Watching the replay...
10th in qualy, that was really nice surprise. 3 tenths from PB while taking it easy, i just made sure i accelerated as soon as i dared, relaxing in the slow turns. In the practice starts i was way out of my position being 3rd and 4th but in the final one i was 12th and started from the same side, that helped a lot in the start.
Race was almost as tough as i imagined but i was confident that my strategy will work and i could keep the same pace over stints. Started with 88l of fuel and medium/soft combo, 12/59 wings. It was only hard in the Casino square where i had to drop speed for not to spin in the exit. Everywhere else it felt really good. Totally different from the qualy setup which was more "Reikian" approach. It was quicker but i couldn't get the tires to last so i made my own. It was actually pretty understeering but very very quick off the line. So i sacrificed some of the apex speed for exit speed and hoped that it would be easier to manage the tires, only thing to really take care was not to spin rear-tires too much, only when there was significant gain for it. Kind a worked..
Start was good, no incidents or great scares. Managed to get pass Andy and then gained some lucky places up to P8 at some point but lost it back in lap 3 going long in the tunnel chicane. Anthony started to catch me at this point but on lap happened unfortunate incident. More on that in the incident thread, i'm afraid.. There was maybe one second window to spin back to right direction but aborted that plan. Had to wait until i was last.. grrrr but all forgiven. It's called racing.
From then on it was tire management. I lost some thread in the first lap scuffles, and had to increase pace to catch. Made my first pit-stop at lap 17, which was several laps short of target but since i didn't need to fuel, i knew i could take the next set longer with less weight. Lap-times were constant low to mid 1:16 thru out the race. When the pit-stops started happening around, i got couple of places back. Then on lap 30 i came in for fuel 48 liters (about 4 laps too much.. two seconds lost..not a biggie) and fresh tires again. Car was beautiful to drive at this point, it was easy to keep the 1:16 target in sight. I had increased the gap behind and for the first time, i was held by Jonas who had lapped me during pitstops.. Lucky for me he went to pits few laps later and i could start going again.. Managed to catch Kurt and sneaked past him drafting behind a lapper, that felt good!
I guess he pitted or spun because suddenly i had over 40 seconds gap to him. I was anyway going to pit again, it was 40 seconds to Jonas in front and i knew he was not going to pit anymore. No use driving awful last 10 laps if you have an option not to. Fresh tires and by the end of the race, it was the same 40 seconds to Jonas.. Could drive as fast as i wanted, free at last.. Made my fastest lap 1:15 something and easy finish.All in all, very good race from me, i'm satisfied with the result in the end. The pace i had in some part of the race was just mindlifting and kept confidence levels up. To my surprise, everytime i thought i had eased up too much because of tire management, the sector times showed +/-0.02 difference. Definitely gonna load up this race to MoTec and see the laptimes delta.
Wonderful experience all together. Of course i'm disappointed for having a good qualy position and then being dropped to last, i think that's understandable. Don't know if could've kept it together with more cars around, all that pressure of driving in top10 dropped in an instant.. Less stress i guess