Grand Prix of Spain

Well, that was a great way to end the season, with the three championship leaders running 1-2-3 for most of the race. I didn't really have anything for Tim today. I think I had a better strategy, but he was just too damn quick! Pretty good race though, had a nice battle with Todd and my teammate took the podium after David dropped out.

Congrats to Tim, and thanks to everyone for an action packed season!

A fantastic season closer!

I have been practicing ONLY the F1's for 2 weeks. My team boss (me) would not allow me to even run yesterday's GT-Open event as he (me) was afraid I would lose focus on the F1 championship. This race would come down to whomever finished ahead of the other, between Aubrey and myself. Fisher could potentially steal if from the both of us if our races went completely down hill, but that was a long shot.

Over the two weeks I tweaked and tweaked my setup for many, many hours. Got to high 1:17s before focusing on fuel runs and pit strategies for another few days. I knew Aubrey was going to 1-stop, and since Im not 1-stopper, I had to find the speed to challenge that.

I finalized my fuel and pit strategy just the night prior, with light fuel for qualifying and an early first stop. The goal was to pull a gap on Aubrey (who cared about Fisher!) so I could get back out of the pits *just* ahead, and it did just that... only just. Came out in 2nd, 10 seconds behind Fisher.

2nd stint was on heavier fuel but i now had the task of keeping in touch with Fisher so when he pit, I could pull another gap. This is where I spent a lot of my effort in planning... these 6 laps between the 1-stopper strategies and my 2nd stop. They would be heavy and i would be super light. So I went for some hot laps and *did* get my gap to come out of the pits *just* ahead of Fisher, and in the lead!

From there I turned down the boost to maintain the 3 second gap on Fisher until his motor let go in the final laps. At that point I had 48 seconds on Aubrey so I pussy-foot'd around for the final few laps to take the win.. and the championship!

Woohoo!

Thanks to everyone for the great season. Through all the heart-aches early on with brakes, these races have been some of the most enjoyable for me. I have really loved the competition, both on track in in the pits. Amazing drivers and amazing fun.

'Till S6 Formula-1, where I hope to defend my championship...

Seriously not impressed by the start.

Can't win in T1? Hardly made it over the S/F line before people were spinning everywhere, and at least Allen and me had to limp round for the pits.

Admittedly my demise was my own fault running wide into the last corner trying to get out the leaders way, I ran onto the gravel and T-boned the wall losing my left front.

Grats to Tim on the Championship, will have to see how F1,F2 and PLMS fall as to which I will do of the three.

I'm pretty down right now because I absolutely HATE to lose an F1 race, and 3 of the last 4 races have not gone like I expected, and unfortunately I only have myself to blame. It's better when you can blame the sim or someone else. :-) Blew two engines by accidentally hitting the neutral button, and by running gears that were a lttle too short (today). I also put the wrong tires on the car at Nurburg. Missing two races meant that I couldn't make slly mistakes like those and still have a shot at the championship.

Tim was kicking a** today, and I just wasn't in a groove from the start. Didn't get to practice before Q, and my first stint was really where the race was lost. First big mistake was that I didn't turn boost back up to 4 after taking my grid spot, and this was AFTER reminding Tim to do so on the warm up lap (he forgot last race). Ridiculous. Lights didn't show at the start, but I went on the horn sound and got a great jump on Tim, but he blew by me at the end of the strtaight before I finally remembered to up the boost. If I'd kept him behind, it might of made a biog difference in the first stint because he quickly gained 4 seconds over me while I battled a bit with Kirill and then he gained another chunk of time while I got stuck behind a couple of lapped cars. Keeping Tim within 5 seconds before his first stop was the goal since I had twice the fuel load, but with his pace and my mediocre performance, it ended up at 13. I made a mistake passing a lapped car in my second stint and went into the gravel (lost 5 seconds), and that pretty much took away any chance for the win. I was 2-3 seconds behind Tim late in the race before my engine blew up. I can only guess that the middle gearing was a little short because I ran 5 radiator and 4 boost which has never failed in the past.

Tim, you've got a month to party with the pit babes and negotiate a big fat contract. I'm taking that championship away from you next season. :-)

Grats to Tim on the Pole, Win and Championship.

Qualy went better for me than expected, 5th.

Race started off well, i tried to maintain a solid pace then a brain fade, tapped the wall while looking at my fuel indicator, I go to pit and loop it at pit entrance on lap 7, take on a 50 second repair job, leave the pits and I am awarded a stop and go, so I make 1 lap and pit thinking the stop and go is a drive thru, wrong, so i have to do it again, I serve my penalty only to be served with a second stop and go because i was looking again at the indicator thinking i must hit enter to serve the penalty and forgot to hit the speed limiter, I serve that one and put my head down to turn some laps only to see my tires have gone into full yellow at lap 18, Now I am in damage control mode, this darn thing needs to get another 43 laPs and I am sure not taking a DNF. I got a 4th for my troubles, Ill take it!

Great ace guys and grats to Aubry and Tolga for their podiums.

Cya,

Well, I blew the launch but it worked out OK, nonetheless.

Qualified third, but when I slotted into my spot discovered I had to be on the brakes or my car would roll downhill. As the lights started ticking all I could think about was, "If I'm on the brakes now, will my Launch Control be on or off at 'Go' time?"

"Go" time came and I let off the brakes ... Nothing. I hadn't released the LC button! Argh!

I made it through Turn 1 around eighth. Worked my way up to Aubrey and fourth in a few laps, which is the part that turned out OK: I knew my teammate had to finish ahead of Aubrey, and if I could spend a few laps making him look in his mirrors then I might do something right. As it was, we had a pretty good battle, swapping positions three times before I had to duck in for my first pit stop.

Aubrey and his one stop made really good time on me and my two stop, and in the late stages of the race I was settling in for a solid fourth, about 25-30 seconds behind Aubrey and a lap ahead of the next car.

Then disaster struck.

I was trailing a lap car coming down the front straight. Unsure if I was going to catch him before Turn 1 I kept in the slipstream. About halfway down the straight, though, it seems he decided to help and breathed off the throttle ... The result is that he went from about six car lengths out to in my faceplate in the blink of an eye. I leaped out of the line, started fishtailing and couldn't save it.

Ripped off the front and rear wings. Took a minute to sink in: I just hosed my race in the middle of the damn straightaway! And had to limp around the entire track to get back to the pits. Argh.

At least it wasn't failed brakes :-)

Was a pleasure this season, gents. Congrats to Tim on the win and the championship.

Have to agree with Nick on this one. I was not happy with the way the start went either..no names to mention.

Had a rough qually and just took what I could get I think 7th or 8th. Finally figured out how to use the launch control but didn't do me any good when other people forget what easy means, anyway both my right corners got damaged and was forced to pit which they didn't do a very good job and the car was all over the place under braking and made it a bitch to drive.
Sent myself off the next time and had to go in and replace wings and repairs again. The second and last time I went flying off the track was because there were theses 2 flies see...well these 2 flies decided they were going to have a fight, a battle, and decided to use my eyeball and my nose as thier battleground. After they bounced off my eyeball they were still swinging at each other when bounced off my nose. So I decided to join the fight and kick some serious fly ass....I LOST and into the wall I went totaling the car.

Congrats to Tim on the pole,win and CHAMPIONSHIP! WTG Tim

LOL @ Barry (aka the Fly-fighter)

Congratulations Tim!!

I look forward to participating more in S6. My two events with the lot of you in S5 was stupendous fun!