GP of Italy

Steve gave me a great setup which I squandered in qualifying.
In the race I was shot out of a cannon and stayed out of trouble for the first few laps. Then I tried to pass Sam for P3 going into the first banking, went too low, and for a while all I saw was clouds and trees and asphalt and clouds and trees and asphalt. I apologize to anyone who was impacted by this incident.
I came out of this maneuver and noticed the engine was running. When I turned the steering wheel, the car turned. When I let go it went straight. And fortunately my BT48 experience prepared me for driving with no front wing.
I promptly outdid my qualifying time and was reeling in 4th and 5th place, when rFactor decided to CTD.
I'm gonna have to make a highlight reel on Youtube with all my crashes from this season. I probably should stick to GTL.

well, had an easy win but through it way when i lost track of where i was. argh!!!!!! though i was entering the banking, not parabolica. oh well, always next time.

ADDED: now that i'm over the dejection of my huge mistake, I would like to thank all the drivers that raced in the F1-H as well as R2P for hosting it. I would also like to thank my team, CanAm Racing for their support throughtout the season. I would also like to thank Samuel Krueger for the great close races we had from time to time. I never thought i would have stood a chance at winning the title driving a Renault, but i guess i would just fast enough at every track to pull it off.

I really hope i can defend my title next season, but i dunno if i can make the new time. my schedule is about to change as school is almost done for the summer and i have to find a job. so, congrats to Steve on another fine win, way to pick up the pieces for the team. i'll see you guys next season, i hope :)

If there is one replay to watch this month... this is it! Great job everyone, fantastic racing all through the field.

Mike Waltz.. you won the "first airborne" award. Steve Smith is getting fitted for his wedding dressing now.

WOOHOO *JUMPS INTO STEVE'S ARMS*

Wow. I managed to completely screw that one up! Had a great car and set-up, but crappy driver. Jeez. Lost a few nec. parts on the first couple of laps and was struggling with a damn bent car right away. Not quite what I had in mind. hehe.

Then I went and drilled Bert in the butt. I'm extremely sorry Bert. I'm an idiot. That was all my fault. :(
I should have got a penalty for that one. In fact, I'm going to go and protest myself......

One more spin on the banking and the esc. button looked pretty sweet.

Wrecked at least half my cars, but had a blast in this series with you guys. Thx.

My thanks goes twofold to my teammate Joe Di Pino:

1) for convincing me to race in a competitive race car for once this season;

2) for driving an entirely-selfless race.

He could've easily had 5th instead of me. Thanks, man. The position should've went to you, Mr. Barrichello. :)

Lot of fun, even if it ended in the wall for me. Everyone was doing a great job; plenty of times it could've gone bad if restraint hadn't been applied at the right time. Well done, guys!

Managed to actually bring the Monza version of the Ligier this time(!), which turned out to be worth 3 seconds a lap out of the box with no tweaking over the standard version I drove the other night. But it still had decent grip in the turns, so I just took the rest of the wing off (1/1) and made a couple of small suspension tweaks in warmup and figured that would do it.

Qualified midpackish, but got lucky when a number of guys were slow off the line. Hooked into the draft train and it was on from there. Was as far up as third, then down to sixth, then back up to third for a while. Excellent racing. The Ligier was slow on the straights and on the banks, but the base car has a bit more downforce from the diffuser so I could make up ground in the medium speed corners. I'd get blasted by a Ferrari or Renault going down the straights and then outbrake them into the corners or just drive around em at Curva Grande while they were reeling their cars in. The Renaults in particular were impressive - wild to run up on one into a corner, come out on their tail and watch 'em take off like bottle rockets. Had me thinking it must be fun trying to hang onto one of those beasts! ;-)

After a few laps of pass/repass fun, Aubrey had gotten by and I was trying to close back up to him when Jeff got around too. We went sailing into CG and I got too close on his tail since I had better grip there than the top speed cars - I chopped the throttle a bit too hard trying to avoid nailing him and it rotated on me. Maybe it was the lost downforce or just hamfistedness, who knows. Tried to save it, but went off at speed anyway and ended up with three wheels - game over. A shame since we could have had a fun duel for the few remaining laps, and it was just after that I saw David retire - a podium was still in play.

Think I'll have to fire up that Renault and see if it's as fun as it looks! ;-)

Qualified second, but then I forgot to put it in gear. Droped the clutch, and nothing happened except a lot of noise and my face turning red.

Got away in 9th or something. I could blast by just about anyone on the straights. But whenever I passed Sam he would whiz right past me in the corners. This happened about 4 or 5 times, sometimes with another car or two sneaking thru right on his tail. I just couldn't make the Renault work in the corners with minimum wing and nearly max ridehight. I had tried to optimize the tire pressures for Curve Grande, but it wasn't even very good there as Mr. Kruger found out when he ran into my rear. I slid into the inside wall a little, but no damage done.

But for fun, its all about straightline speed here, and I did 212 drafting and had a blast! Never did muster the guts to pass anyone on the banking though. Hehe.

Congrats to Steve!

Just watched the replays, freakin' amazing.

That was great while it last , had some problems again in Curva Grande but it was intense 1st half :D.

Lotus felt really good after slipping and sliding the previous 2 events with Ferrari , topspeed wasn't that great but braking and cornering were awesome. Those Renaults were looking amazing and they gave a great draft too :D , way over 320kph with Lotus was wild LOL.

Had some good fun there with Steve B and Aubrey atleast , there were others too , but it was so hectic that i cant remember :D. Then Aubrey had to back off in Curva Grande while making a move to another car and i didn't react in time to avoid the contact. Amazingly both got away from it with only minor damage , i went into gravel thou and lost some 15-18 seconds but the car was still pretty ok.

Sorry about that Aubrey , damn i was happy to see you got away from it in one piece. Everything hapends so fast in these speeds and Curva Grande sure is worth to it's name :o :).

Finished up in 4th place eventually , just couldn't catch the leading bunch , they were too consistent to be challenged.

Grts to Steve S(again) for the win and David for the championship , this was damn fun and these cars are simply amazing :) . Thank you all for the season and good luck for the next one... ;)

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Samuel