British Grand Prix

Made a mess of qualifying but got a fantastic start and manage to pass the bedlam of the first corner safely. Then when entering the Beckets I was hit hard by Brandon and off the track. I managed to rejoin and the car seemed undamaged. Then in the last turn I went a bit wide and then spun back onto the track, unfortunately into the path of Brandon. It was a strange collision because he seemed to go through me, but his race was over. My car was undamged again so I continued. Then my PC locked up!!!

I get occasional lockups lately. Rarely with GTR 2, sometimes with Race 07, but very often with rFactor. Very frustrating!

Surprised to be 5th on the grid, but as I had gone three stopper and obviously most others went two, that the the 8 boost explained the elevated position.

Up to fourth early in the lap courtesy of Tim's T1 incident and thought hello, just settle in and lets see. That lasted in the incident pictured, when I suddenly veered off into the wall and thought that was game over. Had never threatened to do so in practice so only thing I can think is that Bob took the air off my back wing and it got loose through the turn, not blaming Bob obviously but looking more for an excuse LOL.

Limped back to the pits and got fixed, all of right hand suspension was yellow, but managed to get a decent pace on after reentering the track, and just blasted it basically. Picked up the retirees as and when, and just as I was settling for 11th two drop out in last couple of laps and into 9th place for the second event running. A good recovery from 18th but gutting to again miss out by one place on the points.

May not have done much better without smacking the car given my three stopper, but live and learn I guess.

Certainly was fun out there though.

Brilliant end to my racing weekend. I qualied dead-last, which was not a whole lot better than I expected (I thought maybe 3 or 4 spots from the bottom) but I managed to screw up qualifying laps...every single one of them. Must be said that in the last 5 minutes of practice I started getting all sorts of lag issues & frame rates acting out terrible, so had to connect/disconnect a couple of times. By the time qualy started I had been a bit distracted. But make NO mistake...I am slow with these cars, period. Practicing during the week I had been rather proud of my improvements but that's relative to myself, relative to everyone else on the grid I am a tosser. I figured it wasn't so bad to start dead last, see a couple of incidents, gain a couple of spots and mind my business. Jeez, was there incidents! Everywhere, from T1 lap 1 to the last turn on lap 2 was cars spinning, wings flying, smoke,debris, unbelievable! I managed to stay clear of trouble and found myself near and behind my friend Steve Wood. I noticed to my surprise that I could stay with him, and as a matter of fact there were a couple of moments I was ready to pass. Had to be very careful under braking. On the other hand, I just wanted to mind my business. At a certain point though he went wide at the slow left hander (before the slowest corner, right in the micky mouse section) and I figured I'd have a go at the next super slow left hander. I braked hard but we touched and off I went into the grass with damaged suspension and a bruised ego. Second time this weekend I hit a friend racing and I wasn't too happy with myself. While I pitted I checked where Steve was, and it seemed to my relief that he was able to carry on. I fixed the car and off I went. However, these tires (mediums) were absolute crap at this track (actually, the driver was crap, but the tires were not kind to me...) so I ended up, I think, doing a four stop strategy (including the repair stop at the beginning). Even then my tires were marginal during the last stint, and TWICE I had punctures due to wear on the in-lap. I tried to be predictable and easy during lapping. Honestly to race like this is pure torture, but I will not give up. The cars are a blast, I just have to understand where it is that I lose four seconds a lap. Congratulations to the podium. I felt bad for my very fast teammates who had a bad day too all and all. Good job to all who raced-- these cars are the toughest beasts to handle.

No idea how some of you guys ran mediums. I did a 3 stopper on hard tyres and was still struggling with understeer at the end of every stint.

Great pic George!

Wish I could have made this one...next week.

Francesco...don't worry about it...we had some good racing for awhile there. This was the first race where I never got any significant damage...including your bobble Francesco which didn't effect my car...the car only lost a very small amount of stability. I'm sure that we learn after each event and do better the next time, so if it's not ruining my race then I'm fine with getting tagged now and then.

My only regret is tagging Tim...hopefully not doing him any significant damage. I really had a blast this race, so thanks to Tim for allowing low ABS so I can stay on track.

Vikz...it sounds like you are struggling with the same issue I had when I first started driving these cars. The problem is that they can go really fast around the corners which makes us want to trail-brake into the corners and get hard on the power at or just after the apex. What happens is that you are totally loading up the outside front tire at corner entry which creates a lot of heat and wear then when you get on the power it unloads it causing it to lose grip at corner exit which results in more heat and wear on that tire than any of the others.

But, these cars run smoother with threshhold-braking and a late turn-in and then smooth application of power before the apex so that the rear wheels help turn the car by obtaining a better yaw angle into the corner which reduces the need for the front tires to do all the work. There's very few corners where trail-braking in these cars doesn't cause excess wear...and Stowe, the right hander after becketts, is one of them; however, late turn-in and early medium power is still a fast line through Stowe and easier on the tires.

I ran mediums and after 15 laps I had problems with the front left locking up under braking because it had so little grip, but there was still 1-1/2 red dots left.

I for some reason found myself at the unusual position of 14th. Oh well i figured most were 3 stopping and on different tyres. I make my way up the field as expected and going into becketts i have to brake hard to avoid a ferrari (not sure who, but to slow down like that is dumb.) and i ended up tangling with John Dixon (sorry about that).

I got back on track and started to pick people off left and right.. just at the start of lap 2 john dixon had a spin off into the grass.. he seemed to accelerate in the grass still and got back on track when traffic was still going by.. he spun again in the middle of the track and to his credit he reversed his car quickly to get out of the main way. I anticipated him to stay in that same spot so i went one way and gunned it (which was the wrong way).

Needless to say i slammed into him at full speed.. my tyres were punctured and my wheels were bent in an awful way. This is starting to not be so much fun anymore.

Another frustrating race for me, but I really have no one to blame but myself.

I had been hitting 18.8 in practice for Q during the week, and was very close to that in practice before the Q session began, so I thought I'd take pole easily as no one else was breaking 19.4. Pole position was actually locked up heading into the last few turns but I understeered and lost it by .011 to Tristan. :-o

Second race in a row I feel like I blew it all in the first stint. Got a good start but had to fight like mad to find a way past Tristan for about 5-6 laps. Second race in a row we went nose to tail in the first stint. Great stuff to watch. I almost got by on the outisde of Stowe on lap 5, but tried the outisde again on lap 6 and this time made it stick. Was funny to watch Tristan trying to shake me out of his draft on the Hangar straight for a few laps previous. Tried that trick myself in past. :-) Problem was that by the time I made it by Tristan, I had really fried my tires for the rest of the stint. Stanislov had been hovering behind us for most of this time and while I increased the gap to him very slightly over the next lap or so, I then came upon a lapped car that was holding his line as I moved to go around the outside of one of the last turns, but then he moved off line and right in front of me (dejavu from last week). I had to lock the tires, and then had nothing left in them for Stanislov. He passed me soon after, and I had to back off the pace a bit to get the temps down and ease up on wear for the rest of the stint.

Was struggling badly and headed for the pits one lap early, with Stanislov about 4.5 seconds ahead and Tristan 9 behind. At this point I was thinking that everything was still very good and I just needed to get a fresh set of tires and then settle down and run the lap times I knew I could do from practice. But once AGAIN (did it twice in RACER series just recently), I sped coming into pit lane and sabotaged my race. Served the drive through on the next lap, and watched Tristan fly by pit lane.

I managed to catch up to Tristan and pass him after our third pit stop, and with about 14 to go Stanislov, me, and Tristan were running a close 1,2,3. I saw in my mirrors that Tristan was going to try and pass me on the inside of Stowe and thought, "This could end badly". I gave him as much room as I could by going up on the curbing (good thing because his left side tires crossed the white line) but as I came down off it I was out of sorts a bit and drifted right and hit Tristan's side and I ended up richocheting left, and through the run off at Vale, and Tristan also slid straight on, as shown in the screenshot. :-) Even though I was decelerating, the game gave me a stop and go. Now doomed to third, I dropped the boost and cruised home.

Just like last week, if I had gotten off to a better start (this time by taking pole), I could of had better control of my race and not wrecked my tires in the first stint. Also, speeding into the pits didn't help me much either.......IDIOT!! IDIOT!! IDIOT!! :-)

Congratulations to Tristan for 2nd, and to Stanislov for an excellent win.

Tim, too bad about lap 1 T1.

This race certainly could have gone better for me... but as young fat albert might say, "hey hey hey, 2nd place!!"

I did not put in enough practice for this event. I found myself struggling to decide which tyre compound to use, and at the last second decided to use softs. This paid off for the first five laps of the race (incidentally, the same five I was able to use in holding off Fisher), but after that they dropped off in usable grip pretty dramatically.

Two self-spins killed my chances for challenging Stanislav, who was like a bullett out there today. Both of my spins (aside from the Fisher incident, more on that later) were caused by absent-minded downshifting in slow speed corners. Just blanked I guess... this is a trait which shows itself when I haven't gotten myself fully mentally prepared for a fast, intense event like this.

Due to using softs, I was on a 3-stopper, but using my fuel efficiently because my boost was never above 3 except for the first lap. I should have runs mediums, because in practice I was even into the 1:19s with them at race boost. I am el stupido. I guess I had an overwhelming desire to be the one to steal the champcar's lap record back...

Anyway, after my third and final stop, I exited the pits a second behind Fisher, who must have been on 90% tread or so, because he was hauling ass. But, I was on brand new softs with not alot of fuel... Time for gonzo speed!! I put my head down and within a lap and a half I was right behind Fisher as we sped by Todd Weiss down Hangar Straight. I knew I had a slight advantage on Fisher with new tires thru Stowe, so I drafted close to him and tried to run as otimum a line as possible thru Stowe with the hopes he would run slightly wide. He did, so I sharpened my entry and got inside of him. "I saw in my mirrors that Tristan was going to try and pass me on the inside of Stowe and thought, "This could end badly". I gave him as much room as I could by going up on the curbing (good thing because his left side tires crossed the white line)" Yes David, you did move wide, but just for the record, I had planned to be exiting Stowe away from the exit curbs so we both had enough room. When I noticed you going wider onto the curbs, I instinctively followed closer to you to get more exit speed.

With David to my left and me nosing ahead just a bit, I feel a hit on my left rear... it sends me sideways too quickly for me to react. I lock 'em up and frantically hit my different view buttons to see if my trajectory conflicts with any nearby solid objects... nope, thank god!! I stop on the pavement all in one piece and rejoin the race. I see David serving a drivethru (I thought it was self-imposed at the time! David you rascal) and feel pretty good that 2nd is now in the bag.

I gave my last five laps some welly to see if I could make any ground on Stanislav were he to have backmarker trouble, but to no avail. He slowed a bit, but to preserve himself I figure, as it was the dawn of his first win. Well done Stanislav!! You drove a great race.

Thanks everyone for another exciting F1 battle galore. (what's the next venue?) anyway, see you guys there!!

Brandon, if that was on Lap 1, that was me who braked early. I apologize, but I had no choice really, George braked in front of me to avoid ploughing into another car and I had to brake to avoid crashing into him.

Steve, great info there. Now that you mention it, that was exactly what I was doing. Was running a pretty high front wing and with new tyres, the car was going through corners with some ease. I was indeed getting on the power too early laoding up the front left tyre big time. I figured with hard tyres and a three-stopper, I could afford to do that, but apparently not. I'll take your advice about the late-turn in and smoother application of power. Thanks mate!