F1 Fanatic

Martin Whitmarsh has informed me he’s keen to sign a new driver as the outcome of the constructors title has become uncerntain for Mclaren. Do we have anyone who is interested? or is everyone tied down to their current contracts?

@Lemon I am currently happy at Williams but if the other seat is not taken I will be interested in taking up the no2 drivers place at McLaren

@Infernikus Sorry I meant to say is anyone on their own…It would make sense for the person on their own to join me, but you could negotiate some double swap if you’re really keen and @thevortex isn’t…

What a great race – my first podium baby! Monaco baby yeah!

Quali went reasonably well. Went out on the Primes for a few laps to get up to pace, and knocked in a 1:12.1s, which was not bad.

Then strapped on the options and it all went wrong. Pushed too hard and never got any proper clean laps on the Options. I managed to get down to a 1:11.78s, which was good enough for 5th, but was annoyed, because in practice I had done a few laps in the 1:10s mark, which would’ve been good enough for 2nd/3rd.

Starting from the clean side in 5th, I got alongside 4th in to the first corner, and managed to take advantage of some minor contact between a couple of guys and nip into 2nd place!

Pulled out a few seconds over maddog in the first few laps, but as my tyres wore out, Maddog hauled me back in and on lap 4 had a half attempt at Casino, and we touched minorly. It was a nothing collision and ultimately I retained position.

I was considering trying to get to lap 8 and then going Prime Prime for a long 2 stop strategy, but at the end of lap 6 I pretty much span at the corner before the pit lane, so nipped in for some fresh rubber and opted to go for a 3 stop.

Pace on the 2nd set of options was decent, but Maddog was catching me slowly, and got the gap down to under 3 seconds. He then pitted again and I was on my own with about 8 seconds ahead of Snake before it was then y2j behind me.

Pitted again at the end of lap 14 for a set of Primes, and came out over 4 seconds ahead of maddog. Initially he pulled it down to a couple of seconds, but then I started pumping in some good solid 1:11/12 laps and extended it to around 3-4 seconds mark, before the gap all of a sudden went up a lot (figured that Maddog must’ve had an incident, which he confirmed to be the case).

I lapped Infernikus on lap 22, and then had some fun as he held on to the back of me for the next lap and a bit. I then had a massive off on lap 24, touching the wall on the way out of the Swimming pool chicane, and spinning big time through the chicane before la Rascasse section.

I scrambled into the pits for my last stop and got another set of primes on Lap 25.

Came back out and was still 2nd, and around 6 seconds ahead of, markstrub20 (WTF??)… Gap got down to around 4 seconds, before I managed to extend it again, back to the 6 seconds mark and ultimately came through, penalty free, one major off aside for a relatively clean Monaco GP and 2nd place!

Absolutely dead chuffed!

Very interested to here what @markstrub20 view of events was re the position. From the majorities view point he wasn’t really anywhere in the race, and then in the last stint popped up in 3rd, which is very odd.

Do you know what happened @ms20??

Anyway, in terms of DOTD, I can’t vote for myself, so am going to have to go for @lemon AGAIN. Lapped the whole field, and was atleast 3 seconds a lap quicker than everyone for the whole race…. crazy….

Great fun in the sprint series afterwards – Monaco was hilarious and my last corner battle for 2nd place with @Lemon was genius at Canada – wish I had video for that!!!

See you all at Montreal next week…. from the sprint race, it looks like it’s going to be fiercely competitive!!

In my view the result should stand. eg ms20 3rd and maddog 4th.

Something strange happened for sure but i don’t think the lag / bug miraculously jumped strub to the podium.

i think that its more dangerous to set the precedent of tampering with the official result than it is to accept it.

Obviously we can look at any contentious issues and penalties etc thru the stewards panel, but this sits way outside of that. just my 2 penmnies

well, Qualy was pretty succesfull in terms of position…however I was dissapointed not to get in the low 1:08s….@ms20 thanks! yeh on that last lap I was 5 tenths up on my fastest after the first sector and my 2nd second felt pretty strong up until I got a bit greedy on the nouvelle chicane and got corner cutting :(…It was a shame not to finish that lap as it may of been a gooden..

My race went to plan apart from one or two slip ups…My plan was to get a good start (obviously) and use all of my kers up the hill to ensure I didn’t get tangled in any incidents… To my suprise I had a pit stop and some in hand after the first stint… I think I pitted lap 7 as my tyres were destroyed and after my outlap I switched back to standard revs and set myself up to see what these new primes could do…Unfortunately I asked too much of them at the first corner, I clipped the left hand barrier with my front left, which then bounced off and sent me in to a 180 degree spin and left me with a tricky 3 point turn manouver…which Y2J had a front row seat to! I think I lost about 8 seconds in that spin but I managed to come up and pass Y2j pretty quick as he was on shredded tyres..I must say he was very chivalrous in letting me by, maybe too much so…. The next slip up came in my third stint ( I think), I was coming up to lap snake just after casino square and he left enough of a door that I thought going up the inside would be safe, so I positioned myself accordingly and under braking Snake just flew past the corner and met hastily with the barrier, and then quit. I assumed he was on old tyres and completely missed his braking point as I didn’t touch him (from my screen), but under further analysis it’s possible that because of the lag things happened differently from his screen, because it would have been a pretty monumental error from his side to have just forgoton to brake… So I apologise if from your screen things happened differently, but from where I was we weren’t even very close….
So there’s not really anything I could have done. I thought I’d bring this up just In case you thought I ran into the back of you..Post race talks illuminated the general lag issues everyone had in this race so that affirms my thoughts… the rest of my third stint was pretty decent, consistent lappage and a two stop strategy enabled me to finish pretty far ahead…

As for the DOTD I will go for @Kyle he drove a good race and probably deserved a podium had it not been for lag issues… Also he was incredibly easy to pass when coming up to lap and I lost almost no time in the process, despite it being in the tightest corner on the track.. I know this is driver of the day but in last seasons race he was also incredibly good with this so kudos for impecable sportsmanship….

I struggled to get a consistent lap in quali so thought I might stay 7th and last. However a quick lap got me to 6th ahead of Snake.

Eased off at the first corner as people hit each other and took advantage. Was side by side with Snake going up the hill but he hit the outside wall at casino and I bolted through into 4th. There was a bit of a gap to 3rd so pressed on.

Fortunately for me y2j had crashed at turn 1 on lap 2 so used Kers to steam pass him going up the hill. Was 3rd and set about chasing and closing the gap on Infernojim.

I chipped away and caught him on lap 5. I was aiming to pit at end Of the Lap so i was a bit wary of actually needing to pass him. As he has already mentioned, we had a ‘nothing’ collision at the hairpin. Wasnt sure if it was my fault as i slightly tapped him but I let him keep 2nd.

Pitted as promised on lap 6. Was going to attempt a 3 stop strategy as I struggled with tyre wear on 2 stops in practice. Started on options and was going prime – option -prime.

As I thought my strategy was different to the other drivers, I wasn’t sure where I would end up after others had pitted. I found myself behind infernojim again, closing the gap to around 2-3 seconds. I later found that he was on options at this stage, so with me being on primes – I was keeping good pace. Lapped @ms20 on lap 12.. Or at least I thought I was lapping him.. More on that later.

All my good work was wasted on the next lap however, when a lapse of concentration meant I hit the barrier in Casino Square and spun. By the time I got back to pointing in the right direction Snake passed me and ms20 had
Unlapped himself. I got pass him again before the tunnel but now thought I would be fighting for 3rd at best.

I would pit on lap 15 and 22. I got a message saying that Snake had disconnected for some reason so thought I was safe for 3rd.

Then something strange happened. I went past the pits on lap 24 and @ms20 appeared on the graphic in 3rd – ahead of me. No one had passed me. I thought ms20 was down in 7th.
A few laps later He suddenly appeared behind me and passed me into the chicane for 3rd. In the end I Finished 4th.

Was a bit confused after the race, as was everyone else. He showed up as 7th when i passed him earlier in the race. At first i thought it might be a bug.. But it seemed there were lag issues at play.

I think it would be fair to keep the result as it is. It seems from his view he had a great drive to finish 3rd but none of us were able to race him properly. The only problem is if this happens again later in the season..

I will point it out in my video which should be up by tomorrow morning.

Hey everyone, just wanted to say apologies for not being around and letting you know I couldnt make the race. I recently got hired at my local wal-mart pushing carts (I know many of you are likely laughing away) and I have been working quite a bit, including yesterday during the race. I also work this Monday and can not make Canada (which sucks as I love Canada) but I will be able to race the following week. Sorry for my poor attendance as of late and I hope all is going well with the championship.

Also congratulations to my team mate @infernojim who has improved enormously this season. It was only a matter of time before he grabbed his first podium. Congrats to you and way to make Sauber proud! ;)