ARGH!! I finally get in the groove to bring home a good result, very solid pace to challenge the top 3 but my pedal problems escalated rapidly this weekend. I had done a lot of wet testing during the week with Matt, where he was somehow pulling those insane lap times out of the bag. Although I was somewhat confident I should be able to fight for the win if it kept raining. I was on for a low 17 in qualifying but the pedals cut out on the main straight, and then again when starting my final lap. The pedals weren't completely fixed at the start, and as a result all through the first stint I had severe spiking and cutting out issues. I'm sure Nicko and StigsTC must have been in 2 minds when they saw me letting them through for no reason. Overall I lost about 25 seconds in the first stint alone thanks to the throttle cutting out, or sticking open mid corner. It was a massive shame, because the top 3 were all making errors, and in the awkward period where the racing line was at 15%, I was gaining on the leader. I didn't know Stigs was on the intermediate tyre on the first stint until he told me afterwards, for me he is clearly driver of the day. I knew if I didn't have a big enough gap on those inter runners I would be unable to catch them on the prime tyre. And as it proved has Stigs and Hayden both jumped me in the pits. With the pedals seemingly fixed, I set about recovering to at least 6th. I had a lot of fun scything back through the field, however my frustrations got the better of me and I hit the outside wall hard at turn 8, dropping many places. 6th was now the best I could hope for. Unfortunately, the pedal issues began to rear it's ugly head again towards the end. I tried to fight through them as it wouldn't hurt as much on a bone dry track. However, entering the final complex on the penultimate lap, the throttle jammed open, and I fell from 6th to 11th. On the positive side, I don't think I've ever done so much overtaking in a Sunday race before, it was tremendous! However I'm extremely bitter about the result, I should have been a comfortable 4th on the road but alas it wasn't to be. Seeing that Matt and Nicko have been DSQ'd doesn't ease the pain at all, as if I was in the position I should have been in I would have ended up 2nd. Well done Warrior on the win, thoroughly deserved!
Div 1B Driver Race time 1 X-WTF_MAN-X 43:41.063 2 its-benny-racer 43:55.078 3 skywalker 43:59.262 FL 4 Hatfield 43:59.375 5 grassies 44:11.138 6 Crunch630 44:20.542 Domma DSQ
Div 1B points X-WTF_MAN-X 78 skywalker 78 its-benny-racer 63 Hatfield 45 Crunch630 44 grassies 44 Randm90 30 Domma 11 Noremac
After practice/qualifying I obviously knew I was slowest on track. But if the weather played to my advantage I could come off better than last. Started on softs with the plan to go to full wets if track wetness got close to 40%. As the wetness increased, offline became impossible to drive on but the dry line was quicker on the softs than the inters. This meant that I couldn't pass offline. This made things problematic as little fish tails from some inters guys would tap me offline and I would keep sliding (very frustrating!!) As people pitted I keep plugging away and when the track started to dry out I thought I may be in for a good result if the tyres could hold on. Unfortunately they couldn't and I was caught by many guys who had made the extra pitstops. Happy that I could no stop albeit with fronts on 2 and 1.
I wish I had started on RS instead of intermediates, I didn't trust that it wouldn't get too wet for RS. I finally bit the bullet on lap 17 and put the softs on, after twenty laps I still was only down to 7s so I could have non stopped easily, Doh..
-------------WARNING: EXTRA LONG ESSAY------------- After a bit of light testing in 100% weather and thinking 1:18.0 was an alright lap I joined the room to see mint pumping out 16s and pretty much everyone doing in 17s I was reminded once once again that I should probably actually test for these races rather than use my warm-up as a test session after dinner. However midway through qualifying I was struck by an idea, an idea so bloody obvious I should have seen it before. I have a DS3. So a hot swap mid-way down the front straight had me run the 2nd half of qualy on a DS3, the times tumbling from 18.6 down to a 17.1 allowing me to steal 2nd, feeling very hopeful of a 100% rain race. I knew I wasn't going to hold position before I could get onto full wets, but I was a bit concerned at the rate at which the guys ahead were pulling away, it was like they had all this extra grip I didn't! When Grassies just cruised by me I was certain that I was just being mega slow and needed some get good, and it wasn't until I saw Jono and Mint lose a massive pile of time on the wet stuff that I caught on to the fact that maybe the leaders were on softs. I ended up having a fun little battle with Jono in between his pedals cutting out, he passes me, his pedals cut out, he loses time, I get ahead, he cruises back up and passes me at turn 3 (no joke he passed me there 3 times). End of lap 17 decided enough was enough and came in, joined 9th ahead of Benny, which quickly became 10th behind Benny as I tried to remember what grip was and how to use it. A couple of laps of back and forth with benny I got clear and set about trying to catch the guys ahead, hoping I had fresher tyres to maybe salvage a 7th or something from picking the wrong tyres then playing an overly conservative strategy. I didn't know it but Grassies and Hat were on softs from the start, Jono and Bob had to stop again and only Hayden had slightly older tyres ahead of me, so I was able to reel in the guys ahead and steal back 4th place through solid amounts of luck. Tyres down to 4s at the front as I was brutal on them, but it was bloody good fun though battling the conditions and trying to stay on the dry line, really enjoyed it out there after I worked out I wasn't just mega slow and I was just bad at strategy. Going to be a shame to miss next week as I love the N24/VLN layouts and in the SLS they are actually really good (well with tuning anyway), had heaps of fun in the CORE N24 thrashing this car around.
In practice I was very comfortable into the 17s and even on for high 16s (but just couldnt hook up that last sector right). Alas, in qualifying got tangled with Bryan when I was on for a good lap. Stuffed the next 2 and just manged to salvage something to sit on my last lap to get 6th? Then the race started, I was on IM but had completely forgotten how aggressive you can be in the dry. Lost heaps of time putting around well off what I should have been doing and dropping further and further down the order. Went in on end of lap 12 to get on some RS. Felt a bit more comfortable on these, but was pushing too much and making too many mistakes. Had a red car all over my backside I made a massive mistake trying to go a little too fast through first hairpin and almost skidding off the track as the car just kept understeering off line. I didnt realise it was Warrior coming to lap me.. sorry mate. Fortunately, I worked out that I really couldnt venture off line and was fairly right till the end from that point. Im glad I could at least pull away from Warrior when his tires were 14 laps older (when he caught me) than mine. I was picking and choosing my battles, as I was going 25 laps on the softs, most of the time it was mostly a case of go through, just dont take me out while your doing it Still enjoyed the race and had fun. P.S. Driving line off I think would potentially thrown a little more unpredictability into the mix, as it was diabolical offline haha.
That was some race last night. Congrats to Matt for the pole, outstanding pace in the wet. Shame about the pistop for yourself and Nick. That was a superb fight all race. I started the race on softs and I had no idea what anyone else around me on. Soon realised that Matt was on the same tyres so I was happy to follow. Mistakes from both of us allowed Nick to catch up, then soon after I missed the apex at the 2nd last corner and had to slow more than normal to avoid going off. There was some contact and sportingly Nick slowed down. Matt had a big lead now and then suddenly it was gone and we see Matt parked at the side of the road. I didn't want anymore mistakes and I just wanted to circulate and stay out of everyone's way. I let nick by and soon after was back in 1st after nicked went off the dry line. The track was now starting to dry and I was now amongst the 1st stopers. I didn't want to go offline line to try and pass you guys so I had to stay behind. Also knowing the you had much fresher tyres I would just get out of the way. I was planning to go to lap 30 just in case it stared to rain again, but both Nick and Matt were flying and I had to get rid of my worn softs for mediums on lap 23. The gap after the stop was 5 seconds and it just kept closing. I though that I must have been wrong and they both started on mediums. Gap was still decreasing and was flashing Crunch hoping he would move over, thankfully he did and I was just able to hold on to the win.
The optimism was smeared along the barrier at RBR where his car was last seen before it DC'd. Seriously for such a quality driver Jono's season has been so filled with luck that it makes Webber's F1 career look like Vettel's. On the plus side he's been clever and condensed all his bad luck into 1 season meaning he's going to be bloody scary next season.
Sorry folks due to being sick all week I won't be able to race tonight so good luck all and may the bumps be kind.
I do not like the long versions of the nurburgring. Tonight was no exception. However, I will focus on my positives. -I one stopped. -I beat @N64TheStig007 & @warrior2167 (they DSC but I am still counting it ) -the race is finished
I'm just glad to say I managed 11 laps without any major incidents! Looking forward to a somewhat flatter track surface next week.
