Enough excuses, what were the times/traps?
I can understand a very slow start based on the temps, but the trap should be decent if anything else went well, even bouncing off the limiter a bit.
For the record, you don't want steeper gears with all that extra torque available, turbo cars are torque monsters, relatively speaking. Taller gears help keep traction and so make for a faster car overall, especially in the lower gears. As far as the NA V6's go (at least the manual), 3.73's with decent tires would help a lot based on my experience.