: Solid lap again like in Monza, P2
Race:
I was surprised to not see Bono lining up for the grid, I assumed he had gone over the timelimit to get on the grid. After the race I heard he had an rFactor crash though, shame for him since he had the best pace clearly.
After that I just tried to focus on doing my own race, took a clean start and lead for the first stint with Denny & Morgan about 3s behind me.
I decided to pit 2 laps after Morgan because I was pretty sure Denny would pit 1 lap after him, so I didn't want to risk blocking him in our pitbox.
Exiting the pits I rejoined about 0.8s in front of Morgan and was pulling away slightly until I caught Rouault. Took quite long to pass him despite the tire advantage, and after this Morgan was in my slipstream and was able to pass me quite easily since I had chosen to run more downforce.
I managed to pass him once in to T1, but I made a mistake in the Spoon corner, nearly ending my race but in the end just lost one position.
I made another mistake in the Spoon some laps later which allowed Denny to pass me, but he let me back through on the main straight, thanks for that .
Had a few more close battles with Morgan afterwards in to the final chicane and in to T1, but I was not able to time the slipstream right to get past.
With about 7 laps to go I noticed my fuel was quite critical, I tried to save for a few laps and then tried to make one last push again. But for the final lap I noticed the fuel was way too low, and I had to cruise quite heavily to avoid running out. After a lap full of coasting my engine started to cough exiting the final chicane, so I barely made it thanks to my last lap efforts.
Congrats to Morgan for his first win, I'm still happy with my own result, wasn't expecting much from this race.