rFBMW: Birmingham

Congrats winners !!

Well, firstable I'd like to apologize to Barney Fox for meeting my car when I lost it at the back chicane in lap 3 I think. I felt Nick, who behind me, had the momentum to attack on the inside of that chicane and I took the outside to avoid contact, went a bit to the grass and lost it. Nick escaped the crash but Barney had it all. Hope it didn't hurt too much.

OK, now from start: Qualy put me in 12th position but I gained 3 places at start, though lost 1 place to R. Buttle into T1. Then, a few turns later a mess in front put me in 6th, or 5th place, can't remember, fighting with Buttle but he passed me in a nice outbrake.

Couldn't believe I was P4 and deeling all the pressure. Buttle lost it somehow and I was P3, but then M. Virt came right behind and also overtook me to get P3. Then I had the incident explained before and had to pit for 126 loooong seconds, going back to track in P25.

When I joined back I was in the middle of the front runners (P5, P6) and felt I could keep a similar pace, so I was running with them for many laps. That pace made me climb from P25 to a final P18, not bad if you stop to think that I lost 136 seconds in my pitstop.

In conclusion, happy to have kept a good pace and to have had the chance to be among the front runners for a while. No mistakes at all appart from the one of the incident.

By the way, I must've done something wrong about S10 skins 'cause I couldn't see tehm on track (actually didn't try to look at the skins in the spinner either, just installed them under rFactor folder...)

See you next race !!

Qual was a bit of a mare, having been third fastest in practice, smashed it up once and got caught up in traffic a few times but one of those things.

Was obviously extremely tight on fuel, so decided to brim it and hope to finish the race. Eventually was a litre short so had to pit with a couple to go.

Few too many spins through the race, but some cracking early battles, with Barney for one. Running second at one point was a surprise given the field, but happy with fourth in the end to start off with.

ADMIN - Any incidents you wish to have the admins look at please PM me by Thursday, else I will declare the result. Will have a look at the early race incidents anyway /ADMIN

As we planned for the strategy to need a bit more than 1 or 2 litre stops, we will review and amend the upcoming races, to make them either a no stopper, or a tank and a half (ish) required. So watch out for that.

Cheers

Was running well at the start until I sustained some damage in a bit of a tussle at the first few corners, so I pitted. Then I had to serve a drive-through for speeding, AND THEN I had to pit again because of damage when I entered the pit lane last time, so that put me way back. Then I was about 9 seconds behind Francisco, but it wasn't decreasing. So I carried on going, keeping it on track nicely, until BAM, thanks to a lack of PC maintenance on my part, it froze up for about half a second, and that was enough to put me in the tires at the first chicane.

2 DNF's in two consecutive races. Not happy at all! Well done to everyone.

Yeah well - good one to forget about!!!!!
Qualified 8th; 1st corner incident saw me up to 5th.
Francisco passed whilst I was too cautious on cold tyres; I saw I was faster and attacked on the next lap around the outside of T1 (stupid) - touched the grass, spun accross the track, hit the barrier, had to wait for all to pass, limped round and had a 73 second pit stop. When you are 2 laps behind fuel doesn't become a factor anymore - surprise surprise.

After that drove reasonably but there was never going to be a result.

Looking forward to next race - might drive a bit smarter - lol

Very nice race for me. Qualli put me on 10th which I expected after seeing times in practise.
When the green light went on I started very quickly but have to slow down immedietly because car in front of me was very slow after sleepy start. Francisco took this opportunity and overtake us both. So 12th on T1 get changed to 7th after T2 where was an incident which I comfortably avoided. Later in first lap I overtook another car without front wing and get six. In second another car in front of me spun so get on 5th and closing on Francisco. My moment came lap later when he braked too much and I overtook him outside T3. Unfortunately on the end of that lap I lost it hit the barrier and when I get back on track I lost it again and almost hit Francisco - I hope I didn't touch you but not sure.
Rest of the first stint I cruised on 6th or so until my planned pitstop get back on 12th and finished so.

So nonstopper was possible?

Sorry to Alexey I hit your right rear tire on lap 8 I hope it didn't cause you any damage.

Congrats to podium.

Race replay is now uploaded to
The Tuesday Night Chapter Files Area

Michael, you have broken my right rear suspension and car has lost stability. I failed to make "safe" after a little spin in a few turns and retired.
Starting from the back lines wasn't a good thing. Failed to show mine 1:25.xxx and failed to show any lap at all. Very short qual for such amount of cars on a little track...

Considering I'd never seen this track until a couple hours before the race, I was pleased with my pace, but not so much with my race concentration.

Qualy wasn't great, but I didn't really worry about it. Start was a little slow, but I got away clean and had an interesting first few corners. Going into T4 I took a terrible line and tapped McRoberts. Because of the ensuing carnage I let everyone and their mother pass and then took a drive-thru. It was only after watching the replay that I realized that while I did make a mistake the carnage was from someone flying across the inside of the corner and taking McRoberts out.

I also had never taken a pitstop there until that point so I took the extra long back paddock area route for the drive thru. That of course had me worried because I didn't know where I was going to pit.

After that I put in a couple good laps, but I do need to apologize to Topham. I was faster in all the wrong places and tapped you a couple times. None of them directly resulted in much, but I can only assume that the spin off the final corner was related to some damage I might have caused to the wing or suspension.

Going in for the pitstop it was clear that I was just supposed to go straight through so I relaxed, but when I got to my spot... there was someone in it. I don't know if I'm just ignorant of something or what, but I had to wait until someone finished a rather lengthy stop before I could pit. I had actually had some great laps and fun finishing the race, but on the last lap I hit McRoberts again. I had a little oversteer, got on the grass and that was it, couldn't avoid you, sorry. Looking at the replay you seem rather avoidable, but I didn't want to do anything rash while on the grass.

That was fun. I only got to the game with 5 min before qually, and couldn't find my setup file, so had a mad scramble to sort that out. Quallified 17th, knowing that I could match the lap times of the the 8th place quallifier, I set my goal to finish at least 8th.

I had to take to the grass to miss the fun and games at T3 on the first lap, and finished lap 1 in 8th, I couldn't believe it. Found myself up to 4th on lap 3, but that was not destined to last.

A couple of spins and CTD on lap 10 & 11 dropped me back to 13th, and I miss-judged where Brian's car was going when he spun on lap 17, and the contact knocked my front wing into a funny angle, resulting in very different handling.

I saw others pitting, I guess for fuel, but I decided I would stick it out, and just failed to get ahead of Carlos for 5th on the final straight, finishing just 0.011sec apart.

Enjoyed my race after starting dead last. Battled in the midfield for most of the race. Had a few spins.

No problems Justus Brennan, I just needed to adapt my style to get the car to the finish. There was no way I was going to pit.

As for strategy, keep it so you don't need to pit. Thats what F.BMW races are all about.