It's been a while but I'll try to put together a summary of the event either way.
Practice: Coming into this race I knew that the Nissan should be pretty decent around Salzburgring but I hadn't taken into acount the inherent advantage of RWD off the turns that the BMW's would have.
But overall I was happy to be up at the front pace wise once again going into Qualifying.
Qualifying: Managed to put together a decent lap but soon saw that Steve was able to go even quicker, as he completed a lap in 1.18,5 and that's when I thought I'd be a goner when it came to pole position.
Luckily for me, I got some fortunate timing in coming onto my hotlap not that far behind Dave in the Opel and I asked him after we came through the opening hairpin if he was on a good lap and when he wasn't, I were able to use the draft to suck myself up to the rear of his car down that looooooooooooooong back straight and didn't make any errors in the final turns to blast in a 1.18,3.
Without the help of Dave and his Opel, Steve would have taken pole, thanks a lot Dave for being sporting and letting me past when your lap wasn't good
Sprint Race: Knew it would be really difficult to be in a good position down at the hairpin on the start, without the chicane it would be a.... How long a distance is that actually, it's like 14-18 seconds at full chap down that straight to the first "proper" turn of the track...
Happily I nearly got as good a start as I got at Nürburgring and was able to hold off most of the BMW's (1 of them, David) and all of the Audi's (Juha, Richard and Mick) going down the straight.
In the mirror I could see all hell break lose as I saw two cars off at the kink, one of them flying into the air quite high, was sorry to hear that several people got involved and impacted by the incident.
For myself it was a race long battle with the privateer Bimmer of Steve and the works one in the hands of David.
I tried early on to get past Steve but he made it very clear that he wouldn't give up the position easily, great defensive work at the end of the back straight that one time I got past, thought I had it done but you held on around the outside in that fast sweeper, didn't think that was possible.
After a bit of a moment I dropped behind David but in the slip-stream I were able to get back past and soon caught up with Steve again.
As the race was coming to the last few laps I had a few more stabs and, at the time at least, felt that I was being slightly chopped off in the small kinks that are on the back straight. In the end I, more or less, decided that I was going to go up one side, whichever was open, if I got a good enough run and so I did.
I don't know if Steve either didn't see me or what ever happened, but I went up the right side and had to quickly start moving right as Steve came over on me, which in the end saw me with half the car on the grass but couldn't move over much more without risking crashing out just hopeing that Steve wouldn't move over more but sadly our cars interlocked SuperTouringCarStyle and Steve was turned across my bonnet.
Slowed down to not take the position as I felt I had been a bit forceful with going up there but Steve decided to retire, I was very sorry to see that and rejoined the race in 7th place behind Jason.
Despite flatspotted tires from slowing down I were able to make the move on Jason when he made a tiny error at the opening hairpin and I got up to 6th.
That's as far as I could climb back up and 6th place for the start of the Feature Race, not optimal but it could have been far worse.
Feature Race: For the longer race I was slightly worried about the tires after the Sprint but I had my suspicion that it was the locked brakes that had caused the late-race troubles with the tires.
Got another good start going, I think I've finally worked out how to get the Nissan off the line, as I climbed past Dave's Opel, Øyvind's Honda (Great first race mate!) and even Richard's Audi to place myself behind Ray and David going into the opening hairpin.
Spent a few laps sitting behind Ray being unable to get past, those works Bimmers has some proper power under the bonnet and their RWD helped both David and Ray to be faster off the turns at this place.
Finally I managed to get a better run off the hairpin then Ray who had a tiny bobble trying to get the power on and I slipped past down the straight and not long after Richard in the Audi was past Ray as well.
What ensued was a great battle between me and Richard for a few laps where Richard put in some stunning laps despite the weight dis-advantage that his AWD imposed on him. He got by and I couldn't quite find a way past and a truce was entered in an attempt to catch back up with David who had opened up a gap due to our battling in the opening few laps.
In the end we couldn't close in and Richard made a mistake at the opening hairpin like many others had done and I were able to slip past and blast open a gap down the straight.
A couple of laps later I sadly made a tiny mistake at the very fast sweeper at the end of the back straight and put half my rear left tire on the grass and span. I were able to almost save it without any damage but Richard sadly got caught out by it, missed his braking point and slammed into the outside barriers and retirement while I flung the car towards the inside and side swiped the inside barriers picking up a bit of damage myself.
Took a few laps to work out how the car would work and were able to get down to some decent lap times in the end but could do nothing about David ahead, your pace around here was astounding, great job!
So with Steve and Richard retiring and Anders not able to run, my championship lead is now a whopping 103 points so I need 58 points in the remaining 2 meetings to secure the title by points and not having to rely on amount of wins or something like that.