Grand Prix of Europe

rFactor crashed on me, 20 seconds from the end of warmup. Damn damn damn. After the last time this happened i put a new XP build together. So this must be hardware related. So dissapointing.

Dunno why, have just done an hours Champcar elsewhere with no trouble, but had really poor FPS.

Having a decent battle in the lower reaches and then PC froze on me, probably explaining the FPS, as since that tonight it has been fine.

Apologies if I caused anyone trouble, obviously not my night but saved me doing a full race on a hate track anyway :-]

I dont know if it was nerves at the beginning of the race or what but i had about 4 spins at turn one in the first 10 laps. Unfortunately Simon M and Phil R ended up being collected into a couple of my spins and ended up loosing their front wings. My apologies to both of you.
After that i seemed to get a handle on the first turn and just concentrated on putting in some consistenet laps.
Towards the end of the race i was able to get ahead of George P while he was coming from his last pit. I wasn't able to hold him off and he took the postition back. Then i had another spin and was battling Bob F for 8th position for the rest of the race.
Congrats to the podium.

It happened yet again! Does anyone know why it won't let me race here? I watched the warmup laps, and was waiting for the GUI to switch to RACE so I could get on the grid, but when my GUI went to RACE everyone else was already on the grid and was starting the formation lap.

Here's what I noticed:
On my last qualifying lap I got a checkered flag...soon after that the game pulled me off the track and into the garage...qualifying session apparently ended and the Warmup Session started. Tristan said good luck all and I was waiting for the game to go to RACE so we could start gridding up, but then the game went to the RACE session, but everyone was already on the grid, and it put me in my garage to start from the pit! I sat in the pit the entire formation lap and the car overheated before the pit lane light turned green.

Sorry I had to unregister from this event, but after the GTPC 90 min race, I found myself with a headache and just wasn't up to another long distance race.

Earlier in the morning I had some practice with Tim's setup, it was pretty good but for some reason I had to turn steering lock up to 32 from 18. Not sure what wheel Tim is using, but at 18 I would have my arms fully twisted over at almost all corners.

Looks like you folks had fun -- Tristan in 4th? I gotta write this down on my calender. ;)

For me FPS or Lag was a big problem. Seemed to get a lag peak just at the important time going into the corners. Was just about coping with it, until Kevin Spun infront of me (apology accepted) and i lost my wing. This put me a lap down after about 5 laps. Then another fps jump going into a corner and i spun, hitting the wall.

After i quit to the garage i looked around and noticed everyones pings were over 130. Was there any reason for extra lag this week? Wish my rank was not affected by issues like this, not the first time i have crashed due to lag, tho have to say was first time in rF.

Well done to all the winners, see you next week.

Had a great first half of the race then pulled bonehead move of the year. Got into the back of my own teammate. Taking off my wing and received much damage. Was running 6th or 7th at the time. Had alot of fun follwing Todd around waiting for a break. But he was steady. So settled in made a pitstop and bam. Thats whats great about this series. One mistake can kill ya. I never went off track again. Just glad to grab 10th.

I am happy with the endresult. Starting in 10th and again getting 2 points for finishing 7th is fine with me. Changed my strategy from a 2 to a 3-stopper during the race because the laptimes really dropped after about 14 laps. Had some good racing with Bob and Kevin but also made some stupid spins. I do hope this streak will continue. Finishing four in a row in these beasts is not too bad at all.

Clearly S7 is stellar for me so far. After 2 DNFs out of 2 this week, I was just waiting to see what would happen here...unfortunately I was not able to practice as much as I wanted to prep for this, just a little bit- although I was pleased that at the very minimum my pace was about a second faster than the last time I was here with the F1s in S6. I totally messed up my qualy in Zargani fashion, but I was not totally grossed out by my place on the grid. At the start I tried to stay out of trouble but between T1 and T2 there was a lot of going on and in T2 I almost lost the back end. The only highlight of the race was about a two lap battle with Dennis Cummings, but then he started pulling away ever so slightly at the beginning then much more decisevly as my tires wore down. About one lap before I was due for my scheduled stop, right on the front straight my left front got a flat-- so I had to do a full lap at minimum speed trying not to collect anyone and get back to the pits. Came back out a lap down, and then in the braking for T1 I had contact with Scott (it happens, no problem bro) and had to do a full lap this time without a rear wing-- much harder! By the time I was back to the pits and changed, the car was damaged too. I did a few laps then realized that my mind was not in it anymore and I was going to be a risk for the other drivers. Pulled into the garage and shut off the motor until it was time to do a few more laps and get the checquered flag and avoid the 3rd DNF. About 10 laps from the end I noticed that Brandon was also out of the race and only 4 laps ahead of me, so I went out again and gathered 13th place.
I had decided in S7 to only focus on 3 series to be able to get more out of each-- so far I am getting worst results than when I was running 4 events per week! lol.
Awesome race by everyone else, CT Racing will get some more points soon. Aweful luck for my m8 Steve Wood-- don't know the answer to your dilemma, but I do hope to be battling again with you soon in Shanghai.

Was a stressful event for me, though stressful usually means that I had a good battle all race long :-)

I goofed in qualifying; Went in for fresh tires and my crew also added fuel! I would have sworn they would not do this, but it appears I was wrong. I never got the chance to run a hot lap because of the extra fuel load. So my qual lap was basically only a bank-lap well off what I was really capable of, but at least in the front two rows.

At the race start everything went smoothly between the cars up front and I was being very conservative with Stanislav's slightly high ping. No need to challenge anyway... just want to finish the damn race. I didnt make it half way through the race before I threw myself off the track and into the sand. Nothing major, but a lot of time and track positions lost. No way to attempt to win the race now so instead I used the race as a testing session and hoped to still put it on the podium.

I had been curious about a 4-stop strategy here with the extreme tire wear so I went for it, pitting every 12 laps and keeping my fuel load light (lighter then my qual load in fact). Just hot-lapped for 60 laps and had a ton of fun working my way back into the top-4 spots where I met Tristan. While he and I rarely saw each other on track, he and I were in a heated battle for the entire race. We exchanged 3rd and 4th positions each time one or the other pitted. He was on a 3-stopper and I was 4-stopping, which made it interesting for sure. Having to deal with Tristan and knowing that I could not relax ever was very stressful :-)

It all came down to the final few laps where Tristan and i were nose to tail, him leading the pair of us. It was obvious that both of us were pushing hard with the rear tires spinning up at every opportunity. I challenged him as hard as I could, even going side-by-side through the final chicane (little wheel bumping to boot). I got past after a few laps working on him, but only had the smallest of a gap. On the final lap he must have had an issue as he slipped well back. A 3rd was a huge bonus for me after the first lap off.

Normally I do not get to "race" too many guys in the F1 races. The races are not usually on track, but in the pit strategies. This time I was able to race, for position, a dozen or so of you and it was really cool. Im very pleased to see both VWI cars in the points again and out scoring the Eagle team by a few points.

Great show guys. Off to China... if you though tire wear was bad at Nurburg.... oh boy