USA G2: Dubai

Tough race, ping was jumping all over the place. Sorry for the punt on lap one Andrew Peeler, I just can't seem to keep it
all together. Need more practice. Had a bad qualifying, and felt quicker than the cars around me. Without thinking, I was diving in for passes I probably wouldn't have made anyway.

Congrats George

I should of opted to change rear tires as well as fronts. Was a struggle.

Well, this was a disappointment, but still fun.

Quali was good, I took .5 seconds off my previous best time, and put it in 4th. At the start, I wound up 3-wide with some other people, I was too focused on not hitting them to see who it was...cool stuff! The field settled out, and Rob just took off. I figured 1) He's just gonnna kill his tires, 2) He's pitting, or 3) He's gonna kill us all and leave us behind. Turns out, he pitted...tough call on that, Rob, sorry it didn't work for ya.

Mid-way through the race, out of no where, Derek came up and just slammed me into turn 1. I went off wide, out of the track completely, and lost 4 positions. I worked my way back up to them, and passed everyone 1 by 1 until I got to Steve...Steve, man, you are one hard guy to pass! Nice racing! He finally went wide into that decreasing radius banked corner, and I ducked underneath.

The race was looking in the bag for me, 1st place with 10 minutes to go and 3 second lead on Steve, Matjaz, and George. With 2 laps to go, I look down and notice, I only have fuel for 1 lap left...bad news. I started short shifting and lost my 3 second lead in just 1 lap. But my counter said "0 Laps" before I crossed the line. I short shifted the WHOLE lap, but it wasn't enough, and the car shut off in the last corner. I coasted across the line and watched the top 3 take off down the straight. How frusterating >:( I know I shoulnd't trust the race-estimate fuel, but I put in 3 extra laps worth of fuel, enough for 32 laps. And it STILL didn't make it...dumb game lol

Grats to George, Matjaz, and Steve. You guys know how to fill your car with gas ;) kidding

Man...was doing very well, except nipping Sam in a corner,....Sorry again Sam. Qualied way back in 15th and worked my way up to 7th. Was really getting close to the rest of the field.

Got passed just after mid race after fighting real hard for position. Was on the front stretch and was going to request a pit. Pushed what was supposed to be the pit request and BOOM!!.. hit the damn neutral button. Forgot I programmed the wheel differently and that ended it for me.

First time I Blew a motor I think.

The first 6 laps were CRRRAAAAZZZY mid pack. Settled in Behind Sam after a while and finally took what i thought was an o.k. opportunity to pass since three of us were racing so tight. Guess I got into Sam, but I hardly noticed the hit. Gained 2 positions there and slowly crept up on 10th spot. Made the pass via a minor slip up and continued on to 7th via early pits. Wish I could have stayed in this one. I think I would have finished pretty good, considering I qualied 15th, I know it would have been better than that.

Hell...I DNF'd and almost did better than that.
Hope my driving appears to have improved to you guys. I've been working hard at getting better.

Usually this is were I say what a great time I had, but unfortunately, today this is not the case.
The early laps were a nightmare, and after some harmless panel rubbing from other cars, I find myself getting T-boned hard going into the double left hander, and looking like I was going to end up on my roof for a split second. Lost a lot of time re gathering, and spent the next 15 mins on my own trying to catch somewhat of a pack I could see in front. All was going well Dwayne decided to see some grass time, and whilst trying to re-enter spun right onto the racing line, taking me out yet again. Bud, I just watched your entire race on reply, and have to say I have seen less contact in a boxing match. Half the time you are just plain out of control by the looks of it, and your attitude seems to reflect this.
After this I just tried to limp the thing home. 12th was a pretty good result in the end.

Congrats to the podium, and well done Rob, shame you had to pit. Looks like you were flying.

Grats GP!

Qualy: Another typical, poor qualy for me. I just don't get how everyone is 2s faster!

Race: Stewards, take note: there was some very poor driving at the back of the pack for sure. I was spun 3 times in the first 3 laps, once on the 1st laps (no penalty?)!!!!!

Edit by TM - Actually, two drivers received a 1 lap penalty to their post-race result due to contact with you. If you feel any were missed, please file the proper protest or it will not be looked at.

Reply by GD - Thanks for taking a look at those incidents Tim. I will check the replay again and decide about a protest if necessary.

I worked my way from last, uh-hum, 2 times and pushed more than I should have. I eventually worked up to 7th after a few folks pitted and went into tire conservation mode. My left front must have been passed the cords when I finished! 1 more lap, and Rob would have easily gotten by me.

Well... Took the Mosler since no-one really drives it at it deserves some track time too :). Knew it's going to be a silly choice for this power track but who cares :D. Race could have been a bit cleaner imo , got bumped and rubbed few times and with this car it was hard to gain any ground after loosing it.
Tried to survive without a stop but i had to drive so hard to keep my position that i ruined my tires in the progress. Last laps were on cruise mode since i was sure i'm going to have a flat before the race is over , but somehow they lasted to the end. 9th place is not much to brag about and maybe i could have been couple of places higher without drama , but it wasn't my day this time.

@ Don: I surely noticed the hit :P ,my car got thrown out of the track pretty effectively. Check the replay if you have time , you took the inside line , braked late but then locked a wheel and slid across the track straight into my car.
I think you were a bit late on brakes there to keep it on an inside line through the corner , but ok , no big deal...it was unfortunate but not the end of the world anyway ;).

Grts to George and the rest of the podium , tough luck Tom but you'll get 'em next time :).

Thx all and cya on track somewhere...

-----
Samuel

That was great fun!

I rolled the dice and came out short, way short. Oh well, I thought it was worth a try.

Knew I needed to get at least a 22 second gap before pitting, but could only do about 11 seconds. Hoping that tires would fade in the later part of the race for the non-stoppers and I could make up more time, still wasn't enough and came up 40 seconds short. Lesson learned.

Congrats to podium, great job!

That was a heck of a lot of fun! I've been finding myself a bit out of the simracing groove lately since my Race'07-less S8 schedule is so light, but races like this one remind me how much fun it is. And to be honest, doing less races is probably better for me since I'd been doing too many events on little to no prep.

For this one I actually had time to look at strategy, running a couple of half-distance stints on 4x tire wear to compare 1-stop on soft/med vs. not stopping on med/hards. I'd been thinking the stop would be better, since laptimes were so much quicker with the stickier tires and lighter fuel, but it turned out not stopping was going to be unquestionably better for overall ET. Plus it would mean I wouldn't have to enter the pitroad Death Zone - super! ;-)

Great qualy battle with Matjaz, but I was surprised to see us on the front row since I thought for sure someone would be doing 35's. But I ran about as good a time as I'd seen offline, so I was quite pleased with 2nd.

Almost..almost.. got the race launch I needed, but lit the tires a bit, started to get sideways and had to get out of the gas for a second, which killed my start. Rob went flying through into the lead, while I managed to get collected and hold a decent spot through the first few corners. Unfortunately I got a bit throttle happy on cold tires in one of the hairpins and almost looped it, dropping back to 9th. DOH!

Chase on from there, briefly getting back into the 37's when traffic allowed and moving back up gradually. Like in Q, that was the offline pace I was looking for, so I just tried to settle in and see what happened. Was stuck in 6th for a while, then finally got up to the group ahead. Had a great race from there to the end, with the battles with Derek and Tom being particulary good ones. Derek was defending really hard but taking slower lines in the process, and I almost hit him several times - we actually touched once, I think. But his car was jittering pretty bad so it looked like his connection wasn't so good - I wondered at the time if that had had anything to do with his getting into Tom earlier. Just when I started to think I might have a shot, he peeled into the pits! I was thinking I knew how Heinz felt about me last race... ;-)

Suddenly I found myself in the lead, which seemed odd since I wasn't really expecting anyone up front to pit after looking at the Euro race laps. But I figured what the heck; just stay steady, save the tires and see what comes.

What came was Tom! He was all over me for a lonnng time, and the only thing I could do was hold my line and try not to get into the corners too deep. I had to concentrate on getting good exits since the Seat has pretty good grunt if you don't let someone get a run on you. I knew if he got a chance to get under me I was toast. Which I ended up as soon enough, as the med fronts started to give up and I pushed wide entering a tight corner.. ;-)

That set up the end, with Tom, me, George and Matjaz running close in the top 4. Just when I thought I might have something for Tom, I had a brain fart and almost lost it, dropping back to 4th. But in the last few laps we all closed up, and the top 4 entered T1 with 2 to go almost bumper to bumper - awesome! George was working on Tom and I figured his tires were gone, not suspecting his fuel issues. I was hoping for an opening on the last lap as the top three were dicing, but then George and Tom bumped and George went into the lead. Matjaz was very sporting and backed out to let Tom get collected and go, but soon enough he got by and then so did I with a couple of corners to go. Found out why after the race - tough way to end it Tom; very well driven.

Great one guys, everyone was on it from start to finish. Wish all of 'em could be this fun.

GW Boss... Go UKNL! ;-)

no proble andrew lol its all your fault lol jk gr my first top ten finish and for any who dont no i am 14

You can tell your age just from the way you typed that Andrew. Why not change your age?