I've got a long history of being gentle on my tires. This has been the case during pretty much my entire time in Race 07 and rF1 aswell. My first venture into league racing was driving a GT3 car in an 'iron man' type endurance league in Race 07, which no doubt built this foundation in my driving.
A lot of drivers have suggested I'm losing out by being so careful though, and they're probably right. If I drive more aggressively on my tires, then there probably is more to be had in overall pace. This is something I definitely need to practice in the F3000, where you lose more to heavy fuel than you do tire wear. So for me, fuel is the big deciding factor between 1 and 2 stop in regular Presto.
Perhaps this helped me at Melbourne, as I was averaging between 1.3% and 1.5% average tire wear per lap during practice. My left tires were both in the red by the end (which is beyond 50%), but were still hanging on fine. What's more, since we can't refuel the FR3.5 (reliably, at least), pit strategy is entirely dictated by tire wear. And that seems to be how I excel.
The Motec data log didn't record properly, however. So I've had to salvage lap times from the results XML file. After that, I estimated tire wear based on what I had in practice. The tire wear estimates are a little on the pessimistic side, as driving in traffic tends to exacerbate tire wear. And on top of that, Nicolas used me for overtaking practice during the last 10 laps or so. Which is good, because that probably makes this data more relevant to actual racing rather than just cruising around a track. Plus, it livened things up after everyone else crashed out
I completed 38 laps, and set my fastest race lap on lap 32. I had a few excursions and mistakes, but I wouldn't fault the tires for that, which is what those spikes are in lap time. Not pit stops. Consistency's a problem for me in this car, though one that's swiftly improving.
One problem I think may come up later though is fuel consumption. Drinking 2.68 liters per lap, I estimate I burned 103 liters during the race, and carried an additional 4 to make sure I had fuel for the formation lap and didn't stutter on fumes at the end. 3 liters short of the maximum tank capacity of 110.
That may not be a problem though. We may find ourselves in a situation later at other tracks where improving fuel consumption will be critical to finishing the race. Which is a challenge I'm 100% in support of.