American Le Mans Series at VIR

rFactor locked up with 10 minutes left.....*@#$^%#*!!

Edit: thought I'd lost a spot due to this lock-up, but apparently I'd already done enough laps for 2nd. So *@#$^%#*!! was a bit strong, a *@%&*!! would suffice.

Grats to Sanio, Tristan, Carl and podiums.

Sorry to see that Frans.

Finally wins.
I'm sorry for MJ mistake in the first round. I'm looking forward to our fight.
But also with Frans was a great fight between 25 and 32 rounds. After that I grew advantage.
Before the race I decided to put wings from 3-16 to 4-20 for faster passing cornering. I knew I would lose it on the line, but I've got a lot on stability. The race is long, and this track is very dangerous. It was a big hit. ;)

Congratulations to everyone who completed and for podium in all classes.

Alfa

Looking at Tristans times before the race, I already decided I was gonna settle for second place. So, after the formation lap we were off. On the first lap he went off track a bit and I got first place, but he was on my rear bumper again after 1 lap and I just let him through as there was no point fighting him, he was so much quicker.

But then ... I thought lets try to copy his gearing through sector one to see if it makes a difference. Yeah ... right, that made a difference alright. The car immidiately torqued off a cerbstone to the left, and I smashed into the barrier. I was left sitting in my chair with my mouth wide open in disbelieve. The car was destroyed at the front.

At first I went limping back to the pits a bit sad, but then I thought, hé, this is actually a good thing, because it will give me something to do. Tristan was way faster then me, and I was much faster then the other proto's, so I would have had a very boring race all alone for 3 hours. But now ... I was racing again :). Had a lot of fun trying to come back from 90 sec. down. I just got out of the pits before Magnus lapped me. He was right behind me. So I had to make up for a complete lap overtaking the whole field up to him. The car was still oke, but lacking in topspeed after the hit. It was fun to see how I got closer every lap. Also helped by the fact that Magnus was in a Creation instead of a Audi.

When I finally closed on him, a weird thing happend. He seems to crash suddenly while being perfectly normal on track as if he ran into a invisible car. He went up in the air in fact for no reason and then he was behind me again. Anyway, I was through blinking my eyes for what I just saw. I kept pushing a while longer to create a gap for the next pitstop and that was it. Back in second place. Was actualy doing a 3 stopper, but made it to the end on 2 stops. Came over the finishline with just 0,1 liters left :).

Grats to the winners and all finishers. Shame about Frans his game crashing, but he still got his second place.

Looking forward to the next track: Magnificent Park.

See you all next time.

Congrats to Tristan,Sanio and Carl for the wins, congrats podiums and finishers, First time driving this beasts (P1),awesome cars ! Decided to run a free risk race, put downforce all the way up and drove safely. Finish the race was my goal.Please enjoy this video:

Thank you.

ijui at 0:40 was a good description of what happened. ;) Disaster! :(

Congratulations to The race winners, podium placed drivers and all who managed to finish.

PRE RACE

I never prepared as well as I could have and only realised that race day was the 16th....(I thought it was the 23rd,late Friday evening.
I went about setting the car up and settled into a comfortable pace of around 1.43 xx...posting some 1m42 xx leading up to the race.

In retrospect...I should have had a higher wing setting.

QUALI

I left allot out there in this session. I expected more, but I had an off which cost me pit time. I think I ended up only posting two flying laps, where I recall missing my brake markers and apex's. I was content with my starting slot but was disappointed to see that the field size had shrunk by at least half.

RACE

I got a better drive out of the final turn and pulled along side Raphael Bohorodycz on our first racing lap. I was not going to try too hard, as I felt that he and Carl Middleton would have better pace than me, in the opening stint.

My race strategy was simple....Avoid the hay bales and make it to the finish line. I was able to stay in touch with the leader, but purposely did not push, in sticking with my race plan.

Not in my plan was having to deal with P Class cars who I let by and who would crash out in front of me, a number of times. This lost me a bundle of time and I was able to find any kind of rhythm.

I had a close call on lap 11, with a potentially race ending incident, going through the bales. I got a little too close to the first one which lifted the car and kind of spat me out to the left. I was heading straight for the 2nd bale but somehow managed to gather it up and kept it pointing in the right direction....tearing across the grass. After this incident I decided to settle in and not push at all.

After the leaders first pit stops I was in the lead and I hoped that I had somehow managed to nake up the 30 odd seconds I had lost in the beginning. After I stopped I was 3rd...some 7 seconds behind. I changed my pot strategy, on the fly, in the hope I could put a bit of pressure on the leader, but as things worked out Carl was in control and secured a great win.

I made a mistake towards the end, where I lost my splitter. I pitted and did not try my luck any more.

Until the next event.