24-02-2014, 12:03 AM
Qualifying
-------------
I made the mistake of going light for qualy. A mistake because I had made the car setup in a way that it was optimized for being balanced for race fuel and being light caused the car to be more understeery than expected. Anyway, the 1.14,8 was good enough for 5th which wasn't something to worry about as here the important was to keep behind slipstreams. I even felt releived to start 5th and try to take advantage of others battling.
Race 1
--------
Good reaction time helped me to take Robert's 4th place. Stayed there until David's steering lag made him lose his second place to Marcel and me. Unluckily that helped Rickard to build a gap.
In my battle with Marcel we had that little contact in the main straight. Actually I didn't even notice it in my computer and just saw Marcel going straight through the grass.
So that left Rick leading and Hectari, DjC and me as the chasing group.
At first we didn't sinchronize so that helped Rick build a more comfortable lead. We later "helped" each other on the overtakings but pitstop were coming closer.
In all the racing I realised I was holding the wheel too tight and I realised I was starting to lose some sensitivity on the finger of my left hand. When, at the main straight, about to press the space bar to request my pitstop I noticed I couldn't feel the keyboard due to my numb fingers. I kissed the grass and almost lost it heading for Curva Grande.
Aproaching parabolica, being chased by DjC and Hectari I stayed on the right so I had a better position to head the pits. But the right side was a lot more slippery and run wide going through the gravel, luckily only lost a couple of seconds there.
Exited pits right behind DjC and a couple of laps later we reached Hectari after his pitstops.
Battle was fierce between them and I decided to remain behind them caring for the tires and using their slipstream to approach them while thinking which could be the strategy to try to win the battle for second place.
I made a couple of attempts just as a test but realised that a two car overtaking was imposible so I remained there waiting for a final lap attack as I saw Hectari was starting to go a little wide at Lesmo 1 showing he was having a bit of a problem with his left front tire.
Two laps to the end David tried a side to side braking for Curva Grande, they almost hitted and Hectari was a bit out of place approaching Lesmo 1 going through the grass at the braking. With his car out of control he crashed into David. I avoided the crashing cars and went for a satisfactory second place.
Race 2
--------
As I always get the worse of reversed races this could not be the exception. Everything went well at the start until approaching parabolica. John Cook lost control of his car and took Marcel and some other car. There was nothing I could do but to brake but the crash against Marcel's car was unavoidable. Car was badly damaged. Entered pits right behing Marcel for repairs. 155 seconds later I could leave pits in penultimate place.
Tried to drive fast enough to save the tires for that many laps. Only had trouble at the final two laps where I had to take Curva Grande and Lesmo 1 a bit more carefully to avoid understeering. That was a bit of a boring race.
Noticeable that as tires were 10 laps old, top speed started being reduced from usual 324km/h to 322km/h
Note: about grid setting for reversed race. I think I remember that at Belgium we first reversed top 10 drivers and then moved people who wanted to go to the back. I remember reading that was fair to avoid a car who had not ended between the top ten to be in the top positions.
I don't know why we did the opposite in this race, first put people to the back and then reversing the NEW top ten. I feel it to be unfair to the "reversing top ten drivers" philosophy as people finishing 11, 12 or higher can end up starting race2 ahead of drivers who finished race 1 in the top ten (as was the case).
-------------
I made the mistake of going light for qualy. A mistake because I had made the car setup in a way that it was optimized for being balanced for race fuel and being light caused the car to be more understeery than expected. Anyway, the 1.14,8 was good enough for 5th which wasn't something to worry about as here the important was to keep behind slipstreams. I even felt releived to start 5th and try to take advantage of others battling.
Race 1
--------
Good reaction time helped me to take Robert's 4th place. Stayed there until David's steering lag made him lose his second place to Marcel and me. Unluckily that helped Rickard to build a gap.
In my battle with Marcel we had that little contact in the main straight. Actually I didn't even notice it in my computer and just saw Marcel going straight through the grass.
So that left Rick leading and Hectari, DjC and me as the chasing group.
At first we didn't sinchronize so that helped Rick build a more comfortable lead. We later "helped" each other on the overtakings but pitstop were coming closer.
In all the racing I realised I was holding the wheel too tight and I realised I was starting to lose some sensitivity on the finger of my left hand. When, at the main straight, about to press the space bar to request my pitstop I noticed I couldn't feel the keyboard due to my numb fingers. I kissed the grass and almost lost it heading for Curva Grande.
Aproaching parabolica, being chased by DjC and Hectari I stayed on the right so I had a better position to head the pits. But the right side was a lot more slippery and run wide going through the gravel, luckily only lost a couple of seconds there.
Exited pits right behind DjC and a couple of laps later we reached Hectari after his pitstops.
Battle was fierce between them and I decided to remain behind them caring for the tires and using their slipstream to approach them while thinking which could be the strategy to try to win the battle for second place.
I made a couple of attempts just as a test but realised that a two car overtaking was imposible so I remained there waiting for a final lap attack as I saw Hectari was starting to go a little wide at Lesmo 1 showing he was having a bit of a problem with his left front tire.
Two laps to the end David tried a side to side braking for Curva Grande, they almost hitted and Hectari was a bit out of place approaching Lesmo 1 going through the grass at the braking. With his car out of control he crashed into David. I avoided the crashing cars and went for a satisfactory second place.
Race 2
--------
As I always get the worse of reversed races this could not be the exception. Everything went well at the start until approaching parabolica. John Cook lost control of his car and took Marcel and some other car. There was nothing I could do but to brake but the crash against Marcel's car was unavoidable. Car was badly damaged. Entered pits right behing Marcel for repairs. 155 seconds later I could leave pits in penultimate place.
Tried to drive fast enough to save the tires for that many laps. Only had trouble at the final two laps where I had to take Curva Grande and Lesmo 1 a bit more carefully to avoid understeering. That was a bit of a boring race.
Noticeable that as tires were 10 laps old, top speed started being reduced from usual 324km/h to 322km/h
Note: about grid setting for reversed race. I think I remember that at Belgium we first reversed top 10 drivers and then moved people who wanted to go to the back. I remember reading that was fair to avoid a car who had not ended between the top ten to be in the top positions.
I don't know why we did the opposite in this race, first put people to the back and then reversing the NEW top ten. I feel it to be unfair to the "reversing top ten drivers" philosophy as people finishing 11, 12 or higher can end up starting race2 ahead of drivers who finished race 1 in the top ten (as was the case).
SR4L discord channel: https://discord.gg/h5RZTcEcbA