13 - Europe GP (shouting thread)

Tell us the 'story' of YOUR european GP, pliss...

Game crash

Thanks to Adrian I had a good race...Not. Race pace was decent, maybe some good points today if it wasnt for a set of spins. Got Drive-Thru for ignoring blue flags on the start of pit straight (last turn) so I couldnt go into pits and when I crossed finish line I got DQ.

I think that for the first time I don't have much to say about my race... Quali was terrible but more than on driving I was focused on setting my router in a good place to have a good connection. I was having a guests who came right before the quali started and they put some of their clothes right next to my router... I moved them out but still I was having more or less lag issues during the race.

I wasn't able to set a proper lap so I had to start as 3rd from the end of the grid. I earned some places during the first couple of corners but as it turned out those were my only places I earned today because later in the race I was just being overtaken

First by Alex Hill, then by Joe and Adrian. At the end of the race I was forced to defend my place of Bober who was getting closer from behind but on the penultimate lap sudently I got kicked to the windows and then he passed me as well... Good that it was at the corner after Schumacher's esses with lots of runoff area so I didn't crash.

I earned one place because of Joe and his engine so I finished 9th about 3,5 seconds in front of my teammate who spun on the first lap. Definitely it was my day...

Congrats to the poiudm finishers and I wish happy Easter to everyone

absolutely rubbish quali
for the race start, didnt have a good start and was driving really carefully through T1 but on T2 a Jag spun on the middle of the track , i lost a few places to avoid him
then i overtook cue, arek and Joe who spun i think , then i got stuck behind Bober , lost a lot of time while tyring to pass him
so i decided to change my strategy from 2 stops to 1 stop and at last i finally passed him but Joe who was on hards i think was faster than me so i let him go before the last chicane
on lap 13, i made my only pit stop, however a few laps later in T1 i turned in too early spun myself and lost about 5 sec time
finished on 5th (thanks to Joe's engine bad luck mate) not too bad but could have been better
anyway congrats top 3 guys

I got a DT for ignoring Blue Flags at Monaco this season too, Michal. I was almost parked on the track to let Arek lap me, but he spun and took a long time to overtake me and then the game gave me a DT anyway...
These are those damn annoying rF bugs and unfortunately, we can't do anything about them - anyone can get fucked up by them from time to time - I'm sorry for you...

About my race/weekend...

Q1 was shitty. Couldn't get a lap under the 30s (my PB was a 29.3)... But still I was able to go to Q2, in 10th (last) place - good job!
Q2 wasn't that bad, but again I couldn't get under the 30s... Still Alex and Sven were worse than me and I started in 8th place - fair enough.

In the race, my biggest concern was to not make a silly mistake myself - and to avoid others the best I could - I didn't want to get hit or hit someone else by accident - and I did a good job on that - yay.
On my first stint, on Hards, I got Tom and lau fighting hard in front of me and I was hoping something was going to go wrong and I could earn their places (lol).. The fact is that I didn't want to get into a fight myself, because I would have a very slow pace if I did.. But at the same time, I had a few guys near to me on my back and Tom and lau were slowing me down a bit, so I was worried about losing my place too...

Another big concern to me was to help Joe with the Championship. No, he didn't ask me to - he never did it. I decided to do it myself, simply because it's the right (and obvious) thing to do - that's what teammates (and friends) are for, right? Anyway...
Joe is fighting directly with Denis and soutie for the Championship lead and when soutie left the race, there was only Joe and Denis left and that was great to both of them (obviously)... But Denis was a few places in front of Joe and Joe was a few places behind of me... But if Joe got closer to me, I would just let him go, even if I was leading or going to my first victory (which I knew it was hard to happen anyway, so... ) Anyway...

Me and Joe were going for 1 stop and to stop at the same lap, so on lap 15, I lifted a little bit to let him open a gap from me (he had overtaken me then) and we wouldn't have a problem by pitting on the same lap, but... to our surprise (and a good one), we had 2 different pit slots - lol - We could both make our stops at the same time, with no issues - I guess McLaren bought a few extra garages on the pit lane - good job!

After the pits, we had lau, Tom and Denis in front of us and we knew they were going for a 2nd pit stop, while we were not, so that was our advantage, although we naturally had a slower pace than them, so we also knew they were going to get to us again after their pit stops...

We were able to overtake lau when he stopped, but not Denis...
Denis got out of the pit right in front of me (and right behind Joe) and I tried to 'x' him (Denis) on T1 to at least slow him down for a few corners/laps and give Joe a chance to win... But Joe was 'stuck' behind Tom (who was slowing Joe down, since his (Tom) tires were already pretty worn) and then Denis overtook Joe - DAYUM!!!

After that, all Joe could do was to stay in 2nd, since Denis was going for the win and Joe would score 7 less points than Denis (which was the best Joe could get for this race now) and I had lau behind of me, about 2 secs faster than me per lap and I knew he would overtake me and maybe even Joe! So, I had to defend Joe the best I could, so I tried to slow lau down, defending my place, which also meant defending Joe's place and... I did it! Joe got a good enough gap to stay in front of lau until the end, BUT................................

Joe's engine blew with 1 lap to go - GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!
Poor Joe!!!...

And now Denis won and scored 25 points, while Joe (and soutie) got 0 (zero)...
And with more 4 races to go, things are looking good to our Belarus friend!
But I'm gonna keep helping Joe the best I can!!!
ARRIBA MUCHACHO!!!


And oh...
I REACHED MY GOAL FOR THIS SEASON!!!!!!!
Which was to score at least 100 points and now I have 105!!!!!!!
UHUL!!!!!!!

Mistake in quali i used race set instead of quali set in Q2

Starting 10th i had a big crash in T2 in lap one and drove into ADI who spun before. I had a huge damage and couldnt turn the wheel correctly so i went to the pits 3 laps later to repair it. After the pit i had one of the fastest paces but was 1 min behind the field . Then i got in the near of Blackfox later who was 11th after the second pitstop. I saw no chance anymore to get points in the last laps so i went to the pits and got Soft tires in lap 27. I did the fastest laptime (being as fast as Denis) but i think Denis time will count because it was done before. At the second fast lap which was the last of the race i was faster again and nearly did the fastest laptime over all but some idiots had to chat so i fucked up the last sector thank you!

i had a very good quali, much better than i expected. to start 4th after such a bad quali/race last weekend was great.

race started very cleanly with soutie and denis getting away from me pretty quickly - i started on hards expecting to 2 stop, and i was lacking in pace generally.

lau was behind me, and i kept him behind for about 10 laps before he went to the pits. we had a great battle, and he tried every trick in the book to pass me. but even when he did get past, i was always in a position to pass back

it was about this point that i realised i could probably make only 1 stop, because the hards were lasting well and i had been going so slowly.

Joe and Sexy were catching me so i headed to the pits, as i could see a gap in the traffic. next lap around Joe came out right behind me, and we had a great battle for many laps as he tried like Lau to pass me, but he had no luck either!

all this helped Denis build up enough time to come out the pits right with us! his tyres were much better and we just couldn't hold him. then shortly after this, i spun, releasing Joe and Sexy.

Lau came up behind me but this time he had a tyre advantage and breezed past.

My target for this race was a top 5, so to get 4th after a string of bad results is very pleasing. A little bit of luck thanks to soutie and Joe getting DNF. i feel sorry for Joe because he surely would have made it to the end without having been stuck behind me for so long

Autosim shows that my lap was 0.001 faster than denis seems like i got the fastest lap

Qualy was again pretty bad. In Q1 never managed to put a good lap together, when I had a good s1 the s2 was bad and vice versa. Q2 was pretty lame but it was reasonable considering that others also didn't manage their best. I guess qualifiyng remains one of my worst aspects.

In race in T2 I made a slight miscalculation and touched my teammate Lau when I went on the inside of him...I thought he was going wider, but anyway my fault, but I payed for it fully, spinning, being hit heavily (sorry Sven that you had the unfortune to be in that place) and dropping to last places, or even last, I don't remember. So I hope no penalty for this
The car had some serious damage but somewhow I escaped with 'all' the wings on. It probably affected the pace but I wouldn't know how much.

Then I started to recover, though mainly the recovering was made by other making mistakes...I was on hards, the car felt pretty slow, lots of understeer, and I had much of the first stint Adrian on my way. He probably was on meds, was faster than me, but I decided to make his life hard, knowing that I will race him directly for the whole race, even if he would have a different strategy (2 stops- 1 stop me). So I defended as much as I could, I think one time he managed to overtake me than I overtook him back.

The stop went well, when I rejoined the track I end up some few seconds behind Alex, I was slowly getting closer to him, but too slow, just tenth by tenth each lap...almost run out of patience, when being less than 1 sec to him I had again Adrian haunting me, who meanwhile made his 2nd pit and had fresher tyres. That complicated a bit the situation, I had to defend from him again. He managed to pass me, but he spun at the exit of last corner losing several seconds...I could breath again and chase Alex, who was also chasing Tom from a while, so there were 2 places at stake. But I never could get cloer than 0,8 sec to Alex and with 1 lap to go, helped by some mistakes of mine, I had again Adrian on my way He went on the outside of me in last chicane, but shortcuting the corner, so he lifted up so I would get again side by side to him for the last corner where he kept the inside, I had the outside line and ran very wide so he had a good advantage on the start-finish line when he decided to let me through. Not sure if he supposed to do that, but anyway very nice gesture
And a very good battle all around with him, it could be made some nice footage with those.

Wow, I did wrote something for this race, I gotta be more brief next time.
Looking back I had some bad gearing settings that hurt badly my pace overall, what's right I didn't prepare enough for this race, especially race-wise.
I can't say I have many satisfactions for this race, without the spin from T2 I could've been well in reach for a podium, but the main thing is that it's the first race (wihtout TC) when I didn't spin on my own
Congrats Denis and my teammate for the 2nd place.

Michal wrote:Thanks to Adrian I had a good race...Not.

Was it my fault? I was just minding my own business, taking it easy in T1, and then I got a huge whack on the side and spun.

ADI wrote:Not sure if he supposed to do that...

You drove a great race on bad tyres, so I would've felt bad if I took the place from you on the last corner of the last lap! Think of it as a thanks for the great battle, plus I don't have a championship to fight for!

As above, my race was basically just against ADI. We had some really good battles, and I'm surprised that our different strategies turned out to be very evenly matched (although I did spin three times).
I think generally the league drivers have gotten much better over the course of this season! It's also great to see drivers starting to turn down the driver assists - it might make you slower, but it's so much more fun!