Curiously this was my second WG race in 3 days having (sort of) participated in the final pre-season event in the Legends League on the Sunday. I had struggled a lot in the 79's but the 75 laps of practice meant when I jumped in the R8 I was up to speed on the layout.
Pole position, however, went to Yuriko with a demon lap from Jafo fractions ahead of Reitveld, Crippy, Suzy and championship leader Remon. Remon had two wins from pole under his belt but was curiously off the pace here while Looming was unable to start so claimed last place.
Into T1 Reitveld had a look inside Yuri who forcefully shut the door while Jafo took the lead. Behind them Remon got airborne (above) and damaged his car. Further round the lap, exiting T6 (I think - the 2nd corner after Carousel) Crippy's car got away from her and she rotated.
Two corners later Jafo ran wide giving Yuri a chance, unfortunatly her first spin occured and she lost a place to Katier. Yuri would get back past the R8 driver shortly after but her race fell apart with a huge spin on lap 7 costing her a lap for a new rear wing.
By that Lap 7 the field had settled down. Jafo looked comfortable a few seconds ahead of Katier who was keeping a 1-2s gap ahead of Suzy. Suku was next up ahead of the recovering Crippy, Rattra and Kiboe. Remon had retired giving him his worst result of the year and pleasing Sulla as her absence meant he gained only a point on her.
The pitstops proper started on lap 12 when Suzy pitted. Afterwards she confessed this stop was earlier than she had intended but it was bang on half distance and she took on exactly the fuel required. Exiting in clear air and suddenly she had a shot at victory.
Aware that Suzy might be quick on fresh tyre's Katier started to push hard and pitting on lap 14 she just scraped out ahead of the Lola B2K10. Katier drove her outlap absolutely flat out, 5s quicker than anyone else and 7s quicker than Jafo.
That meant that after the stops Katier lead from Suzy, Jafo, Crippy and Rattra. Suku was last unlapped runner with Kiboe one lap down and, after a second rear wing removing spin, Yuriko was two.
Katier was now clearly driving as hard as she could pulling away from Suzy with a series of 1m30 and 1m29s laps. Suzy was eventually past by Jafo on lap 19 at which point a minor off also damaged her car.
Katiers hard pressed tyres were now starting to go off and Jafo was closing in fast, by lap 22, with one to go, he was right with her. Out of the last corner he got a better exit and crossing the line was in the lead. Over the last lap Reitveld put as much pressure on the leading Panoz has she could.. almost too much pressure as a half spin near the end of the 'loop' lost her a couple of seconds.
Jafo then crashed exiting the next corner but was able to just, with the aid of a bit of robust driving in the last corner, to hold on to the win by a fraction of a second. (Katier's half spin is depicted as the background to this blog)
Pos/Driver/Laps/Time/Gap/Aids/Car
1 JAFO2RHh - 23 - 35:58:780 - ABS=2 AutoBlip Clutch Stability=2 TC=3 - Panoz
2 Katier Reitveld - 23 - 35:59:030 +.25s - ABS=1 AutoBlip Clutch TC=1 - Audi
3 Suzy Cuddihy - 23 - 36:02:786 - +4.01s - ABS=2 AutoBlip AutoLift AutoShift=3 Clutch Opposite Stability=1 TC=1 - Lola
4 Crippy Oh 23 36:24:203 +25.42s - Cadillac
5 Rattra 23 36:50:409 +51.63s - ABS=2 Stability=2 TC=2 - Audi
6 Tsukuba Ming 23 36:53:268 +54.49s - ABS=2 AutoBlip Clutch Stability=1 TC=1 - Panoz
7 Kiboe 22 +1L - ABS=2 AutoBlip Clutch Opposite Stability=2 TC=3 - Dallara
8 Yuriko 21 +2L - ABS=2 AutoBlip Clutch Stability=2 TC=3 - Audi
9 Remon Franizzi 7 +16L DNF(DNF) - ABS=2 Clutch Stability=2 TC=3 - Audi
(This series allows a number of driver aids reflecting it's casual friendly nature. It makes an interesting comparison however seeing which aids are used)
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