1976 F1 Season - Round 11 Austria Spielberg REPORTS

[Ricknau]

I just had no pace despite a good amount of practice. Was lapped by about 10 guys! Ended up crashing with Mel in a fun battle with about 3 to go. Sorry Mel, I tried like heck to hold my line on the outside but it was too tricky with the wobbly worn out tires.

[hangon]

My apologies Oscar Dancourt , Your brake zone caught me by surprise.Perhaps i was too close , was just turning in to go on inside (Lap 2) and punted you ...other than that had a good race and did not get in the way of anyone

[Antti Hyytiainen]

Short report this time:

Completely missed the start and was going into T1 7th I think. Had a nice battle with David for a few laps, until I lost control on lap six seven, which took Dave out of the race. Very sorry for this Dave.

Then pitted and just about everyone was a lap ahead, and with the overtaking being so tricky, decided to just follow along. Did another stop for fresh tires some ten laps before the end, as the old set was quite horrible to drive at that point. Drove home 14th eventually.

Congrats to Kristijan & Ed & Ed for podium.

[J-P SImard]

Difficult race for me I did not have the pace to fight with the guys in front of me and at the end of the race I crash with David while we were wheel in wheel and I defended myself ... When I saw the replay I saw that it was my fault :-( My apologies David.

Congratulations to the podium

[lamer of fortune]

A very satisfying race. Maybe the best so far. I invested quite a bit of time into practice but never found the 1.37. Setup felt ok so it must have been a driver issue. Q was not so good as i left half a second to PB.
Misplaced my phone so I had to do the fuel math out of my head. Think I got a bit lucky as I finished with 0.2 liters left. Had to do a bit of fuel saving in Dans slipstream. The race was a high concentration thing as it was close racing from start to finish. I decided to not make any daring moves which paid off as most of the drivers in front of me made a mistake after some time. Think I spent 20 laps behind Cookie and another 10 behind Dan who unfortunately made no mistake. P 10 is a good result for me.
Awesome turnout and quality of racing. This is a phantastic league.

[Hedlund]

I was going to work today but as I have a fever I took the chance to actually do a race with you guys instead! Obviously hadn't practiced at all but I thought it could be fun anyway. But it was tougher than I expected and half through the race I was done already.. drowning in my own sweat lol. Lost concentration and got flatspots and when I picked up some minor damage I decided to give up. But I had some good battles before that.. I had some guy behind me the whole first stint with high downforce who was probably quicker than me, but as I had the lowest possible downforce he couldn't get past me. The low downforce setup was a last minute choice and it was probably wrong, I don't know.

My last race was the season premiere and I guess you guys have become quicker, I obviously don't have the pace anymore The 1 hour races are quite hard to just pick up too.. would have been easier to do a shorter race so I doubt I will do more races this season. Are the fun races also 1 hour?

[deecee52]

Got a good start and got the drop on Anti and Dan but Antti was quickly on my tail exiting the chicane , the March and Brabhams were much faster than the Macs here so I stayed wide to let him through as I was hoping to preserve my tyres and come good later in the stint , i stayed behind Antti for a few laps as he tried to find a way past DJ then he went onto the grass at Sebring , he appeared to be going striaght alongside the track so I kept my foot in and stayed online but then he speared across the track and T boned me , the resulting crash killed the car so race over .

[Tygernoot]

I had a great start and managed to avoid my team mate Antti who had apparently fallen asleep

That put me in third place, and I managed to keep the position despite J-P being on my tail for quite a while. It was tough to follow Ed initially, but as the tyres started to go I was trailing him by a second or two. We went into the pits the same lap and then kept the same distance. When Ed got stuck for most of a lap while trying to lap a car, I had a first opportunity to overtake.
Ed was much quicker in the second and third sector, while I was able to catch him a bit in the first. I got up the inside in T1 a first time, but was too far off and didn't want to risk diving into the corner. After a small mistake from Ed a few laps later I had a second opportunity around the outside into T1. I didn't think I could make it stick, but Ed also played it safe and I was up in 2nd place. The rest of the race was tip-toeing around the track to make the tyres last to bring the car home in one piece.

Great race again! Lots of fun, great track, tough but fair competition, and difficult but brilliant cars. Credits to Antti for setting up the car, he's a genius

[Bruce]

As usual a bit lacking in pace here (about 10 seconds slower than fasted drivers). I put hard tyres on and filled it up so no need to stop. Early on in the race got overtaken by 3 or 4 cars in a group (not sure if they were lapping me or had had trouble earlier on and had to catch up). I clipped the last car and I think they span out; I had a very small amount of damage to front wing that had no effect (I managed to get a 1:47 after that). After that I just settled down keeping out of the way of the faster cars, and one by one as the cars dropped out for various reasons I moved up the field. I remember seeing a pinkish car hung up on the barrier.

[Fergy]

Firstly a reminder to please read the special rules for each event. Most tracks we don't need to do this but this was one we decided that the bug that traps you in the armco was race over and you must exit. The reason being the distraction to fellow drivers while you're trying to remove yourself and the potential to end someones race. If this was not clear or you have an opinion please PM me.

Fantastic turn out, 24 on track for the start our best this season.

Setting the alarm again for 5.45am is never exciting but to wake up and see so many on track soon gets the blood flowing. I qualified 10th with my aim to run a 37 which I managed so I was pretty happy with that. My race went pretty well, I hung on the the back of [USER=328]@Dan Bayford[/USER] for the first 14 laps or so, it was a great little battle going on. Around lap 15 [USER=558]@Daniel Tani[/USER] made a move on me, I thought I gave him enough room but it looks very close. He took some grass and lost control. Apologies if I contributed.
The only mistake for the race came in the pits. Exiting I clipped [USER=381]@myself9[/USER] (Shannon) damaging my steering and hopefully no damage to Shannon. Apologies for that rather bad piece of driving.

Started 10th, finished 6th. I found track difficult. Looking forward to the next one. Well done to all competitors, some great skills shown out on track.

Bryan

[Dan Bayford]

Man what a race I great battle with Bryan for a 3rd of the race I knew 1 mistake and Bryan would get past me so I just tried to concentrate to the max right up to the point I didn't and in a split second missed my braking point and off I went like Torvill and Dean skating on ice only less gracious as I span back across the track an unfortunate racer
Hit me I'm so sorry for who ever that was ) I hope I didn't wreck your car I got back on track and pited
And then came out on track only to do the same thing again IN the same place. Doohhh. The only good thing after that was. Great battles with Tobias and John until John disappeared of track and then a great battle with Tobias. Who towards the end gained amazing pace I know he could of passed me into the corners but luckily for me he is gentleman
I was glad to cross the finish line because I didn't have any fluid left in me to sweat out.

[Edvvc]

Qualified 2nd but got a cracking start and beat Kristijan into the chicane. Led for a bit but couldn't prevent him from taking the lead. Felt pretty comfortable in 2nd place with a reasonable gap to 3rd but the car felt a bit unstable as the tyres wore down. Pitted after lap 19 and parked in my pit bay at an angle but it should be fine.... until J-P pits right in front! It was my fault but this meant having to reverse and then pull away so a second or two lost. Edward was right on my tail (haven't watched replay yet) and exiting the pits I can't quite remember what happened but some evasive action was required and I ended up launched into the air and with front right damage.

I don't know how Edward didn't get past that lap as I was super cautious finding out how bad the damage was - not too bad apparently. For a while I managed the gap but, as before, once the tyres wore down I lost confidence and he got me into the chicane with a good fair pass. I was always slow there as my setup favored the faster bits. For about a lap I tried to get the place back but I didn't have the pace and had to settle for 3rd.

Great race!

[Tygernoot]

Edward was right on my tail (haven't watched replay yet) and exiting the pits I can't quite remember what happened but some evasive action was required and I ended up launched into the air and with front right damage.

Ah, forgot about that! Indeed, I don't know what happened there, the whole situation was rather confusing. There was another car involved, and you kept the pit exit line until you ran out of tarmac and hit that high curb. I saw your car launching through the air. I think one of the reasons I didn't get closer at that point was because I was laughing so hard in my virtual helmet
Need to watch the replay again to see what happened there

[Keeper]

Driver ahead of me was asleep at the wheel for the start, but luckily there was no contact as I jinked to the left to avoid him. Then as Hedlund said, he had virtually no downforce which was costing overall lap time given all the long sweeping corners, but it meant every time I'd overtake him he'd just blow past on the next straight. So, after two overtakes and two re-takes, I decided just to stay behind, dropping back a little for most of the stint to keep my fronts in good shape. Nearing halfway I caught back up planning to pit a little early and do an undercut to get the position, but someone who went off ahead of us came across the track and Hedlund chose the wrong way -- blammo. Now on my own, I stayed out a few more laps then and after the pitstop had like 30 seconds to the car ahead and over 10 to the car behind. Began calculating how much I could lose per lap to keep the position, and tried to be a little conservative from there on out to secure the seventh position. Had a few moments where I lost more than I wanted to, but did hold on to the seventh position by less than a second at the line.