Fastest laps Race 1 Crunch 54.392 Race 2 - Incey 54.661 Hatfield's lap illegal. All four wheels inside the kerb at turn 2 next best lap for Hatfield - 54.822
All these pics look to be from the race 1 incident on lap 4. @Crunch tapped @natmanscoop on the right rear quarter panel into a slide which caused a 4 car pileup at T1.
I've had some good time to de-stress by taking pictures and just watching rubbish on YouTube and Facebook; my personal feelings are normal and calm. Race, championship and points wise, I'm quite angry, annoyed and devastated. Make no mistake - I was gunning to take the win as evidenced by my fastest lap in race one which somehow held. If natman hadn't made the judgment to take the middle line through the corner after the turn-in, I'd have been fine, and we probably both would have had better first races. I was getting some consistent passes up to that point, and the pass would have been good if he let me through. I had heaps of psychological momentum, and it completely fell through after the crash. I let incey take a final position in the first race because I was just non-chalant and unfocused. Second race - barely remember any of it except out-braking myself by still being unfocused. Dunno why natman had to turn-in like he did, when the outside line has grip like nothing else. I made it known that my goal before round 1 was to win this championship, and now that's an incredibly tough ask. My sights have always been firmly on beating Bob, who's been the pace-setter throughout. As this is the halfway point, I'd love to have been able to say that I'm evaluating chances and prospects after being beaten in a direct fight with Bob, but since the very first round, such an occurrence still hasn't happened, and that makes me pissed off, because I want to be challenged and see whether I can beat the best competitor as the underdog - not lose my first actual championship contention through fate. Not happy.
@natmanscoop was very much in front and entitled to take his normal racing line, whereas it looks like you turned in too early and understeered into the same piece of tarmac, with your front left corner making contact with his right rear corner. The high line through T1 while fast is very risky and I suspect most people would've avoided running too close to that wall during the race. Also a reminder that a round is dropped at the conclusion of the championship, so your worst weekend result doesn't count towards your overall points total.
2 very different races for me. Race 1. Started P5 putting me on the outside for turn 1 which is where I wanted to be. Plan was to stay high in the banked turns and away from multi-car position battles. This worked out well as I managed to avoid the spins in front of me to wind up in P2, well clear of the battles behind me. Knew it was too risky to even try to chase down Bob so just managed the gap for an easy 20 points. Race 2. Much more action in this race starting back row. To make up places on this track requires A: catching, B: passing and C: breaking away. I was having no problems with A and B, but getting out of slipstream range proved to be the hard part. Was a fun race as a result with some good battles with NAACS and Adro along the way.
@t_b_williams you wrote down incey's FL in race 2 as the lap time I got which was (apparently) illegal. I assume that is a type and @Crunch still gets the FL point?
FYI @NAACS will be running in our division from now on if we have a space on the grid. and with the absence so far of @Whiteracer52 this will probably be the case for the rest of the season.
LOL just finished figuring out the points (which will be posted soon) and this is my first Sunday league false start and last at the end of the round (by half a point) #lifegoals !! and now you learn that it takes more than being the fastest to win a championship. (although I suspect you already knew that ) I am sure that if you and @B-Spec Bob had a race with just the 2 of you it would be close hard fought fast laps one after the other but there are more than just 2 pieces to the puzzle. You are going to have to deal with the rest of us trying to beat you too!
That's the thing with a track like HSR, you can be half a second a lap faster than someone yet pretty much need them to make a mistake to make a pass stick and break away.
What a round, proving that even a relatively simple looking track, for a car with big aero, can still be very treacherous. My races kind of categorised my season thus far...sure I have had a bit of bad luck - but overall I'm just not getting my head around this car with any consistency. Can I ask if those fastest laps recorded were done in clear air...and if so, it highlights that I can't get the most out of this car (as my PB is a 54.843 in clear air).. This track highlighted what a tricky car this is with little nuances around turn-in and power down out of even mid-speed corners. I never talk about the championship but I hope I improve in the second half to end up with a decent result (significantly better than the first half I hope). To those at the pointy end so far, well done for sussing out this car so well.
Wow, that was nuts last night, started race 1 with a plan to try keep my nose clean, if ya crashed it wouldnt matter how fast you are (i was slower than most lol), but lucked out on at least 3 occassions, missed the false starters my mm's, missed crunch by less, and lucky to not get caught up in the natman/tb/arakasi incident, ended up coming home 3rd. race 2 i'm a bit upset with myself, not sure what happened but i gave @incey rear wheel a bit more camber coming out of the tunnel, i do apologize, waited to readdress but got sick of waiting when crunch got involved few seconds later. 8th place which was good enough to keep my 3rd place for the round. Proves you dont have to be the fastest to get a podium (qualified second to last). bring on Fuji
Qualifying started off ok as I netted a pair of 54.3s early in the running before pitting for new tyres, however the following laps didn't go quite to plan as I kept getting sucked into the outside barriers while pushing for the high line. Even a second pit stop for fresh tyres couldn't keep me out of the barriers but luckily nobody else managed to beat my early provisional times, thus keeping my pole position streak alive. Had a clean getaway but couldn't quite shake off the pursuers as I desperately tried not to repeat my qualifying performance. Unfortunately disaster struck as both @t_b_williams and I were disconnected from @Adronaught 's furball-powered room. Fortunately it was only lap 4 and just within the agreed upon 5-lap disconnect policy, so we lined up for Race 1 again with a more reliable host. Launched off the line much better on the restart and started to pull a small gap to the main field with an interested @grassies following close behind, until a lag incident caused him to crash on the penultimate corner of the first lap . Managed to maintain a consistent gap back to 2nd despite a small moment of understeer putting the left rear wheel onto the slippery rumble strips of that same corner on lap 13. The gap slowly increased as the tyres wore down even more and I had my second scare on lap 19 when the car drifted higher up on the T1 banking than usual, ending with a trip over the tiny patch of grass at the corner exit. I took this as a sign to ease off and brought it home to win with a comfortable margin. Made 2 positions by T1 at the start of Race 2, but slightly misjudged braking into T3 and gladly fell back a position, just content with not taking anyone out. Proceeded to pick off a few positions along the straight while avoiding some incidents and offs along the way before settling into 3rd by lap 10, running about a second behind @grassies . As I closed the gap to within 6 tenths on lap 15, I received a sudden loss of downforce in the middle of the penultimate corner and slammed side on into the wall, luckily regaining control and only losing about a second. A little concern when a pitting @Hatfield decided to join the podium party but was relieved when he quickly pulled away on his fresh tyres and also got past @grassies who seemed to be struggling in the latter stages of the race. As the gap came back down, he had a slight lose on the exit of T1 on lap 20 which was just enough to allow me to slip past through the following esses. However the battle continued along the main straight and we went 2 wide through T1 and T2 until he took an awkward braking line over the ripple strips into the wall and bounced off into me at T3. Some frantic recovery ensued as @BMWF30328 was now hot on our tails while we regained speed on dirty tyres. With two cars up my gearbox, I took the shortest route to the finish line and held onto 2nd by half a tenth and a tenth to 3rd and 4th respectively.
Thanks @B-Spec Bob , yeah pretty much what you said. I wasn't keen on the high-line for the race, too much chance of a whoopsie, and I tended to burn the LHR. Brake Pedal is the one left from the Accelerator @Crunch . ;-)
