F1 Fanatic

Interesting race from my end. Qualifying was wet and I had to wring my car by the neck to get it into P2. I decided to start on a different strategy, hoping to jump Lemon going into T1 and hold him on Primes. Unfortunately my start was terrible, and I immediately came under pressure.

By the back straight I was already having to defend from a charging car. I took the inside line, he followed me and for some reason chose to pass me off the track instead of switching back to the other side. I was willing to let that go, as I took the line later than intended. The following lap the same guy was still within a second or so, and I preemtively took the defensive line. Once again, he came right behind me, but this time he decided to keep his foot in at the braking point and pushed me off track.

Thankfully for me his idiocy cost him more than it did me. Thankfully he quit right after, so I didn’t have to deal with his dirty tactics for the rest of the race. I immediately had to try and recover lost ground to make my strategy work, and after a few laps I made an overzealous passing attempt and pushed someone wide. I don’t remember who it was, but my apologies. I was still angry from the previous incident, and tried to pass in “banzai mode”.

The damage was done however. Although I was able to lap close to Lemon, the incidents threw me out of contention for the race win. Second will have to do, and I consider myself lucky I didn’t fall further behind after my… let’s call it “assisted” off-track excursion.

I had a really good race here, ultimately having my best race finish since I joined last season – and no penalties this time!

Qualified 9th on the Inters, and when I saw the times, I was a touch disappointed as 6th was possible.

I took the start cautiously, as most times I’ve ended up being spun at the start and losing places. I initially lost a couple of places, but got back up to 10th through the left hand part of the corkscrew turn 1 and 2.

Then benefited from the inevitable spinners to get up to 8th into turn 4. The double left turns 9/10 (?) got messy, I got hit by the over agressive El whatshischops in the Torro Ross, propelling me into the back of @Mcwoblin but ultimately passing him because of this.

Was then on the pace to be in amongst the long train from 4th to 8th. I had gone on a counter strategy, starting on the primes, and running to the end of lap 10. By the end of that stint I was 4th having been taken by @Mcwoblin after a nice, clean battle on track…

I came out in 10th, and had great pace on the options, getting down into the 1:30s. During this stint my only mishap came as I caught y2j (@Mr Grieves) in the Mercedes. He broke WAY earlier than me, and I didn’t outbreak myself and unfortunately just misjudged closing speeds and hit into the back of him.

I apologised immediately, and allowed the place back, before then retaking into Turn 1 – I must have had much better tyres because he was really slow.

I then caught @MadDogMalloy who had experienced some problems and had a couple of good scraps with him, no contact required, before he pitted for his last set of tyres.

I stayed out for another lap and then came in at the end of Lap 17 for another set of Soft tyres. Came out in 9th this time, and ultimately managed to get 8th place, not really sure how. After the shake up of penalties, @Daniel Owen (aka Infernikus) had 40 seconds of penalties, so I got promoted to 7th place!

Delighted, as that’s my best ever finish, and I had decent pace, without being lapped in the race. For a circuit that I don’t claim to be good on, this is a really good result for me, and makes up for the disaster down under last week! :-)

Roll on Turkey next week (is it definitely next week?). I need to practice that one big time, as I haven’t raced there for ages!

With regards to @eltimuel he was over aggressive, and not sure if he had connection issues, but it sounds like he hit pretty much everyone at some point this race.

There are always occasional bumps, as mentioned above, I (accidentally) ploughed into the back of someone today, but if it’s consistent, then action needs to be taken. @eltimuel – did you have any problems / connection issues causing some of the erratic driving?

I look forward to seeing some videos of the action….

@mrgrieves – Glad that’s okay mate. Sounds like you got the brunt of some rash moves elsewhere, and apologies that I added to that. I tried to avoid you but I was under braking and couldn’t avoid you, bad times.

@mrgrieves, @McWoblin, @carnivorouspope, @powderfinger, @lemon, @strunk27 @infernojim @ljkobrien @kvothe @ms20 @infernikus @agentmulder @coefficient @eltimuel @thevortex

If anyone wants to protest the result, they must do so before tomorrow evening. If everyone can get video evidence up, that would be useful.

I’ve added a few of you as friends on here as I cannot pm anyone without doing so. If you want to talk about the race and give your side of events in confidence, please accept my request or add me as a friend.

After building the clean fair and virtually trouble free championship in season 1, it really saddens me to see it all come crashing down in the first 2 races of this season. Im worried some have now decided to quit racing with us because of a small minority. I’ll do my best to sort this out.

Everyone needs to take responsibility for racing cleanly. Its coming close to having a zero tolerance policy on collisions. Persistent offenders WILL be kicked out of this championship.

@eltimuel I apologise for screaming on the headset at you earlier.. can you accept my friend request so we can talk about it over private message?

@Daniel_Owen no problem, I know you were in the same boat as me, being stuck at the back when we were at a pace that should have had us in the middle of the pack at the very least

Penalty which was my own fault so I accepted it and tried for a better lap after . After a spin I came in to change the gear setup. Then I managed to get green sectors all the way through to the back straight when I then ran out of fuel and time. 

The race was interesting, I managed to go from 15th to 9th whilst going wide at the first corner. I did hit a lotus from behind, twice in the first lap (apologies).
The first time was due to moving out the way of somebody else to avoid a crash but still crashed! And the second was due to mis judging brakes. After a few battles I ended up around p.12 and was called into the pits. I found myself in clean air with c.pope begind me after a few more laps wich lead on to a long battle. By lap 15 my tyres had gone and cpope was right behind. As we both started lap 15 or just before we caught a slow car I think a sauber?  And a threeway battle started but a 4th car came out of the pits and caos started.
After the first curvy but we headed down the hill and i over shot the corner cutting everybody up. But didnt hit any of you as far as im aware? Then through the lap i caught up and one car span out and a few bumps hear occurred between the 4 of us. Cpope spun the car but from where i was it was the smallest of klips that could have happend to any of us so no blame can be put on him. After this it was a cruse to the line picking up a few places and finishing 10th which im happy with.

Good race. And as for the the incidents that have upset people. It is racing and human errors do happen and i would rather be hit up the backside once or twice than not at all because thats real racing!

Will upload some clips tomorrow.

Well a pretty decent race for me really, a bit disappointed to losing a podium due to a 10 second time penalty but overall was pleased with the result. I know I’m probably in the minority here but I am loving these wet qualifying sessions! I got pole position in Melbourne and started third here! I’m super pleased with my qualifying pace but need to work on my race pace.

Anyway, got away from the line normally and took the outside line through turn 1 (which I for some reason like) which sets you up on the inside for turn 2, however before I made it to turn 2 I got turned around and went through turn 2 to backwards! I haven’t seen video yet and really don’t know what happened but I either got spun by someone or turned into someone and spun myself, I couldn’t really tell. Anyway apologies to whoever I hit with my backwards car, I know that held @agentmulder up pretty badly. I decided to change up the strategy a little bit and go option-prime-option in hopes of being fast in the last stint. The first stint ended up being me playing catch-up from the start mayhem. I worked my way through the field and caught @ljkobrien and @MadDogMolloy. We had a good battle and I got around both of them, however when we got to the back straight I took the middle line and @MadDogMolloy got around me on the left and to my surprise @ljkobrien made a spectacular pass on the right! I was in the middle going three wide through the hairpin! I lost both positions but going into Turn 1 both Kyle and Alfred went wide and I dove down the inside. I got Kyle, but banged wheels with Alfred as he rejoined the track. My apologies for that, I was a little too optimistic. As I trailed Kyle into the pits, he pulled a Lewis Hamilton and went wide into the gravel to the right of the pit lane (why is that gravel still there?) and I got around him going into the pits, but coming out of the pits he got around me. I think I got him back with DRS and after that I had a little run-in Y2J and another driver into the last turn going onto the main straight, I went too far left and cut the corner and got a penalty for illegally overtaking Y2J, sorry if there was contact in that sequence everyone. After getting the penalty I just tried to make up time to gap as many people as I could. I was behind Alfred when he spun and went to P3 as I battled @infernikus (Just out of curiosity, did you miss the braking point going into the hairpin on the last lap when you rear-ended me @infernikus?) in the last laps and I came across the line P3. I was gutted when Alfred crossed the line less than 10 seconds behind and I got bumped back to P4.

Overall it was a good race that potentially could have been a podium had I not made a dumb decision leading to a 10 second penalty. P4 is a decent amount of points so I’m happy. *DRIVER OF THE DAY* Lemon no question, dominated from start to finish. Was a full second up in qualifying.

NOTE: I will not be able to race next week in Istanbul. I know MadDog will be gone as well, so whoever is hosting the race next week, don’t wait for me. I think I heard @ljkobrien is hosting?

Also @Powderfinger and @kvothe I know you two were upset with how things went, if we want racing to return to how it was last season I’d make a protest

@strunk27 yeah I should be hosting next week, I think I’ve got everyone on xbox now, or at least sent requests out to everyone, if anyone doesn’t have me can you add me by next week please, gamertag Lt Alfred