1.5 Hours of Brazil

Well.. This was my second long race of my pc sim racing career and I messed that up too.. lol

I practiced a lot and had my car (Ford GT) doing ok... running 1:13's, but I made a last minute adjustment and it COMPLETELY killed my handling... If it ain't broke, don't fix it.. right? oh well.. lesson learned.

I figured maybe if I took some wing out, I would get some more bite.. also raised the rear height a little.. lol.. WRONG!! off AND on throttle, the rear kept coming around.. total wreck.. keep in mind I made these adjustments w/ NO TESTING... bout 1 min til race started.

It's too bad there are no wing/spring adjustments in pits.. I looked forward to competing but my car was undrivable.

I'm still LOLing after this race!!
So, I put my tire hungry Audi on track, with the clear idea of doing just one stop this time, and most drivers decide to stop twice!! LOL Sure, it's probably me, I'm alway doing the opposite to the rest of the world, it doesn't matter what!

That 'little' fact changed the whole vision of the race. With one stop more, I lost too much time to fight with anyone. With one stop less, I gained too much time to fight with anyone.

Well, I could have probably been close to RThaeler for most of the race, but I made a mistake on T1 on early laps and completely lost him. Instead of Thaeler, I was behind JEagan, and damn!, he was a really hard opponent to beat. The clearest way here was the main straight, but I never had a chance, even if I accelerated right after the last turn and came close to him, it looked like he had kers or something. Really great fight with Jim for several laps, lots of close and side-to-side action but no contact at all, until he made a mistake.

Then I saw, firstly with relief, how I could open the gap with him (I didn't want to have him close to me on the main straight at all!), and secondly with surprise how all the guys I had behind me, and some of the top drivers, stopped very early!

Nothing much to tell about the las 50 mins of the race, Thaeler, ahead of me, was also in a one stop only strategy, so only a mistake could help me close the 30 secs gap, and all the guys behind me were one lap down because of the extra pit. Can't believe that, my Audi wasn't particularly hard to drive with one worn tire.

I could have done two stops in this race with the same final result, talk about irony!

Congrats to the podium, and see you at Istanbul!

Nice race!

I didn't get the practice time I had hoped, but my base setup for the Matech proved pretty good, and I was able to get it into the 13s on race settings. So, I was hopeful for a good result.

Q went pretty well as I put together a PB lap in the high 12s. Neil and I were 0.03 seconds off in Q, so I suspected we were gonna have a pretty good dogfight come race time.

The race start was pretty wild, especially when Neil spun right off the line. That cleared a lane to my right, which I took. Alberto had a nice start and we tangled through T1, but somehow I managed to exit the T1 and chicane complex in P2 after Goran slipped off. I also think I chopped Ted pretty hard into T1... apologies if that caused any issues there for ya. Anyways, got settled into race mode pretty quick. I managed to gap Alberto a little bit, but Goran managed to charge back through early on, which put me back down to P3.

From there on, it was a pretty lonely race as I was able to keep a solid gap to the P4 and back guys, but at the same time could not touch Marcos and Goran. Decided on a one-stop strategy, and really was concentrating on making the tires last, especially since I knew many of the guys were going for two tire stops. I can tell you all that, at least with the Matech, the tires were reasonable for 25 or 26 laps, but then really fell off, and the last 3-4 laps of both stints were very difficult.

So it goes... a fun drive with a fun car. This really marks the first Race07 race that I've done with no significant issues (like pit selection mishaps etc.) and where I was competitive. So, I'm pretty happy with that and happy with a podium finish as well. Great company on TS as well... more of you should join us, even if just for the post-race chat!

Till next time all! Istanbul should be fun... get ready to toast that RF tire instead of the LF here!

Cheers!

Nicely done Rob, and congrats to the podium. As for me, I kept thinking, as I took the grid, that I was forgetting something. Fuel? Yup, all set. Pit presets? Done. Then, as I'm sitting backward on the front straight, barely 58 feet beyond the starting line, I realized I'd left my brains, talent (such that it is) and common sense back in the pits!! What the hell was I thinking? Oh well, no one collected me, well done Alberto, Jim and everyone else on full bonehead alert.

After a lap or two realizing the car wouldn't stop or turn, I pitted for repairs and to have the crew remove my head from my ass....again! So, out I went for a long 90 minutes to see what we could make of this. With Ed out with the flu and Ted representing NEWFM alone, this was a great opportunity for Team Kamikaze to move into second in the Team standings. But noooooo, I just had to go and be a moron. My story is that the paint on the finish line was, um, wet.... yeah, that's it! The paint was wet, sure, happens all the time!

In any case, I managed to get a few laps back except for the front runners, and move up to 5th after my 3rd stop. With Jim coming in 6th (well done bud!), we closed the gap to NEWFM for second. Or is that 1st with Scuderia International closing up shop? Oh well, we'll see...

Too bad, really. The car was good, I set a PB in Q to pip Rob by a mere 50 thousandths of a second, and ran pretty good the whole race. So, it's off to Turkey next, till then...

Jeez I'm so sorry I had to miss this race - reading your post race notes make it sound like a blast.

Just a reminder to everyone, if you think someone committed a penalty against you, or if you observed someone cutting the course, please email me and I'll help you file a protest with the R2P official.

See everyone in one month for the 2 hour final race at Istanbul.

That was a tough one ... This track doesn't really let you relax much, and if you lose your concentration for just a second, it will punish you.

Qualifying didn't go as well as I'd hoped it would. Getting 9th with a :14.2 shows you how competitive this field is.

Damn near blew the start. I leapt up from my chair to close a window--it was getting a little chilly in the apartment--and got back JUST in time as the lights were about to go out. My car crept forward a bit and I was afraid I would get penalized for jumping. That didn't happen, thankfully. Then Neil spun in front of me and I just squeaked past him. For the first few laps, it seemed like people were spinning off everywhere around the course (more about that later) and it was all I could do to avoid getting myself caught up in all that. I suddenly found myself in 4th, with Alberto Alvarez catching me. It was all I could do to keep him behind me--and all I could do to hold on to the car. The tires were starting to go off and I just wanted to hang on 'til the first stop. No dice, as I bobbled and Alberto got past me, disappearing into the distance.

Things basically settled down after that, with the occasional mistake here and there, as per usual for me.

Admin pro tem notes:

As I said above, there appeared to be quite a few spins in this one. A brief view of my replay revealed that most of it was due to car-to-car contact. Remember, guys, patience is key. Especially in a 90-minute race. You can't win the race in the first lap, but you can certainly lose it there. And/or destroy another driver's race. The final race is 2 hours, so let's all keep our heads together.

All in all, I saw a fairly clean race, despite the chaos of the opening laps. I did notice, in my brief viewing of the replay, that a few of you cut the T1-2-3 chicane more than a few times. This will be reviewed by chapter admins and will be reported accordingly.

If you feel you have been wronged:
Send a PM to Eduardo regarding your concerns, or file a protest with Race2Play admins. Under no circumstances is it okay to chat during the race, no matter how angry you are at another driver you feel has ruined your day. Take your grievances through official channels.

Well done to the podium, and congratulations to race winner Marcos Junior. See you all at the final race in Istanbul (Not Constantinople).