Well done to the winners. That was my most disappointing rooz race so far. I knew I wasn't going to be the fastest so I spent hours on strategy hoping that would get me closer to the lead. The warmup times were looking ok but I couldn't get close to them in qualifying, i thought the rooms setting must have been different to the what I had practiced. In the race my lap times were crap and I couldn't work out why. On about lap 8 I noticed my car had racing mediums on it. I was devastated. I was losing heaps of ground so decided to pit on 9 and get some softs. I was going to 2 stop anyway but not after 8 laps. I was making good times with the softs but they got pretty caned. I knew i would be fast after the second stop coz I had the fuel strategy down to the litre. I pulled in for the second stop and even though I selected 17 litres the crew filled it up. I was devastated all over again. With new softs and light fuel loads I could easily get really low 105's but with the tank brimmed all I could get was 106s. I don't know how the mediums got on the car after the reset as I had run softs in warmup. Dammit its disappointing. All going well I should have been at least 30 seconds up the road. I'm out of town all week this week so I won't get to spend hours strategising...maybe thats a good thing
4th was a nice surprise. Wasn't really expecting much, but I knew I had the pace to stay with the lead pack. Unfortunately I always seem to starting losing a lot of pace once RS get into the 6's, which is what happened not long after v8 passed me for 3rd. Started losing touch with the leading 3 and was slowing getting reeled in by kart and killer who looked like they were having some pretty good fun. I was able to keep the in check while waiting for my pit window. The halfway mark passed and it was just about time for my pitstop , I put in an extra 13L thinking that would safely get me to the end with a little left over. Came out with a nice buffer between myself and kart and killer after they finished went in to pit. Incey stayed out for awhile longer and was sitting in 4th for awhile, but every lap that passed I could see I was slowly catching him. He eventually pitted while I resumed 4th. Came across agolfer and stig fighting for position during the latter stages, and they did well to let me by in their situation. The last 4 or 5 laps were when panic started settling in and I was thinking I short fuelled myself as that was when I noticed the needle had just hit the red line. I still had quite a bit of a lead against kart so I immediately went into fuel saving mode. Lifting early, braking early, letting the car roll in and out of corners... On the second last lap, I was really hoping randm didn't cross the line yet, but alas.. it meant I had to do another lap with kart only a few seconds behind me! I jumped back on the throttle and brake as normally as I could to defend my position and had JUST enough fuel to make it across the line a few hundredths in front of kart! I THINK I felt the engine cut out just before I crossed the line as well....
I had a good race for a while trailing Kart and Killer but then in the second half of the race where I had got ahead of Killer I had spin entering the last tunnel and let Killer by, He half spun and collected me as well but got going much quicker than I did. Two laps later I ran wide and spun between turns 1 and 2 and let Incey by, putting me back to 8th. I got lapped towards the end and trailed Vardz over the last half dozen laps or so. I think if I hadn't spun I might have been in the hunt for 5th.
What a race! That was a good one! During qualifying, to say I was nervous was an understatement, I nailed my Q2 lap with a 1:05 dead I believe it was? with one more to go, but ruined it on the first corner. The start well, I had an abysmal start off the line letting VARDZ get right on my tail into turns 1 and 2. I got a beautiful run through turns 3&4 like i seemed to every lap and was already out by .9 of a second. I continued to pull away but every 3 laps or so, I would make a small error to bring a 3 second gap back down to 1.5, so VARDZ was always a threat. Lap 7 or so, I had a massive moment through turn 2 which let VARDZ through and sure enough after 3 laps and some hella good racing, I got back in P1. I led until I exited the pits. I decided still being quick for old tyres, to stay out 3 extra laps for that dying minutes advantage and oh boy did I think i cocked it up there. VARDZ ended up with a 3.8 second lead which I had to chase down. I expected an easy job but no HE PULLED AWAY!!! At this moment, I was a tad concerned having VARDZ pull away to 4.3 seconds, but sure enough i got back in my groove and got the gap back down to 3.5 in 2 laps. I set my 1:04.7 somewhere around there and started reeling VARDZ in at around 2 tenths a sector give or take. I got right on his tail and for 2 laps went for moves up the inside at the hairpin but i was always breaking way too early. On the exit of turn 3 and 4 i got a great run as VARDZ went wide and got one of the best overtakes I have made to date. I got VARDZ around the outside of Turns 4 and 5 and on the inside of 6, a smooth side by side manouver that I'm sure we both enjoyed (Well, VARDZ maybe not so much, but it was a good feeling to be that clean and quick ). After this, it was a smooth run to the finish excluding a moment on the 4th last lap. Absolutely stunning racing VARDZ! One hell of a race boys! Loved every bit, looking forward to proving it wasn't just Mid-Field luck for the #100 Raybrig Honda!!!
Randm90 took all 4 Q1 & Q2 and FL. 10 th was Agolfer 11th was Viper Will post FL page tonight... @Hatfield @emmo46
Well that was an awesome night of racing.... Lead the race for a few laps as Randm90 said and was pulling away from him for a few laps but was hurting the tyres in the process which came back to bit me in the final few laps as the gap went from 2 secs to 7 secs to finish the race... My race plan was pretty simple get to half way pit and get to the line without turning the thing around which i managed to do... I knew i didn't have the lap time in the car the beat the HSV @ Midfield but i couldn't put anymore pressure on Randm90 than did ... There were a few little mistakes from him but not the big off that i needed him to have so awesome drive m8 and a thouroughly desrved win. OOOHHH where did the 1'04'77 come from you ...lol. congratz to V8 on rounding out the podium you had the gap down to about 1.5 secs there at one stage so i stopped looking at the track map and got my eyes forward again. congratz to all on your race last night ... from the comments post race floating around and in the threads everyone seemed to have enjoyed there night or are looking forward to the more wide open tracks later in the series. ...lol ... that is why i put this on. See ya at Tsukuba
Ugh what a train wreck for team B&H......Gold disconnected, Silver didn''t race, Bronze had an accident that ruined it, I disonnected and Tin had a shocker.....So from the start I was hating the GTR as it has no feel around Midfield, hard for me to find the limit without going way too far over it! Quali went poorly as I didn't get a clean lap in. Race start was great, from 10th to 4th lickity split! From there I started letting in mistakes on the other hand i was consistent........ly one second off my normal pace :/ From there I went spinning back to where i started and when i finally started doing decent la times i disconnected....... *sigh*
Never change tyres in the driving options menu. Always change them in the car settings menu. This may have been the cause. Its caught me out before.
