Well, no matter how I look at this event it was not as easy at it may have seemed.
Appologies to begin with, for the bugs that cropped up during the event, we did work on the track but for some reason the issues didn't arise during testing, nor during the week leading up to the event, at least it wasn't braught to our attention if anyone found issues until yesterday, at which point I did what I could to avoid too big of issues to occure.
But, anyway; Practice: During the week leading up to the event I was pretty confident that the Nissan would suit the track, simply based on the fact that Nissan scored a win in the Real Life counter part in the hands of the late-great Keith O'Dor.
But later, earlier this week, I saw that Steve was flying in his Bimmer yet again. Therefore I sat down during yesterday and tried to find a bit more pace and I was able to find it along with David Jaques having a few inputs on what could be done while I was trying to help him get settled in and ready for a possible event entry, sadly other things must have gotten in the way.
Consistent low 1,54's I was happy with and the confidence was somewhat back going into the evening.
Qualifying: Despite missing a few drivers that has kept me honest earlier in the series, I was kept on my toes in qualifying by others, such as David, Dave, Ray Pascal and Ricardo, and I was constantly worried about not being able to secure another pole position in this championship.
But in the end, non of them were able to get down and faster than my 1,54,1xx and I was able to be on pole for the sprint race.
Sprint Race: 23 laps around the AVUS circuit may not seem as a tough prospect but the narrowness of the track in terms of the barriers being right beside the gray stuff, and there not being many overtaking opportunities, means that it was going to be a tough one.
Thought I had a decent enough start but then Pascal came flying from 3rd on the grid like he was shot out of a cannon and soon a lot of drivers were snapping at my heels looking for a way past at the Südkurve and I lost out on the exit as I had a bad one.
A few laps into the race I made a bit of a mistake at the Nordschleife; which consisted of me running wide and onto the grass and nudging the barriers; which meant I was slow on the run to the Südkurve and I lost a couple more positions on the exit as I didn't feel like running into the chicane 2 or even 3 wide. Sorry to Jacob who I think got affected the most by me checking up slightly to not end up running in there side by side with anyone.
Tried to make my way up the field and managed to climb a couple of positions but then Pascal said something that made me worried about there being trouble ahead but made a mistake on my own in the chicane by running in there a little bit hot and ended up in the barriers and had to wait to get back going again.
Yet again it was time to try and climb but not before I reminded myself that all I needed was to manage a decent finish to score and open the gap enough to not be in danger at the final round of the championship.
I can't remember in what position I rejoined the race but I do remember passing one or two Audi's (Mick? and Simon?), I think I passed Bruno but I do remember passing Matthias and I don't think he made it difficult for me to pass him and I was then able to pass Andrew late in the race for the 3rd time during the Sprint Race.
There were sadly not enough laps for me to get up into the top 5 but I was sufficiently happy with 6th seeing where I was about halfway and 15 points added to my points total.
Big congratulations to Ray who, from the sounds of things and from what I saw, drove a stonker of a race as well as David who kept up and harassed his BMW compatriot the whole way and to Dave who got that Opel further up than I think it ever got near to in real life.
Feature Race: Starting the longer race in 6th with AWD and RWD cars all around me I had my suspecions that I'd be outstarted but managed to get the bite point of the clutch quite well and got away cleanly and then went around the outside of Südkurve and came out the other side I think in 3rd or 4th with Ray, David J and Dave M in the nearest positions.
What then ensued was a big jostle for the top 4 positions in the race with Dave, if I remember correctly, outbraking me and getting a better drive out of Südkurve on the second lap.
Then on Lap 3 Ray and David were 2 wide going towards the Chicane and Ray had a bit of a moment trying to hold onto his lead, went over the cerbs and dropped back as he lost momentum, David lost momentum as well which saw Dave sneak up into the lead on the run down to the Nordschleife.
David had a go on the next lap into the Südkurve and I couldn't make anything of it but saw that I may have a chance in there since David was a bit too quick for me at the northern end of the track and on the next lap David had a run on Dave while I had a small run on David and Dave went to defend the inside.
David tried to outbrake him around the outside and I took an even wider line to try an over'n'under move and was able to cut underneath David on the exit and outdrag his Bavarian machine to the Chicane.
Later on that lap I had a run on Dave coming out of the final turn and he again defended the inside and seemingly easily outbroke me down at Südkurve. He then proceded to make the tiniest of errors by mounting the cerbs at the Chicane a bit too much and was slow on the run down to the Nordschleife and he again defended the inside so I went in there looking for the cutback and just about was able to find a Nissan sized gap on the inside of his Opel and off the grass and we then had a drag race down to the opening turn which my Nissan won with a bit more power and a sleaker body in terms of drag. Still had to work for it under brakes but was able to hold on and then I could open up the gap.
In the end I was able to win by about 13 seconds, much thanks to the fact that Dave and David continued to fight and me being able to keep the speed up despite the tires shouting at me to give them a break.
So another 60 points added to my total but because Richard finished I didn't want to take it for granted and had to wait until I had calculated the new points standings but those additional points secured me the title, I was sooo happy when I saw it.
Now, when I'm done with the bits of work I have to do I think I'll have a celebratory drink, see you all on Sunday and let's all enjoy the final round of both the CART's and the STW and let's see what the 3rd position fight in the STW will look like, with so many drivers still in with a chance to take 3rd
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Subject: Re: Round 7 - Int. ADAC AVUS-Rennen - AVUS [Dec 4th] ![Round 7 - Int. ADAC AVUS-Rennen - AVUS [Dec 4th] - Page 2 Icon_minitime](https://2img.net/i/fa/icon_minitime.gif){kind=icon}
Wed 4 Dec 2019 - 21:58
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