Oschersleben 350k

Another tough race... mostly because I chose the Viper... and I didnt even bother picking the more powerful Force One version!
Quali was Ok, only got 2 laps and one of them was ruined because i was apparently invisible... 6th was actually pretty good considering the car and the competition.
The start was pretty poor. Pace lap was way too quick so I never really caught up with the train, then I span over the curbs at the chicane which dropped me to last. From there I pretty much cruised around saving tyres and fuel, made one stop, ran as high as 3rd before that, then when everything shook out I was running 6th with Dennis closing in fast. Unfortuantley, when he caught me I found that the Viper just isnt loud enough and couldnt hear my own car! I didnt want to let Dennis passed, but I had to take it easy because I really didnt have much idea of what was going on... Dennis hit me a couple of times but was chivilrous enough to let me back through, and I was able to hold on 'til the flag.
Nice racing, cya next time

PS: Looks like somehow I took 4th... cool!

took soft wets ... big mistake on my part ...
sorry for holding anyone back on start -.. edit edit edit edit lol

Well, that was a pretty good race for me. Not totally blown away by my performance because I made more mistakes than I wanted...but I'll take a 2nd anytime :).

Qual could have been better. I initially didn't want to push it because I didn't really trust being in the front but I found out that my times were pretty quick in the damp so I started pushing harder. Problem was, I ran into a lot of traffic so I ended up starting 2nd...with a time almost second slower compared to Milan's.

For the first few laps, I thought I could at least keep Milan in my sight since we were running similar times and I was pulling away from George. Well, I soon made a bonehead move and went off at the left sweepers. Took me a while to get back going and when I got onto the track, George was a few seconds in front of me. Spent most of the rest of the 1st stint chasing him, but could never really get close to him. Close to the end of the stint, he bobbled the car a bit in the right-left section which gave me the spot. On the very next lap, I bobbled coming out of T3 and had to use some of the grass to save the car which sent George back around me. Fortunately, I was within my window and pitted that lap.

After a great pit stop, I started making some nice hot laps. George was on a different strategy and after a while when he pitted and came back out, I was about 15 seconds in front of him. I made about 5 seconds on Milan so it definitely wasn't that bad a stop. This stint was mostly about racing the track and the traffic. Towards the end of the stint, I had some issues with lapped traffic which allowed George to pull in.

I made the final pit stop soon after George went in and when it cycled through, George was right on my tail. I tried not to panic so I let the car do its thing. To my surprise, the car was quite quick, even when I dialed it back and it really helped my fuel saving. George was still right there with me but it looked like he was pushing the car a little too hard as he was going off track a bit and bobbling out of corners at times. So I kept the distance close to see what would happen and while I was dealing with a lapped car in the left sweepers, I saw George in my mirror go straight off. Not sure what happened but it looked like the incident I had early in the race. So without much resistance in the rear, I focused on Milan...but I knew I had a slim chance of catching him unless he made a mistake. After a while, the distance between us wasn't changing much and when it did, he got the advantage and would pull away. So I sat back and brought the car home in 2nd :)

Good race guys, cya next time.

Thanks Conor .... saves me a lot of writing. :-) Really don't have anything to add besides I started with 100L of fuel to stay out as long as possible in case it would start to rain. When that didn't happen I went back to my original strategy which made a faster 2nd stop possible. Enjoyed this one a lot and will try the same tomorrow in GTX. Grats to who made it to the podia and the nGT's for making good racing possible for my little Lambo.

Thanks Conor and George, for your full reports :)
I have nothing to add, I have been just in front of main action.
Some traffic probs as always sometimes slowed me but managed it succesfuly.
Grats Conor and George you put to me all time pressure and I have no room for mistakes.
Grats nGT boys too.

10 laps to go and the engine blew, I hadnt damaged it, I was changing gear before red line, man am I pissed! Besides that, had a fun race.

I had a good, stable, top 5 achieving Lambo setup. (Too) soon after my first pitstop I had a close meeting with the wall, had to pit, repairs took a lot of time. Came behind a car that was in front of me in position, but I was 1 lap behind. It took a lot of time to unlap myself, even more with the the car in front of the said one. I was losing 1 sec per lap driving behind and my motivation went down to zero, so I quit. Both guys are always fair drivers so I have no grudge against their driving, just have a look and see if there's direct racing involved or is there a lap in between. Don't want to use any names, please, no hard feeling really, we learn new things every day. I enjoyed racing while it lasted.
NGTs were beyond good and courteous, great driving.

Tom Ostry

Talking about last minute entry... Came into server 1 minute before qualifying ended and 0 laps practice , had a chance to make a 1 lap in warmup but that didn't much tell about the setup i had. Took a Magny-Cours setup and tweaked the gears down a bit , but unfortunately the gearing was still a bit off for this track and that made the driving little difficult.

Thought that i don't have much to loose and went for a experimental strategy :P ,i knew i was going to a bit off pace in 1st stint while learning the car and the track conditions so i took a full tank of fuel , soft fronts and hoped for rain.

Race didn't start very well coz i had an off in last turn before the race even started :p. Slowly chased the pack from the back and after a while i was behind Enzo T. We were lapping at roughly same pace and had a several laps of close racing ,at some point i felt like my car is getting considerably better while the fuel was burning out and i could up the pace. Found a way through Enzo after a good exit from the last turn and after that i could pull away.

Fronts were screaming mercy after 40 minutes racing with a wear rate over 23-24 and i pitted to change the tires only. After that the car really came alive and i felt much better behind the wheel , my slow progress at the early race had taken it's toll thou and couldn't do much anything to catch the front anymore.

2nd stop took a bit longer with a full service and 3rd stint went on in a same pace so i managed to pick up some positions , on a retrospect i should have gone for a bit different strategy but the main thing was that i managed to bring the car home in one piece and scored at least few points.

Had some slight offs and some other hairy moments which didn't help the race but that was expected with the poor preparations i had. We did a nice synchronized off with Tolga when a ghost car was parked in T3 entry LOL , that was a bit of a bummer but luckily there was no serious damage , only some time lost.

I gave a bit more room to GT cars than usually since the nature of the track forces them to follow us nGT's quite a long periods of time and i wasn't in a full attack mode anyway :) . Was a bit too generous from time to time and lost chunks of time , but it didn't really affect the outcome of the race. GT's were really good and patient on this narrow and slow track , thx dudes :).

I didn't have a clue of my final position but to my surprise i was on a podium after all and that was a nice surprise. Of course some discoes helped a bit , but podium is a podium :D.

Grats to Milan , Conor and George for GT podiums and Augustin , Mark and me for nGT podiums... :D

Cya in next one... ;)

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Samuel

Everyone seems to be forgetting that there is no dynamic weather in GTO... the conditions the race starts under are going to be the conditions for the entire race

We had a weather script here in R2P at some point of time which allowed the dynamic changes , dunno if it is used anymore thou or in this series.

Maybe it disappeared at some point of S6 while i was in a summer break , or maybe it was only in GT-I series...heck , i don't remember ;)

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Samuel