GP'79: Monaco

Well, congrats to the ones who could finish.

I had an early crash, loosing my FL tire, so I had to park.

Then I've been watching the race till the end and I saw in first person the chain accident among Chris Jansson, Peter Valkovick and Scott Michaels.

Chris got stuck in the chicane kerb after the tunnel while trying to go back to the track, so Peter came and couldn't avoid to crash his car in the chicane. Chris parked it but then it was Peter the one stuck in the kerb, so Scott, who was 1st, came in and crashed into Peter's car. Peter parked, Scott pitted but his suspension was so damaged he had to park as well.

Wow, that was a hard crash and bad luck for the three of them.

OK, see you again in Dijon!

At first I was really pissed of for DNFing at lap 5...and what a stupid DNF it was...I really need to work on my concentration - this time I missed braking point before T1 by over a 40 meteres so when I finally realized what's going on it was too late to do anything.
The good thing is I finished the race early. I can't imagine how pissed off I would be if I DNFed at lap 70 :)

Grats to all who managed to finish this race and see you next week.

Qual went ok. Could have been a second faster but Peter's engine overheated infront of me through the chicane and I wrecked because I couldn't see anything. Still, pole was nice, but expected given my car choice.
The race started very poorly, I had some FPS issues and couldn't get into a rythmn, ended up spinning at Rascasse, loosing about 30 seconds and dropping to 8th. Climbed my way back up slowly but surely, damaging my car steadily along the way. Eventually caught Chris Jansson, and he spun off infront which caused me to spin in avoidance and I got more damage, but Chris had to pit so I took over by 45 seconds from Jeffrey. Stayed there for 20 laps or so, but with 10 to go I made a few big mistakes and got very damaged, to the point where my car could only do 1:34s. So I stayed at that pace for a while, because it was still fast enough to beat Jeffrey, but then I came up to the chicane and found Peter there broadside to the track. Looking at the replay it seems he'd been sat there for 15 seconds before I arrived. Sorry Peter but that is just completely unfair on the rest of us and I WILL be filing a protest. You don't have the right to ruin someone elses race just because you've gone off. And tbh there's no way your car was in any condition to continue after the hit you took. You SHOULD have escaped, no two ways about it. Now instead you've wasted two hours of my life and lost my respect at the same time. Bravo.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, see you next time.

First of, congrats to all of you who could finish the race without any crashes!

I think I had a good pace and if I for once would be able to finish on this track It would go quite well.

Got of to a good start, having gotten by the car in square 2 in the start and trying to stay close to Scott. On I believe the 2nd lap he spins in s3 and from there on I was on my own for about 20laps, wondering when scott would show up with his ~1½s per lap quicker car (in my hands atleast). When he did, I fumbled and hit a wall almost taking Scott out. After a visit to the pits I was back on track with a wheel quite a bit of centre but I could still do sub 1:30 so I hang in there. But as always when racing in Monaco, the barriers always gets you (atleast me..).

Sorry about the chikane accident, refusing to quite at the right time isn't as clear in the heat of battle as it is after. Got stuck on the inside of the cerb, tried to get away for a few seconds until Peter missed the chikane and went to my right, then i quit, probably to late. But i figured that because i was on the right side of the cerb I'd be able to free my self because if any one tries to take the chikane that high up on the cerb you'd get thrown high up in the air and hit the wall any way.

Well, I hope there isn't any hard feelings guys, Monaco always has some tricks up its sleeve.

Whew, longest distance I've run in a game and it was fun albeit my competetive side would've seen me not DNFing and instead finish 3rd. But thats life, see you guys at Dijon (if I remember to show up)!

Can't believe I won this. Although with a lot of luck, but still.

The start was very clean and I want to compliment all the drivers for their fairness in the early stages.
Was a very lonely race, as I was just driving on survival mode. Set my car up very stable, but not too fast. So low 30's was the best I could do in the race.
I had no damage at all till 10 laps before the end, when my concentration started going down. And the dumb thing I did then, was take it more slowly. That made me lose more concentration so I started driving a bit faster.

This was only my 2nd race with this mod ever and the 1st one of this length. So this was a loooooong race :).
Also the people who got lapped were very good and did an excellent job. So again, good show in fairness.
So it's a shame to read these things afterwards, as I felt that this were all a very good bunch of guys out there :).

Stevie Wonder goes to Monaco:

What a race! Only about 4 major occurences of note.

1) Car turns to an ice skate as more people join - lap times drop 1sec or so. So that alone was going to make it tough and tricky to do well and even survive assured.

2) Twice in the first half of the race my graphics card had 1 split second glitches and some track polygons turned to 'animated colors'. But luckily the glitches occured at the same track area each time and I spun out in that 1 sec but didn't hit anything.

3) But mid race (lap 40?) a major glitch and about 10seconds of no video. Exact same occurence as at Buenos, and I had hit the brakes coming out of a slow corner and when I returned I was along the wall and alive still.
That cost a reasonably safe 3rd position, but unfortunately from then on I had one third of the track with 'vertical road' panels, 2/3 over the road width and thus unable to see the track. From the top of the hill until the windey last 1/3 of the lap. But seeing I could see part through gaps in the panels, and I knew the track well, I pressed on to see what I could lap at.
I could just drive and brake etc as expected whilst 'blind' and still lap in the 1:33 to 1:34 area - except for a dozen wall swipes thanks to that difficulty! And within a lap or two I had it all worked out well enough to maintain that good enough pace.

After having to let 4th and 5th go by I had miles of gap back to 6th so lapping 1:33/34 was fine to hold 5th. I was rarely going to catch anyone, so not seeing ahead was ok for that. And I also had no mirror graphics anymore, but could use the 'position dot' to tell when lapping cars (or anyone else) came along behind, so I could just cruise aside to let them go by.

4) A car had stopped somewhere ahead as I came around the tunnel. So I slowed to give myself time to see as I headed down into the killer chicane, but I was expecting (guessing!) they had clipped the chicane and crashed out down the next bit of straight. Bad idea to assume!
With multiple car damages from all the wall swiping for 20 laps or so it meant that when I saw bits of the car ahead (around and through the vertical road panels) the wheels locked big time so I had to head straight ahead into the chicane run-off area. I couldn't actually see exactly what was ahead as I came down there but could make out there was a blue car (Tyrell) on the curbing area, so I knew not to go through the chicane.
BAMM... into the tire stack, but right on the nose so no wheels came off! Amazing.

The big error was the assumption of where they were going to be, versus slowing right down to be able to deal with any case that was really there. Annoying after all that time of adjusting to such driving difficulty and making sure I only lapped at the 'safe' pace needed to keep 6th at bay.

I backed up and then began to move forward but the car caught on the curb of course! DOH. So some rocking edged it ahead bit by bit and I could see a dot approaching on the position bar.
Seeing I wasn't totally stuck and had been there a while in total (eg plenty of time to see a stationary dot/cars) I shifted to back up to give a bit more room for the left chicane path, but it didn't move and then BAMM. Here comes Scott!

And that did finish off my car then!
And sorry to Scott that it put an end to his blistering pace too!

He should have slowed down far more too. But it was still a disaster to be a part of creating it too! For both of us, and to even have important positions (and still just as important for 1st and 5th anyway) ruined!
Both of us being too 'silly' to not slow down on a track where a stationary car is 99% assured to mean it will be on the track and blocking it a fair amount - especially at the most critical place of the whole lap, the chicane!
I had a 54sec gap of leeway... Scott had about a 40sec+ gap of leeway... so it was really no big deal for either of us to have slowed appropriately for the 'car stationary ahead' cases we both had.
Got our just deserts for taking that risk I suppose.

I had a lucky race! Damaged my car on second lap, and on serveral occasions later of the race. But i was lucky enough to finish the race.

Scott, I think your rant is too harsh. I think we all should take that yellow flags in upper left corner of the rFactor screen more serious. ;-)

Damaged my suspension lap 2. LOL. The rear end stepped out at Anthony Noghes, where I never had a problem while practicing, of course. But somehow I survived another 38 laps.

I was still on the pace, but at about the halfway point I had the idea to pull off into one of the runoff areas and have a drink, but there wasn't as much room there as I thought, and it wasn't paved so I got stuck there for a bit and Rogier passed me. I guess it was a bad idea anyway because it really broke my rythm, and I kept bumping the walls for the next couple laps. Finally the suspension got deranged enough that I completely lost it in the hairpin.

Congrats to Jeffrey!

My car was not damaged by the chicane crash at all. High speed and dead on into the nose and not even a front wing loss!! LOL
The car must have hit on the body nose and thus does not register as any wing damage even.

I doubt any real car would 'quit' at a chicane spin, and I also bet all the approaching cars would slow WAY down to be safe there too. We don't get marshalls to push us to get going, but either would real F1 for ages (even 1979) until they knew every car was aware of them. Then they would go out and push it to get going again.

I was rocking forward bit by bit, and don't know if it would never have got going or not, but I had 50secs leeway back to 6th and I dont think any fit or able car should need to quit out.
It is a HIGHLY dangerous spot, but up to the approaching cars to deal with track ahead when warnings are plain to see.

The real problem (and I did the same to even end up there myself) is that no one ever SLOWS for YELLOW flags! Nowhere near enough. Everyone decides to errr on the side of "I must get my best lap time still'.

And I don't think Chris needed to 'quit' either - unless he was notably damaged. So you need to asses that ASAP if you do crash and block a track of course! Especially Monaco.
But if he was still ok - and of course not to spend more than some reasonable amount of time to get off a curb if that is why you are stuck - then everyone else has to deal with it.
(What is reasonable? I guess until you KNOW the car is stuck).

The yellow flag warnings are clear. The 'stationary dot' is clear, well in advance. So there is no reason every other car cannot drive AROUND the problem - if they drive appropriately and safely into the area.
"Hmmm, chicane... I will need to go about 60 kph to be SAFE through there."

I could file a complaint that Scott destroyed my car due to not slowing to a safe speed in a yellow flag area! lol Ironic.
If not 'run into' I would probably have still managed 5th.

I wonder what the real F1 would say if a car ran into a yellow flag area at max speed and subsequently crashed into the stricken car? (or killed marshalls too).
At least I aborted my chicane path to miss Chris's car. LOL

I was seeing yellow flags every 2 laps or so, and I had absolutley no time to spare because Jeff was catching fast. I did back off but not enough to avoid a car that was pretty much totally blocking the track. If I'd come over that crest with more than 30mph I still would have hit you Peter because of the stupid position you put yourself in. And for the record, I don't use position dots or name tags. And you definatley shouldn't have continued with those graphics problems. But whatever, as long as you enjoyed yourself I guess nobody else matters.