F1 Fanatic

@strunk27 can you make the sprint championship next week at 19.00GMT? As you are in USA, Just wanted to check if we can start earlier as it will take a few hours. Roughly finish between 21.30GMT and 22.00GMT.

@McWoblin

Jealous! I’ve been to Hungarian GP 3 times (2006, 2007 and 2009) and because it was the first one I went to, every single time it’s on I feel a great pain that I’m not there.

It is brutally hot, and there’s no shade to be found at the track really either, as I recall! Where abouts did you sit – or were you General Admission?

Also, you’ve updated wiki, but not included British GP result, unless I’m being blind? Will you be updating with that soon too?

Looking forward to this evening – thus far I’ve done no practice. What are people’s fastest laps looking like?

@infernikus next Monday mate from 19.00GMT

@maddogmolloy i will race for any team to be honest i have my favourites which would be red bull, toro rosso, and of course ferrari but of course who isn’t a fan of those teams. i am just looking for a good clean race where i can know that there’s no intension towards crashing. i class myself as a fair racer and will give way to opponents if they have got the line on me. hope i fit the criteria to join upto this group and i hope to hear from you soon. many thanks sean ( gamertag xELITExSH0TSx )

Had a mixed race. Hungary is a track that I like, and am decent at, but was worried that everyone would feel the same.

Was therefore pleased with my Qualifying lap of 1:15.5s to get 4th on the grid. I had done no full race practice (too busy watching the Olympics!) so had no idea what tyre wear would be like….

Had a decent start and briefly took @Matt (Snake) for 3rd place, but he got me back in an eventful, but clean first lap, so I was back in 4th. Then had a great battle with @kvothe (gameprotage), side by side for about 4 corners without taking each other off at all – great clean racing, and really good fun! Unfortunately he got the better of me then and I was relegated to 5th.

Decided to pit early on Lap 4 to get an undercut, as tyres were screwed anyway. Disaster though as I came out of the pits, missed my braking for Turn 1, and then spun on my cold primes. Lost me about 8 to 10 seconds, and places to @jlkobrien (LtAlfred) and @MadDogMolloy. Just about managed to fend of @mrgrieves and @infernikus and was running around in 7th place.

Caught @MadDogMolloy towards middle of my 3rdd stint, and he pulled in to the pits just as I was going to get in DRS. Managed to stay out until lap 23 and was running 4th, but when I came out of the pits I was back down in 8th place behind @kvothe, aboiut 3.5 seconds back, but with brand new options on and lap 24 to 28 remaining. GAME ON!

Caught to the back of the Red Bull midway around lap 26, and then had a complete disaster on the final corner. I carried more pace than @kvothe and nudged very gently the back of him, and somehow ended up hitting the end of the pitlane!! This was a double disaster as firstly, it lost me a chance to take 7th on the track, and secondly I then got lapped by @Lemon, meaning I had only 1 lap to catch back up, rather than 2.

I got lucky as @Gameprotage had a penalty, and ended up in 7th place. My joint worst finish of the season (not counting getting DSQ from Australia)….. If I’d not had my spin out of the pitlane I think 6th was possible, but it was probably the best I could have done today….

I have recorded Quali and the race and will be posting them shortly. The first stint of my race in particular had some great wheel to wheel action, so worth a watch!

Race to forget for me, I was fairly happy with a third place in qualifying when you consider i haven’t been able to practice at all for the alst month, let alone race online.

I got a good start and took Snake off the line for 2nd, I spent the next lap tucked up right behind Lemon and was looking forward to a race long scrap. I then caught the grass on the exit of turn 4, I think I could have caught the spin, but the violent turn on my racing wheel caused my laptop to fall off the table and I had to abandon the wheel for the briefest of moment to catch it before it hit the floor (it was an awesome catch though). Apologies to Y2j and Mad dog for the penalties you guys got for having to go off track to avoid me and thus getting illegal overtake penalties.

After that I decided to try for a 2 stopper rather than the 3 I assumed everyone else was trying to. My first stint on the options got me to lap 8, I could perhaps have gone a lap or two longer, but the spin took some life out of them. I came out in 9th and a good 5 or 6 seconds off the 8th place driver. While trying to take as little life out of my new primes as possible I slowly caught up and was around 3 seconds off 8th by the time the main pack made their second pit. I hoped to gain a place or two while staying out for the extra laps but when I finally made my second stop on lap 18 I was still in 9th.

Thankfully some people ahead had incidents and I also managed to preserve my tyres, I managed to get up to 8th before being lapped by Lemon, his tyres were in worse shape than mine I thought if I stuck to the back of him I could nip past into 7th when he lapped Mad dog who was around 4 seconds up the road. Unfortunately he pitted before this so I continued to concentrate on tyre management. By the time the rest of the field made their third stops I was in 6th and around 6 seconds behind Mad dog. I thought he was just going deep and hadn’t made his stop yet so didn’t push and continued to tip toe around the track. By lap 25 though it was obvious he wasn’t going to stop, so I put the engine to rich, took the risk on my tyres and tried to close the gap. Over the final 4 laps the gap came down to around 5 and a half seconds, not much of an improvement, but at least I could take away the fact I was able to make it to the end only making two stops.

After the finish, the penalties I had inflicted on Mad dog and Y2j gave me a boost to 4th, joint worse result since I started but a good warm up race to get me back into the championship.

DOTD: @Lemon

Video of race and post sprint races to come

DOTD @Lemon. Another Vettel-esque performance. Don’t forget @Lemon – nobody likes Vettel now! :-p

Honourable mention to @kvothe as we had 2 really tight battles, both wheel to wheel, but completely clean and great fun! That’s what this championship is all about.

Ok, @mrgrieves (Y2J) wants the stewards to look at his 10 second penalty for an illegal  overtake whilst trying to avoid @ljkobrien (Alfred). Now as the same thing happened to me, I would also like to appeal. My incident is in the video below lap 2, turn 3.

Now as none of us are allowed on the panel, could I ask the reserve panelists to get together and discuss the incidents and come to a judgement? So could @mcwoblin @infernojim and @lemon do this over private message? You might need to add each other as friends on here.

Now if you do give us our 10 seconds back it wouldn’t affect any of the racing as these were given after the race itself. I was in 5th, Y2J 4th..

Dont think Y2J has a video but you can sort of see him ahead of me on the video. I thought I would take a bit of the kerb just in case Alfred’s car reversed or went back into the road.

Your call judges!

The current unofficial result:

1. Lemon
2. Snake
3. McWoblin
4. Alfred
5. Y2J
6. Mad Dog
7. Infernojim
8.  Kvothe
9. Infernikus
10. xELITExSHOTZx