Gran Premio d'Italia

Damn .... was running in 7th when my pc decided to lock up. Never had that before with rFactor. :-( But ... it was fun.

The story of my F1 racing season. Champion's curse I guess... Was having a great run, battling for a good podium finish, which have eluded me all season so far, when my PC did a 1 second long screen freeze at the worst possible time. At 220mph, 1 second later I was in the gravel and headed for a tire barrier. Game over... two broken legs. Thank God I was wearing my HANS!

Helluva come back Kirill, fantastic racing with you early on in the race.

started dead last, was making good progress and was running in the top 8 for ages. Pitted and two laps later my front left brake failed went piling into the wall in the final turn :(

what does that brake disk fix do? make them fail? I had a race earlier today and had no brake issues :S

ah well shit happens i suppose :D

First, I need to apologize to a few of you. After the accident in turn one, my car was damaged and without wings and I had to make it back to the pits. Even crawling the thing would spin-- I hope I did not screw too many of you up. I know I did to you Leon at Lesmo, and I am profoundly sorry. The thing turned around so quick I had nothing. Next thing I know I can see your eyeballs sticking out of your helmet!
Then half-way through the race, at Parabolica, with my half-drunken car, I tried to not impede Tim and managed to confuse myself and him.
The good news is that I had Bob as my crew-chief for most of the race and it was great: it makes a big difference to have someone calling things for you. I managed to get 6th because of the attrition and at least finished my first F1 race.

Damn what a mess...I never thought I would be lame enough to punt someone on the first lap, but I managed to do this tonight. I feel like a total asshole, sorry Kevin.

Apart from that terrible incident on lap1 I had some good driving although I was mostly alone. Everything ended when my engine died on lap 30 - it's a good thing to remember which keys control boost...

Hey Tomasz no hard feelings, things happen. Just very disappointed i was out before the first lap was finished.

I crashed into my teammate causing him heavy damage and ending my day with terminal suspension damage. I SUCK.

I really felt like i had a chance to win this one today especially after composing myself by the first round of pitstops (in the event that Kirill made a mistake!). I was extremely comfortable with the car and pleased with my speed.

Coming up on 15-17 laps and after passing Tim for second my computer loses its connection. Which has never happened before.

I guess because i was in mark webbers car.

Qual: Crap. I patiently let my tires and brakes warm up on my outlap, then cranked the "boost" up to 10 for my qual run, only to blow it and loop in the first chicane. I didn't have enough fuel for a second hotlap, so I pulled over and resigned myself to starting at the back.

Race: Started off well. Had fun running with Steve Wood, but he kicked the rear out in the first chicane about 10 laps in, letting my slip by (something happened later, because he disappeared after that).

I came to realize that the fuel consumption estimation was (again) jacked up, as I was burning off fuel at a slower rate than the game had estimated for me (about 0.8 gallons a lap). I had slipped on mediums, so luckily wear wasn't a concern for me (I later finished with about 50% wear on my fronts and almost none on my rears). Anyway, realizing that my fuel plan was wrong and I would be taking on much more fuel than was needed at my one-and-only pitstop, I called out the wife to come do some quick calculations for me. There I am, racing along and trying to read off figures to her whilst keeping my car on the track.

Anyway, got it figured out just fine (thanks to her calculator skills). I had three mishaps, all of which are directly attributed to me paying attention to something else besides the track in front of me:

1. Early in the race, I almost lose it while glancing up to check where George Pol is in my rear view mirror. After exploring the grass a bit, I'm left chasing George around the track for a while.

2. Later on, I loop it in the first chicane after I check the bottom of the screen to see the overall spread of racers; I shift into first gear at the wrong time, kicking the rear out and leaving me sitting in the middle of the track. Luckily, one of the Vindexworks sees me with plenty of time to react and neatly skirts around my sun-bathing Honda.

3. The final and almost-race-ending mistake. After my pit-in, I ran a couple of laps to discover that my brakes simply weren't where they should be; I wasn't getting max brake power for whatever reason. I'm in the final right hand sweeper checking my brake temps when I look back up at the track to discover I'm wandering off the track. My left side wheels catch the grass, I immediately understeer off and four wheel drift into the outside wall. Luckily, the impact was slow enough to only cause very minor left-front suspension damage. My rear wing was knocked off, but being right at the pit entrance, I just pulled in for a 30 second repair.

Pretty fun stuff.

Man, I love this mod with all it's drama - kinda like a soap waiting to happen.

Was surprised the usuals were not faster in quali so I filled the 4th slot. Before I'd feel intimidated by a top placing but strangely I felt ready for this one. As usual Todd passed me in the opening laps and I was content to sit behind he & David & wait for the mistakes as they were banging wheels - never happened. At one point in the beginning I heard Francesco say over TEAMSPEAK that he destroyed my race. Not so buddy. I had a close call missing you but strangely no damage at all. My following laptimes were still quicker so no harm done. Gotta admit I was a little spooked - remember as I passed I thought, "what was THAT" Too quick to even realise what happened. Found a bit of rythm from lap 10 & was gaining on Todd quickly. Quickly calculated that changing to a 1 stop should put me 25 secs ahead. Inlap, pitstop & outlap saw me 10 secs behind Todd. Saw I was losing about ,5 a lap to Todd for about 4 laps on the trot so I was feeling funky & confident. I slowed that diffence down to a trickle.

Then the twist in the tail appeared out of nowhere. In the last turn a wheeless Craig took all precautions to stay out of my way. When a wheeless car brakes the nose swings and such happened - into the barrier & back out into the track filling my complete view at 300km per hour. Then it all happened so fast. The car didn't seem badly damaged and with no time to flip the damage view on I guessed that I needn't pit (had to keep my advantage on Todd) - WRONG... I'd lost my wing so the next lap was pure damage control (that seems to happen much with this mod).

After the repair, being in 7th or 8th, I put my head down but again I found myself about a sec a lap slower. Kept this up to the closing phase when I saw Todd slowing up. Thought perhaps he had a problem so I kept the peddle flat. No such luck. Last race He handed me a podium but I see he wasn't as generous this time round. A comfortable 4th. Thanks to all for consideration as I was lapping & to the skilled who passed me cautiously. A pure thrill & pleasure to race with ALL of you...

Dan, your absence was noticed - we need you back.