First VLN race of this season done - time to give this write-up thing a try.
As last year, VLN splits are determined by qualification time. My qualy time this time around was actually kind of decent, putting me in 4th split of 6. Quite a change from the bottom split I found myself usually in. My split had a three class field, consisting of 19 GT3s, 16 Porsches and 13 Mazdas.
I started the race from 12th position. The leader decided to break check the entire field before the green, twice, which lead to a few 4x contacts in the field before the green.
Also, the Porsche field decided to not leave a gap, which made the slow break check start rather interesting.
Suddenly Porsches in the middle of the GT3 field
Overall, the start wasn't too bad and I got through unscathed. After things settled down a bit, I ended up being part of a three car group which was running pretty close together for the first stint...
Symbolic picture for my first fuel stint...
I got in front of the group at the last time over Döttinger Höhe just before the first pit stop and got out a couple of seconds in front of them in 6th place. I managed to get some distance between us, leaving me with a quiet second hour. At the end of the second stint, I pitted while being in 3rd position. I had to take a bathroom break during the second pit stop, which lost me ~15 seconds, but at least got rid of some optional repairs (no idea where I picked those up, probably curb damage). Apparently, I still need to work on my real life pit stop.
I got out of the pits in 5th place, having the same two cars from the first stint around 10 seconds in front of me again. I slowly cought up to them and we eventually got one more position on track, giving the group positions 2-4. Then lap 21 happened...
Contact...
The second place was mine, served on a silver platter. The remaining 1,5 stints were rather uneventful and I was able to finish in 2nd place, 20 seconds behind the leader and 37 seconds in front of third place.
*wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee*
Minor curb damage aside, I finished with a clean car, the fast repair still available. This is my best VLN result so far by far and I'm really happy with it. Big thanks to
@SavreticD for sharing a setup for this race. It felt really good.
On a side note, the Sebring 12h really helped me in terms of learning to overtake slower cars. As far as I'm aware, I haven't killed any Mazdas or Porsches. I was much more confident overtaking slower classes - and hopefully did most passes fast and on none stupid locations - for the most part, anyway...
Overtaking at 190kph... this is fiiiiiiiiiiiiine....
Still open for a second driver, especially for the six hour race in August.