Big congrats to Dino for a very well deserved 2nd in his first season and to Sean for 3rd.
Qualy (1st):
After the rainy practice session I decided to switch the balance from my usual agressivness more torwards safety and a clean style. I knew that hitting all apexes well at this track is a good basis to put in a decent lap time even if you don't push it to the least limit. So I did and ended with a nice 1:12:9xx. (I'm glad I had no cuts or wides)
Race (1st):
scheduled strategy: 18 laps, softs, 60 l / 18 laps, softs, 60 l / 17 laps, softs, 60 l
final strategy: 17 laps, softs, 60 l / 18 laps, softs, 60 l / 18 laps, softs, 60 l
I had a very average start and Dino close behind in 2nd seemed to do it similar, beacause he didn't catch up on me until T1. But Sean from 3rd had an amazing start and jumped through on my inside between Dino and me. Sean was nearly through but before T1 but couldn't take T1 from the outside. So I held the outside position close behind him.
Sean was so kind not to drift to the outside at the exit of T1, so I was able to catch up speed a little bit earlier and drive next to him on the outside before T2. We entered T2 side by side and went on this way through T3. Again I had the better exit and finally regained P1.
On the long straight Sean had my slip stream so I had to defend it on the inside at the hairpin. After that defensive move it was done. A pleassure to race this way!
Now I was able to slightly increase a gap to Sean. Having some slight mistakes here and there it grew to ~7 seconds or so after 2/3 of the stint. From lap 13 the tyre wear made it tricky. In lap 16 or 17 I had a big mistake due to slippery car behaviour. So the gap was down to ~3 seconds.
That's why I decided to pit 1 lap earlier just to cover myself and not to loose more time because of the worn tyres. The stop went well and I pushed hard on the following laps. So when everyone had pitted I was back in the lead again by ~5 seconds.
The second stint wasn't that eventfull. Some mistakes again, so the gap to Sean didn't increase much. In the end of lap 35 I pitted again well and after everything had settled I was in the lead again.
I don't remember when it happened but Dino had taken the 2nd position from Sean close before or after my last stop. However I was chased by Dino now. In this last stint it felt like the tyres had worn quicker, because even after 11 laps they started to feel bad with lots more understeer than usually at this point.
The gap to Dino decreased lap by lap and there were some more to go. For the last 3 or 4 laps (I guess) he was on my tail. So I focused very much on clean and tight corner entries and the best way to accellerate out of them. I also increased the risk at the entering point of T1. The risky way to enter it was to take the outside curb between the wheels to widen the corner a littel bit.
Finally it worked well and Dino didn't risk an over agressive move, so I was happy to bring it home in first at the season final.
As always I can't tell enough how grateful I am to have such great place to race with other great guys. So my
biggest thanks go again to Nico, RD, MMG and everyone involved.
Merry Christmas and see you all (very) soon...