American FH: Kyalami

Great race. Great battle with Banta. He drove a perfect race in difficult conditions with me and Jeff hounding him form lap 1. I tried a last lap all balls pass and just ran out of talent. I happy with third and will take a podium any day.

GER FREAKIN ROCKS!

Deepest apologies to Joe Di Pino and Kevin Banic. Closing too quickly on Aubrey in the esses (Williams vs Arrows), I backed out of it a little too abruptly and went into a slow spin. Kevin got a piece and Joe unfortunately locked up and slid into me head-on. I think Kevin had some damage and Joe was out, stuck on the kerb. I was sick. I think that's the first time I've ever taken anyone out of a race. Very sorry guys.

My broken wheel couldn't be repaired and that was it. Shame as I really enjoy this track, and I'm liking the cars more and more all the time.

Congrats to the podium and all finishers, and again, sorry Kevin and Joe.

Grats To David Steve and Me :)
That was a rush, I would have liked a few more laps but...
Qualy, Went okay, I practiced faster but I was happy with P4.

Race, Started off hectic, settled in in P3 with my teamate Steve and on Davids tail, we hounded him for 8 laps in the the same order, I got a chance to pass my teammate I took it but tried to get cute in T2, and gave it back,so we battled on and I got another chance and secured the spot, I chased David for 12 laps with many side by side attempts going into T5 where i was clearly quicker, Got past him twice to only for the cheater turbo to smoke me down the front stretch :):):) But what a blast, It was great pressuring DB and really racing On The Edge which I am afraid we will lose in V2.0. With that said I am most happy I was able to set fast race lap.

Please keep V1.1 for the remainder of S6.

That was the best racing to date, we need to keep this form of real racing alive.
Cheers
Jeff

First no problem Charles. I see you were doing everything you could make your pass.

Fun race.

Lost the front wing twice. Dodging spins.

So i'm happy with 8th.

Love the challenge of these cars.

Kevin

Congratulations to David and the rest of the podium , looked like a nice fight...well done :).

Dunno really what to think , 4th is pretty ok but i made too many mistakes which took me out of the leading group already in lap 3.

Start was quite moderate and couldn't get any positions there , but then i got a good exit from T3 and managed to sneak into inside line on T4. After some rubbing with Craig i was in 4th place and both were still running in right direction :D.

Then followed the lead trio about 2 laps before i made 2 costly mistakes on lap 3 which pretty much dropped me out of the podium race. Without the draft i couldn't reel the gap in anymore and soon Peter was behind me , we had some close racing but in the end i managed to keep the 4th place.

Ah well , it was nice to be back in the series again with a car i really like to drive :D . Thx all for the race and cya in next one ...

-----
Samuel

This US series seems to be nothing but trouble for me!

In Qual I slowed to let someone on a hot lap past, and ran over a curb and the car got stuck! But at least I had done one warmup 'safety' hot lap. So 6th it was. I should have been from 2nd to 4th area even based on the half lousy Euro times I had online.
And that actually cost me a lot for the race as it turned out.

In the race, as per the Euro race, my car ran as good as any lap right from lap 2. So I had good speed to burn straight away and was fighting with Samuel right away. But I could not find a way past. I had about 0.5 to 0.8 extra pace, but could not get past.

Then a slip up while fighting and I dropped back about 10secs!! Which took about 12 laps to recover and fight again. And then I promptly made an error whilst hounding him yet again! This time damaging the car and it was almsot undriveable.

I went straight to the pits... and no pit crew was there...
So I had to go out again after wasting a ton of time for nothing, and the car was extremely dangerous and I must have spun off 6 times or more.
As I limped around I tried to calculate how far other cars were behind, and how many laps to go, and by then it was going to be a waste to pit anyway. So I limped on.

But that was hardly going to be any use either, as the car kicked out the rear for any amount of power if the car was not dead straight! But I could have held two spots higher if not for another bunch of spins whilst trying to keep it on track at some half useful (1:48 possible) pace.

Without that drama, I should have been able to grab 4th easy enough and a Qual at 5th or 4th would have let me run away clear, but the continual 'US series bad luck' continued at Kyalami.

A huge disappointment for me. I knew I wasn't anywhere near the pace, so I made sure I started dead last on the grid and take my chances as well as staying out of the way of everyone else. We got going and I started out too aggresive and spun early. Got it straightened out and fell in behind Ray, just cruising behind him all leisurly and stuff. It wasn't long before I was bettering my position by just driving around as piles of cars on the side of the road were going by. Next thing I see I'm fighting for 10th. All of a sudden Ray says over TS, "Head's up Bob!" and all I see is a ton of debris in front of me and Craig's car hobbled. I hit something (although I didnt see anything) and the back end of the car came around and I clobbered the guardrails, tearing off the left rear suspension. Day done. See, even just taking it easy doesn't guarantee you a finish. The frustration from this carried over to the F3000 fun-run where being so pissed off ruined my race there too.

Whatever, or as my 10 year old daughter would say, puh-leeze.

Sorry, did I do something to fuck up your race Joe??

Well, I could not choose which car i wanted to drive. I must of jumped in and of the server 10 times leading up to qualifying. I ended up in the renault, and i seemed to nail the setup this time. Put the car on the pole, but Steve was not far off.

So at the start, i got off the line well, and with my HP got to turn 1 first. From there it was just hold on. I managed to pull away in the early stages but after lap 10, the lotus duo started pulling me back in as my front end went away. With about 10 laps to go, i had both lotus' right on my tail. Jeff managed to get around me a few times, but i would just turn my boost to make for the run down the straight and blow right on back by. Steve attempted a last lap pass into turn 1, but it didn't work, and i held on for the win.

I must say, battling with Steve and Jeff was both stressful and very enjoyable. Those guys pushed my pace as far as i would go. I had nothing else and that car was next to impossible to drive near the end of the race. I must of been annoying with my huge HP and slow cornering speed. :P