Grand Prix of China

First race I ever spectated, From P to Q to R. Thought I would watch the start and a few laps, I couldn't quit watching. Excellent drive Tristan, never saw anyone chase any one so close as you did to Lee M. Good recovery for the win. David F drove an excellent race after huge problems in Q. Tim sat back and watched TB, LM and SG battle just waiting for a mistake.
It was a diffrent perspective, and I learned a lot.
DC

What an adventure. :-)

Screwed up Q in the worst way possible with an accident in the last corner. My 33.9 in practice was my Q target, and I should of come very close to that since I hit it easily many times during my practice sessions. Instead I ended up starting 16th with a 1:45. :-O

At the start I looked at all the cars in front of me.....sighed...and decided to just try and stay out of trouble and work my way up gradually and not think about the leaders running away from me. Seemed like a parking lot for a long time after the start. Didn't check the gaps to the leaders as that would only make me frustrated, because I knew how many seconds per lap I was losing when it seemed that almost everyone was battling me hard. Now I see I was already 13 back by lap 3 with a whole bunch of cars still to get past. :-( Lot's of unnecessarily lost time for myself and those other drivers unfortunately, and eventually I came in a few laps early because of it in the hopes of finding soem clear track. Of course they are absolutely entitled to do that, and this isn't an attack on anyone in even the slightest way, but it's best to take a long term view of the race in these circumstances. I do remember the names though, and if it won't cost me, maybe I should return the favor someday? That's how things are done in real F1. :-)

Late in the race running third I saw Stanislav and Tristan were very close and was wishing upon them disaster :-) I don't know what happened but Stanislav did have some kind of accident and started dropping back rapidly. This gave me second and then I just dropped the boost and cruised to the finish.

Second is good considering where I started, but the bottom line is I hate losing and all it feels like to me is that I've thrown away yet another race, and lost 2 points to Tristan.

Congratulations to Tristan and Stanislav for the win and the podium.

A hugely rewarding race for me personally, because I did not do as poorly as I have previously with these F1s. I am slowly, slowly, starting to understand them, and while I am far from being competitive I think I am a bit better. A huge thanks to my teammate Bob Fay and Steve Wood for their advice on tires-- I suffered a lot less and had no flats.
I had two problems today. First, horrible lag and frame rate issues the first three laps: I seriously thought about hitting ESC because I was worried I would ruin someone's race. As the race got underway I lost a ton of time and positions because things were virtually undrivable, but it seems as people dropped off the server things improved and by mid race it wasn't a problem anymore. The other problem I had, and I feel like an idiot, was that I was looking at the display about 6 or 7 laps in the race, and all my tires were grayed out and I thought I had them shot-- so first I thought about pitting then I changed my mind, then I thought I would cruise around until my first pitstop. I lost about 30 secs figuring it out, but it was after the second stop that I saw they were still greyed out. I don't undersand. After the last stop the tires had their normal color showing temps and wear. I was totally confused...any advice what the heck that meant?
By the time I had my things sorted out, I just aimed at racing and maintaining a decent pace. I was worried I was a a little short on fuel and had to take it a bit easy in the last two stints. I was in between my teammates, with Scott far ahead and the only reason Bob did not pass me was that he had damage. I aimed to maintain my distance and that was it. It felt good to qualy 8th, and it felt good that it was mid race before I got lapped the first time! I felt at least a tinge less pathetic!
I was happy to collect my first F1 point, and I just noticed that the results show me 7th, so there must have been some adjustments. Terrific job by all, and as usual I hope I was not too much trouble to the cars lapping me.

This was, all around, almost the best F1 race I've had. Montreal was better simply because i had no spin or mistakes there. Aside from the tiny spin I had in T1 whilst chasing Lee Morris, the car felt great and I pulled off some smooth, consistent driving.

In Q I decided to play the fuel-burn game. 5 laps out there, quick pit for new tires, and one flying lap on 10 litres of fuel. 34.5, bam!! Poor David had troubles, so P1 it was!!

The start was uneventful, but I lost out big time on the loooong backstraight because I ran 32/39 wing. I took advantage though, of where I had an advantage, and snuck past Tim twice into T1 (thank you for not being super-aggressive, Tim!! ..... pause for effect... ).

Lee had to have been on softs, as by lap 6 and 7, he was all over the place. I sat back and watched he and Stanislav go at it for a lap, and then had my turn to find a way by.

By the second stint, Stan and I were alone up front, he maybe 8 seconds ahead. I put my head down and plugged away the fastest laps I could, and saw the margin gradually getting smaller. By my third and final stop, I exited the pits not three seconds behind Stan, and quickly worked my way up to him. He and I battled for two laps, back and forth in a couple of braking zones, but I found my way past for good into T1, where Stan had less entry speed. Alot of wing, paying off for me!! Soon after, Stan had altercations with Todd and Steve Wood (see above link), so I relaxed. Three easy laps and then across the line! Fantastic!!

A really great race, exciting throughout. I would like to dedicate this win to my father, who is 59 years young today!!

I had the speed, just ran out of talent. Grats to the podium, I was very close this time!

Just realized I scored a point even though I tore the left front off and had a 95 second pitstop to repair. I'll take it! I thought I finished 9th though?

Qualify - Didnt hook my lap up so ended up p3

Race - this track is high on tyre wear.. and myself being a driver who struggles to look after tyres was impossible.. after 5 - 6 laps the MEDIUM tyres were overheating. but .. not the fronts.. the rears.. the rear tyres were on fire and i have no idea why lol.. 130 degrees was average..

so i had no traction and everyone was passing me.. was in 5th when grip became so bad i decided to call it a day.. was no fun racing on ice..

ill look into this problem but i hope i proved im good enough to be here :)

cheers for fair racing guys.. enjoyed the battles with tristian and the sauber man lol.. sorry forgetful of names :(

I watched you Lee, saw your car getting loose and your
spins. I saw a great battle between you and Dave Fisher
during practice. Good Job. To bad Dave had problems in Q,
would of been great to watch him up there with the rest
of you guys
DC

A great race! A nice mix of good and bad racing makes it fun. Had some good racing at the start with Stuart Speirs and Brian Farley, Brian lost his rear grip and spun. Phil Roberts wasn't far behind, but I managed to stay ahead. I would have gotten into the points, but I had a couple of self spins that cost me some time.

Francesco! 7th place finish...excellent. Always great racing with you...though this time I had a blue flag when you came up behind me indicating you had a lap on me. I wanted to pull over and just let you by, but rules are rules. :)

That was the good stuff, now the bad: Stanislav Gorbunov tagged Todd in the rear and went off-track then re-entered at full throttle and nailed me...rule 0.5 - Re-joining the racing surface broken. Traffic is traffic even if it's a car that's a lap down. I'm not complaining...just saying that the rules should be read (and understood) at least once per season.

And a suggestion: David...next time we discuss Amateur series please vote for it...that way us slow guys won't mess up your fun, and we won't feel like we are "in the way" while we learn the required skills. Most of us n00bs are intersted in Rank or Points...we just want to have some fun, and we can't get that if we are constantly being buffetted by jet cars racing by us. Not picking on you...I'm just getting a little political and pointing out that with a series such as this which is filling up quickly then an amateur series in the F1's might be more fun.

Before this gains momentum and gets ridiculous (like that silly letter in my in box), all I'm saying is that, when you have cars that have a significant difference in pace and they battle each other early....in the end, BOTH cars lose FAR MORE time than they need to those in front of them. Just like a poorly handled blue flag situation.
If that's what some want, then fine. I did it today and still finished second and I'll do it again if/when I have to. As I said, everyone on the same lap is entitled to do so, but the FACT is that both cars finishing time and position suffers unnecessarily. The goal is to get to the finish line as quickly as possible.

BTW, no one "messed up" my fun today because coming back from a disaster is actually a lot of fun.