British Grand Prix

Meh.

That is all.

WOW! 21st to 8th, I'll take it!! You guys have to watch the last 2 laps between Chris Melton and myself. AWESOME.

A race from hell. Let me start with the apologies. Sorry Allen for punting u on the 1st lap and ending your race. I saw you left shortly after that. Then on about lap 8 - 10 I encountered Steve. He went wide, I thought I had him on the inside & to my horror I found myself drifting wide too. Sorry Steve. And I'm not finished yet, As a front runner was lapping me I overshot a bit & went wide so I slowed. He also went wide and in avoidance spun out. Sorry for that. This was such an embarressingly poor performance from me I feel like imposing a ban on myself. Lets hope I get it together quickly...

Wow, nuts race...

Qual: I decided not to risk a 3 stopper just to get a lap record, as I hadn't practiced I didn't think I could pull a quick lap out of the bag anyway. I was suprised my rather conservative 21.5 was good enough for pole, but that doesn't mean I'm not happy!!! :D

Warmup: Noticed I hadn't altered my brake settings from the RACER event, meaning I had brake opening at 2 and small brake rotors. This was going to be tough...

Race: Started well enough, but Tim was all over me quickly as I struggled to bed myself in, while saving brakes and engine. I ran wide out of the Luffield and that was enough for Tim to get through, but my low downforce setup allowed me to easily overhaul him on the Hanger Straight. We had a nice scrap down to Vale... its great racing with Tim because, like many of the top guys here, you can have total confidence that he'll race you hard but fair. After I established a lead, I just drove at the pace I needed to keep Tim behind and saved my stuff. I was shocked when he pitted on lap 13, and at that point I put the hammer down and tried to get a lead. This worked, and I came out of the pits on lap 22 with a nice margin, 20 or 30 seconds I think. I then put in a really good stint and, after both me and Tim had pitted again, I had a one minute lead with 10 to go.
Then all hell broke loose!
I was just coming up to Vale to lap a BAR and just misjudged how early the n00b driver would have to brake (yes, it was Sam :P). I ran into the back of him and lost my front wing, and at some point while cruising back to the pits I lost my front left brake too. I got repaired, but the lost brake meant I had to cruise around the last 10 laps in the 24s... but that seemed to be roughly the pace Tim was doing so that was ok, as long as I didn't loose any more brakes. I managed to coast across the line to take my first R2P F1 win!

Shame David Fischer wasn't present, I've been looking for a battle with him for a while, maybe next season (when I plan on racing these full time).

Cya next seson!!!

With 3rd qual position and 2nd Race Fast Lap with 2 stops strategy i hoped for more than 5 place. But stupid error at the end of 1st lap - and i dropped down from 3 to 19 place. Than were overtakes, overtakes again and again. I should be 3rd, but 10 laps from end my left front weel was perforated. So, after it all i just happy to be 5th. I missed great buttle with Tim and Scott again, may be next time all thuings will be better for me. Looks like F-1 only one series where i fast enough for podium buttles.
Grats to all finished the race. CU!

I must say i owe you all an appology. Was having bad shifting issues yesterday practicing. Having problems with my shifters on my wheel. Going into turns it downshifts 2 gears at once and i lose the rear end everytime. So i decided to use auto downshifts. Well that didn't help cuz it would shift into 1st gear when about to get into throttle. And booyah rear end around again. Happened like 10 times through the race. I knew i had a problem but just wanted to try to finish. But with 2 laps left lost the engine. But my appology goes out to all because of my downshifting problem i spun it in front of a few guys there and almost took them out. So i'm really sorry to all. I tried to stay out of the way for the most part. But because i was over cautious going into turns i was more of a problem then anything. So following this event i will stay clear of races like these till i can upgrade my wheel. I just wanted to say sorry again and great racing guys. You guys are awesome.

Posted by Scott Michaels at 09:21 PM on Sun Dec 16
"was just coming up to Vale to lap a BAR and just misjudged how early the n00b driver would have to brake (yes, it was Sam :P)."

i was saving fuel

I hate hards!

On lap 2 Allen spun in front of me and I barely clipped him...no damage to me, and hopefully not to Allen.

Count it as experience Leon...that corner is deceptively sharp, and strangely enough my car didn't get damaged. The only problem that encounter gave me was to let Ray and Chris by me...and the three of us were running at about the same pace. Ray pitted, but Chris stayed ahead of me.

Then on lap 14 I had to pit...I went light on starting fuel and went for a 2 stopper hoping to keep the car light and compensate for the hard tires. I came out ahead of Ray, but then on the next lap I spun and Ray got past me. Then he took the esses too wide and ran into the grass.

I love this mod!

I look forward to next season and tire changes...having to make the same tires last an entire race has been a learning experience...forcing me to take a better line, but I really miss the traction that the softs give me...I'm fine with pitting more as long as I can drive at the fastest pace the chassis will handle.

Hey, David Fisher clinched the championship without even turning a wheel! Congrats David!

I was just plain off the pace this time. I had a brain fart yesterday, and I tested a ton of setup changes with braking help turned on instead of ABS. Spent about 2 hours feverishly trying to remedy non-existant handling problems that were probably just the result of the brakes kicking in automatically! Then I realized I would need hard tires, and this introduced even more handling problems. Probably should have just gone back to my S5 setup.

Also, I tried kind of a radical pit strategy. A one stopper with the first stint as short as possible. Not sure that really worked.

Gonna miss Barcelona. Have fun!

Those screen shots are just awesome!

Oh to be 30 years younger!!! : (

If only I didn't have this terribly fierce competitive nature, I wouldn't mind running last in these most beautiful F1 cars.

Todd, that group shot with all those F1's going through Beckett's (I think) looks so cool! : )

Count your blessings guys, what a thrill.

I'll have to download the replay to watch this one, way to go Scott!