F1 Fanatic

Hi all,

is there a free seat for todays race, I’d like to try my luck^^?

No, don’t worry, I don’t expect to much today.

I got caught up in the first corner incident as well, although I started 9th. :D Someone hit the rear and I spun.
Anyhow, first corner incidents even happen in professional racing.

My qualifying went well, well until I cut the corner up to sector 2 I was only 0.4 Sec down on Lemons time. In the end I had to start on my prime tyre which had previously done 4 laps.

The race, great overall, I had the pace of the guys in front of me but I was too far behind, adding to that a great battle with Markstrub20 5 or 6 laps we were battling for position.
I think I set a new record, I cut the chicanes around 8 times until I was finally DSQ. :D

My practice – F1 2012 – wasn’t very sufficient and helpful at all.

@lemon What happened to you at the Spa sprint race? I was following right behind into Pouhon and you flew up into the air.

@mrgrieves and @strunk27, I got my maths wrong earlier. @mrgrieves will be on 101 and me, and strunk will be on 98.

Anyway, enough about the thrilling battle for 2nd in the WDC. I had a great race, until the last lap, when I had a controller / user malfunction which lost me a guaranteed 2nd place, and but for @ljkobrien‘s penalty also 3rd.

I nailed my first qualifying lap with a low 1:21s lap, which was good enough for 2nd behind the mighty @lemon. Better still, I had only done a very leisurely outlap, a superhot lap, and a snail pace in lap – meaning the tyres still had 90% in them for the start of the race.

I had done a few simulation races and knew that I wanted to 1 stop. My first stint was pretty much perfect, I stayed out until lap 8 and pitted from the lead at that stage.

The defining part of the race was the mighty battle that proceeded directly after my pitstops. I came out behind @maddogmolloy (yet to stop?) and just ahead of @strunk27 and @ljkobrien, who I had lead by a few seconds before the stops, but had undercut me.

I had cold tyres and was slow into the hairpin before the main straight, but was hit (as far as my video / screen is concerned) off the track by @ljkobrien. I will post the video that clearly shows this (and apologies in advance for the use of the C word at that moment :-))

I obviously won’t be a steward judging @jlkobrien’s appeal, but would be strongly against an overturn. It is unfortunate if it was a lag issue, but as far as I’m concerned I only span and lost several seconds because I was hit…. I don’t really mind, as it shouldn’t have made a different to the result ultimately (more on that in a minute!)…. I’ll leave it up to the stewards to decide I guess.

Anyway, after me and @ljkobrien rejoined the track, he re-overtook me down the straight, again slightly roughly, which could again be a lag issue because it’s not like Alfred to be that rough.

What ensued next is an awesome battle wheel to wheel between myself, @strunk27 and @ljkobrien. I eventually passed @ljkobrien with one of my favourite moves of the season, before taking my team mate at the first corner of the next lap.

@mrgrieves was ahead of me, and we had a brief fight, but were out of synch and he pitted before I got passed him (his straightline speed was mighty, so I was struggling!

Eventually reinstated to my rightly 2nd place, I set about getting my rhythm back and lasting to the end. Around 3 laps to go I was around 5 seconds clear of @ms20, and feeling comfortable. The tyres were getting tricky, but I still had decent pace.

At the start of the final lap the lead was around 2.8 seconds, and I was still feeling okay, and then after the hairpin before the long straight disaster struck. I wasn’t at full throttle and thought it might have been a fuel issue, but it wasn’t, it was me not having my foot fully nailed on the pedal, I thought it was fully down, but I had got something in the way that made it feel solid even though there was more give..

So I was going 160 down a 200+mph straight. Funnily enough @ljkobrien got past me at this point, and because my tyres were badly worn @ms20 also caught and passed me.

Really peed off, as I had done everything perfectly, and there was no way I was getting caught without the stupid acceleration problem occurring.

Still, 3rd place (appeal pending) is certainly a decent return, and as I alluded to above, it makes for a very exciting 2nd place in the championship battle finale.

I will try to upload the videos tomorrow for the stewards (whoever they may be). From what Alfred is saying above, I’m pretty sure that lag is at play here, but anyway….

And Alfred, that penalty is from when you hit my car into a 180.

If I did hit you off @infernojim, then I won’t appeal the decision as in that case it would have been my fault, I said to @maddogmolloy last week that I was using an unreliable internet connection so I suppose it may explain the penalty some what. Would still like to have a look at the video though

@agentmulder I was up ahead of you going into the hairpin, I don’t see how I could have put you into a spin