AutoGaming Central Grand Prix of Europe

Well, that was a comedy of errors from me :( Sitting in a comfortable 5th place, lost a bit of concentration and spun off losing my front wing. Pulled into the pits, got it replaced and promptly spun exiting my pitbox crashing into the pitwall and losing the front wing again. Had to go all the way around for a lap before pulling in to get the wing replaced again, but managed to go speeding in the pits. Car wasn't handling too cleverly, so decided to jump out rather than act as a moving chicane. And it all started so well..... :(

Blah, going to make it short. Qualifying started out scary as I got rear-ended sitting at the red lights waiting to go out. No worries, David, we're even for my S8 Fuji bomb. :)

Still managed to get a nice time which started me in 5th. The race started horribly for me as I seemed to just have no grip at all right from the start. All of the practice I had done prior and was turning consistently low 30s and suddenly I look like an idiot plowing into T1 but I don't know, maybe it was the thing David described happening at Sebring and which I had experienced at SIlverstone S8 where the first stint just felt totally wrong. A turn later, I loop the car and just stay off track until everyone got past and started out. I ran a lap or two behind some slower cars and coming out onto the fast straight with the kink in it, I got a good run on the car ahead and was ahead going into the kink, but he didn't seem to be backing off, so I went tight over the curbing to try and stay clear but I guess he never saw me and so when he turned in at the kink he clipped me and I slammed into the barrier at 300kph and that was the end of my day and my season. The hours I have spent for each of these last three races is just too great to be met with such disappointments and it appears this season just isn't meant to be. I am done with this series and going to just run random events for a while and just have fun. I am going to switch to slower cars, do some touring cars or something to just have fun again. Sorry again to my team for the horrific turn this season.

1st race here in this series as I'm new to R2P...

I have'nt had alot of time with this mod and this was my 1st race with it.

Made a good start somehow managed to get upto 8th and ran there for a bit holding up acouple people. they got by and then settled in. Pitted lap 20 and was up into 6th spot until my engine without warning died lap 35.

Thanks alot I look frwd to the next race.

Sorry Justin for the bump in the pits. THere were no cars in front of me as I pulled up to the red light. All of a sudden your car appeared and we were in the same space.

You shouldn't quit. We all have a run of bad luck at times.

Very happy with my best finish in F1. Would have been a purfect drive, but had a spin with 3 left.

Disappointed with the turn out. 20 signed, 14 show.

Kevin

Justin!!! sorry for that clip, as you mentionned in the kink of the long straight, i definitly saw you and as this is only my 2nd race in thoses, i misjudged how fast you could get by me and i had to take the curve too!!! but i really tought you were going to wait for the braking zone cause i knew you were faster and intent on giving you room there...
well, after that 2nd race, i think you guys are too fast for me, i didn't figured how to drive fastand don't want to be in the way ,so i think i'm retiring with F1...
seeya on other series...were i stand a better chance!! :)

No Daniel, I didn't mean to imply you were at fault. I've had no one to blame for all my bad luck and I know that. I guess it seemed like I was well clear of you heading into the curve and figured the exchange was done but I was wrong. I'm just really gassed with all the practice time I've wasted over the last month.

Kind of a sloppy race for me. Went with the usual two stopper which directly gave me a poor qualifying spot. Right from the get go, it was hectic and for the first few laps, I gained quite a few spots from other people spinning or having issues.

I soon slotted myself in 4th behind Heinz and proceeded to have a hell of a battle with him. I didn't really intend to fight so hard for 3rd since I was on a different strategy than him and was loosing ground to David fast, but it was a blast nonetheless and I didn't really mind at all. We went at it for about 10 laps and with a few laps till my stop, I overtook him going to T1. He wasn't done and tried to do the same on the next lap. I held my ground on the outside and coming out on the exit of T1, we collided into each other a little bit, giving me some damage. We crossed over in T2 and going into T3, I overshot my brake marker while he spun out. Quite a sloppy ending to a great battle but either way, I thought it was great fun :).

Soon after the battle, I had another mistake going into the carrosuel. I lost my train of thought and shifted the car into reverse on entry which spun me around. Came close to stalling it which would have been game over for me but I kept it going and brought it in for my first pit stop. Coming out, I began to realize how badly the damage from the collision with Heinz was hurting my overall speed. I was finding it a lot harder to stay within the 1:30s when I knew this car was capable of high 1:29s. With David so far out ahead, I began writing off my chances for a win and started focusing on keeping 2nd with Tim barreling down my neck. He was a good few tenths of a second faster than me for a quite a while and going on the backstrech about half way, I was willing to give him some room to get by me. Well, he got caught up on the curbing on the right side, lost control of the car and went flying across the track, just a few feet in front of me. Everything happened so fast that it didn't really phase me but I guess it had huge potential for ruining both our finishes had I been a little bit closer to him. Seeing how fast he flew across my screen, I'm surprised he managed to keep the damn thing off the wall :).

3rd stint was a quiet one for me. I had 2nd place wrapped up with Tim far behind in 3rd for unknown reasons and Dave so far ahead for obvious reasons :). Fatigue started to settle in and began loosing my patience with the lap counter, hoping the race would end ASAP. I brought it home in one piece but those last few laps were excruciating ;).

Grats to David on the win and to everyone that finished. The driver's championship is looking like a good one. Should be interesting down the strech...cya'll at Monza :)

That was my fourth F1 win in a row at this track. Don't know why, but this seems to be my best track. If needed, a full stint of low to mid 29's (high 28 possible) on a 3 stopper is easy for me here. Felt good in practice before the race and hit a 28.9 which confirmed it. The target for Q was a 28.0 (my pole time at the last race here), and I managed to take pole position again with a 28.011, which is a new track record (barely). Also took race fast lap. Everything pretty much went perfectly for me in this race. Only thing that would of made it better were for Conor and Tim to have succeeded in taking each other out of the race completely. Hopefully they will try harder next race. :-P

For a while after my first pit stop I was a little concerned that I had made a strategic error by not pushing hard enough in the first stint when I jumped out to a big lead early on after Tim's spin. Conor surprised me with his two stop strategy, and at that moment I was thinking that a pit stop took longer than it actually did. Once I sorted eveything out I knew how hard to push by constantly watching the gap to him. The rest of the race went smoothly with no mistakes. This was a big win for me because it tightened up the championship.

Really nice run Kevin. Congrats. Justin, why don't you just ease up on the practice time? Wait until a couple days before the race before practicing, and limit your practice time.

Because if I only do a couple practice sessions before a race, I'll be a mess and the odds of finishing will be much worse still.

However, I think that I am going to try to finish the season out and just put a lot less time into each race. I am definitely breaking from F1 after the season, though.