Atlantic nGT: Estoril

Oh man, that was an amazing race, by far the most satisfying of all my R2P races I've done yet. I had what I thought was a good setup in the RSR--I could get the power down without having too much to worry about, and in the Euro race I found that I could break deeper into the corners that I thought I could.

In any case, good setup, but I had trouble warming the tires up, so I ran Soft/Meds, which seemed to do fine, until the very end of the race, but thats before I really started to use them.

I had a so-so Qual, which put me in 11th. Well, I had a terrible launch with the Porka, and after some shimmying I was 12th if I recall out of turn 1. In the 10-15 train, I managed to spin and ended up in 14th, a few seconds behind Barry K. I knew I was just a bit faster than him, so in a few laps I had caught up with him and I kept trying to pass him. Well, in turn 3 (the sharp hairpin to the right up the hill) I was right behind him and carried just a tad too much into the apex, where I tapped him and he nosed around. I parked on the side of the road and waited for him to pass me, figuring it was the sportsmanlike thing to do. We then battled for a good 10 laps or so, probably the BEST battle I've had in a while. I really enjoyed finally passing up Barry though, as it was a sheer braking contest on the Parobolica, a real test of the nerves!

Everything was inconsequential until pit time. For some reason my computer likes to lag in the pits, so I always have some pretty bad pit times. I exited the pits back in 14th, right behind Sam. I pass Sam pretty early, only to find to my dismay that I'm 29 seconds behind Barry (again!) in 12th, but catching up very quickly (I was averaging +1.5 - +2.0 gain per lap on him). Shortly after I started my charge, 10th and 11th got tangled up in 7, which put me in 11th, aiming for 10th. Knowing that I could catch Barry, I began to drive the hell out of my tires, hoping to catch him, which I did with about 8 minutes remaining in the race. Right about that time, though, my tires started to die on me, and the entire time I was pursuing Barry, Sam in 12th was charging on me, too. I finally passed Barry in or around the Chicane (IIRC) with about 4 minutes to go and put some space between him and me. Sam charged up on Barry, too, and I'm not sure what happened but Sam fell out of my view with a few laps to go. With 1:30 to go I cooled down my pace and matched Barry's, hoping I wouldn't get a blowout or anything.

So, yeah. Amazing race. Thanks for a good one everybody!

Well it wasn't as good of a finish that I expected of me but I'll take 4th. At least I finished. My one big mistake was using up my tires too early trying to Kent and Les behind me and it cost me later in the race. Had some great racing though.
I think me and Kent at the same time backed off to conserve our tires but it worked out better for Kent.

Congrats Ari once again and the podium. Had fun

I started last, finished last. My aim was not to slowdown the other drivers. lol. The only race action i had was: Not to behave wrong at those 60 blue flags. lol. had fun anyways

Here here to that Chris! that was the most intense race I've had online yet!
I quali'd much better than i was expecting on 9th (i think?) and made sure I was careful at the start, dropped to 11th but was still happy with that.
About lap 4 though I made a my first dumbass mistake and dropped it into second too early at turn 4 and half span, ending up nose first into the barrier, just before the apex! (sorry everyone that i might have freaked out!). There was nothing to do but wait for everyone to pass before continuing, dead last!
So the remainder of the first stint was just trying to catch up with the pack which I never seemed to do, but then somehow I exited the pits a couple of secs before Chris??? game on! I was closing on Todd, no doubt on worn tyres (he had yet to pit) in 5th, I wasn't too sure what i was going to do because it would have seemed rude to try and unlap myself from him, and by this time Chris had just blasted up behind me and was all over my back bumper like a rash! He seemed much quicker than me at this point. I needn't have worried 'cos Todd then entered the pits leaving me a clear track to stretch my legs and leave Chris choking on my dust! well that was the plan, but I didn't allow for my next dumbass mistake at turn 4! just went wide while watching Chris in my mirror, and he was through! bah!
After that it was full on trying to catch him, for ages the gap was about 2secs, we seemed almost perfectly equal, sometimes i would make a minor error and the gap swelled to 2.something, then I would close it down again. I eventually caught up after he caught Barry K, and their little battle allowed me to catch up. Chris went through but soon after went way wide into the chicane, allowing Barry to have a run on him, however he ran out of room and had to get out of the gas allowing me to get alongside going into the esses, however the position was never going to be mine so I lifted off, just as i went over the right hand rumble strip, and lost it, ending up in the dirt! Bah again!
Didn't lose too much time so was able to catch up with Barry again after a lap or too.
Going into the final lap he got a poor exit from the parabolica Ayrton Senna and I slipstreamed him up the front straight and out braked him into turn 1 (but he didn't really contest the position too hard, and let me through, very gracious! thanks Barry!)
Real intense racing right to the line!
Thanks R2P, Chris and Barry for the hard clean racing and congrats to the podiums!
Huge fun.

i made some changes to the setup after the euro race and guess what,leave things alone.While it felt good in practice,my times were a little off,but decided to stay with it.Midway through the race,i noticed more wear than in the euro race but after the pitstop,i still felt i could get a top 10.Probably the battle i had with Chris didn't help the tyres either.Anyway,with this new fangled gizmo on screen,once Ari lapped me,was in cruise mode until 2 cars appeared behind me and i'm thinking,no probs,they must be a lap down,think again.I just had no more pace in those tyres anyway,game over,thanks guys,good racing.By the way,i didn't take any tyres at the pitstop.

Well I had a post race about completed and hit the back button :(

Basically, I had trouble keeping up driving the GTC against the RSR's and lost 2 positions lap 9 because I was over driving trying to keep pressure on Barry. Les was right with me also and it took me about 9 more laps just to get back to 5th.

Chose to take on tires at my stop but my fuel strategy allowed me to still have a faster stop than some others. By the time the pit cycle completed I found myself in 3rd and about 8 seconds behind Scott. I assume Scott went for no tires since I was gaining pretty big chucks of time and when I got to about 3 seconds from him he spun in T1 giving me 2nd.

Ari was long gone and with 3 laps to go I saw I was short on fuel. Limped around the last 2 laps and crossed the line with .02 left in the tank.

Grats to Ari and all the finishers.