Fabcar: Nurburgring

Congrats to Podium,
geez discoed early :(
That kills your rank. Anyway see everybody in Sebring.

A gamefreeze ended my race premature. :-( Grats to the podium.

What can i say, got my rear wing hit off on the so called "Formation Lap" which also damaged my rear suspension. Had to pit even before i had too the green, After i exited pits i was a lap down and noticed that my suspension was not fixable. Every time i hit the brakes hard it was like the rear had its own independent steering :(

After the start i had i think i did we to salvage 13th, should have been a top 10 though :'(

Yes the person that hit me was new but Race Steward and Tim said the 1st lap was not the start of the race about 3 or 4 times..

I know I start with this quite a lot, but what a great race :).

3rd on the grid was what I expected but I gave it my all to try and pip Conor to second but I just missed out.

1st stint was just about trying to stay with Conor. I managed to stay with him, but never really got close enough to put some real pressure on. Coming up to the first stop Conor spun at the chicane which got me 2nd but it was very short lived as I was heading down pit road a second later.

Soon got underway again and I came out in some clean air so I pushed as hard as I dared on cold tyres. Kept looking at the gap to Conor on my onboard computer to see when he was making his stop. I saw the time gap tumble a couple of laps later so I knew he was pitting. I thought I might have a chance of grabbing 2nd after his spin but I didn't expect to get 2nd and a 15 second gap.

I knew Conor was faster than me though so I knew the 2nd place wasn't safe yet. By the time the 2nd stops came around I think I had about 7 or so seconds on Conor but here's where I buggered up a little. I decided to go a couple of laps longer than I normally do in the 2nd stint, but both these extra laps where done in traffic which probably cost me a couple of seconds. I knew I was coming into to traffic but I decided to stay out anyway, should have pitted there and then to avoid the gaggle of cars but I pressed on. Oh well, lesson learnt I guess :).

Again I was watching the gap to Conor to monitor his stop. The gap was tumbling as I was going down the start finish, then I see him just ahead emerging behind the pit wall. This was going to be close :).

Braked a little later for T1 and made sure I gave him some room, got on the power as soon as I could and I just managed to get to T2 first. I pushed as hard as I could on that lap while he was still on cold tyres which bought me a couple of seconds but he was soon right on my rear end.

Just over 5 mins left and I was still managing to keep him behind but I was making a few mistakes here and there, mostly going in too hot into the final turn which isn't ideal. Then it happend, made a mess of the final turn which gave me a bad exit and gave Conor the chance to have a proper go at me. Looking back I should have been more defensive and covered the inside but I didn't which in turn gave Conor the chance to go down the inside of T1 which he took. I tried to cut back to try and get a good exit but it wasn't good enough and Conor's move stuck.

The next few laps I just did all I could to stay close to try and put some pressure on, I'd seen him spin once today so I thought he could spin again. Unfortunately for me he didn't and we crossed the line just under a second apart, pretty close after 90 mins of racing :D.

Grats once again to Tris and Grats and thanks to Conor for the great race. Well done to all the guys who finished and thanks to all the slightly slower guys who did a great job of letting us past yet again.

Cya all at Sebring :D

Grats to Tristan on the win and kudos to Kieron for another great race :)

Kieron pretty much explained it all but I'll add a few tidbits. Was disappointed with the car yesterday since the night before, I was able to do low 1.49s with relative ease...not sure what happened there. Just was never comfortable. But it seemed I had a good enough pace to stay on the podium so I was fine with that.

What I am not happy about was my lousy spins. I am still not entirely comfortable with my G25 and later led to key mistakes in the final part of the first stint. My first spin came in the chicane where I had a comfortable lead over Kieron. However, going into it, I got lazy on the stiff brake pedal and didn't brake as hard. I reacted a little too quickly and braked way too hard right before the turn in and spun it around. This was where Kieron passed me and went straight into the pits.

I stayed out a bit longer to get ready for my stop, but my mistakes didn't end there. A few laps after my initial spin in the chicane I was working on some lap cars. The tumble in the times that Kieron saw on his monitor was not me pitting but yet another spin...and a stupid one at best :D. After I had just passed a few cars, going into the right hander before the back straight, I reached over to one of my buttons on my shifter panel to request a pit stop because I was going in that time. However, I accidentally slammed the stick shift into a high gear and spun it around...eventually stalling it :(. I got it back going again and went in to get tires and fuel. Because of my mistake, that is how I found myself close to 15 seconds behind Kieron after the stop.

I cut that deficit in half by the next stop and when I came out, I found myself side by side with him going into T1...which caught me off by surprise. He had the edge though because I was on cold tires and sped off, but soon caught up to him. I chose to stay behind him for a few laps to see if he would make a mistake with me right on his bumper. My chance came with a few laps left after he bobbled a little bit in the final corner. I drafted with him going down the front straight and pulled out for the pass right before the brake zone. It wasn't an easy pass because T1 is just not an easy corner to execute anyway but pulled it off anyway...sacrificing some rubber in the meantime ;). After that, I just focused on running consistent laps and tried to keep the car on track at all times. Kieron stayed with me, but I vowed not to make the same mistakes like I did earlier in the race and brought it home safely in second :)

Once again, great race, man...look forward to Sebring :)