F1 Fanatic

I felt qualifying was probably one of my best performances to date coming off the back of only a couple of laps of practice.. I more or less nailed most corners (or at least it felt like I did), besides the second to last turn where I broke a bit late, lost the rear on entry and had a compromised exit…The middle sector particularly felt pretty quick and I generally felt I’d got into a nice flow whereby I could push pretty hard without falling off the track….

Starting on pole I fancied my chances, however in the braking zone for turn 1 I got that kind of ominous sixth sense feeling that I was gonna get rammed.. The warning arrow from behind confirmed my fears and off I sailed into the run off.. and for good measure I took out my team mate Jonny as I was rejoining the track….Little did I know at the time though that this would make for one of the most exciting races ever!
So we were both right at the back and began our attempt at making something out of the race.
two positions were regained after an accident between two players in the high speed sweepy middle sector. and on lap two I made a dive up the inside of possibly a sauber, which I was quite proud of and I think Jonny got on film… Towards the end of the lap I then got a ten second penalty after making contact with a spinning red bull…I believe it was smokey….which was another set back..
the next bit I remember was a battle with alfred (I have a feeling this part might not fit chronologically but Ill say it anyway) where I had got in front just before the drs 1 second marker and knew that alfred would be less than a second behind and that he would likely come back passed down the start finish straight… So I played a bit of a dirty trick, I slowed down and let alfred back passed just before the drs marker so that I could take the drs down the straight …It worked a treat, but unfortunately it allowed markstrub to also get passed alfred and I felt as if I’d left alfred a little short changed.
I pitted about lap 11 for primes and gradually brought in mad dog who had strung out a pretty impressive lead in the first stint.. But as I got close behind I really felt as if I lost pace in the dirty air and he was desperately hard to overtake, I must have deployed drs 4 or 5 times in successive laps down the back straight. I’d get past into to turn 1 but then seemingly every time mad dog would just drive straight back passed through the exit of turn 1, even if I’d stay close for turn 2 he’d nail it on the brakes and leave me sorely lagging behind until I caught back up at the drs zone…
compounding my frustrations Ms20 was catching at about a second per lap whilst we were fighting and by the time I did manage to get passed mad dog, ms20 was right on my tail and with drs! mark took me down into turn one after he dismissed mad dog but as had happened before with mad dog, just the other way around, I got a better exit out of turn 1 and we stayed side by side (somehow) all the way up the hill to turn 4 where I guess I must of gave to avoid a crash……
Me and mark had pretty even pace from then on and I began to doubt that it would be possible to pull the ten seconds ahead that I needed to win…. But to my surprise mark pitted early, which gave me some hope because I still felt I had some life in my tyres…. but even more to my surprise he then lagged out…and it was a shame beacause with hindsight knowing he also had a ten second penalty, I think it would have been an enthralling strategic and also wheel to wheel race to the line… from then on I settled into my normal way of racing and just tried to up the consistency and pump out some good times to create a ten second gap between me and mad dog….
Apart from a little slip on the last lap probably one of my most consistent performances as of yet and definitely the most exciting..
I look forward to any videos from the race!!! Its a bummer I couldn’t record mine

@powderfinger I’ve uploaded races as a whole video before but it just takes all day to upload – I don’t have a laptop at the moment so it would mean leaving my girlfriends laptop on for 24hrs…. I upload straight from my iphone and it only lets me upload small videos at a time – hence why I split it into three.

@ljkobrien looks good. let me know how it goes when you start using it.

I’ve uploaded my epic Hungary race below. I know some of you were eagar to see it.

I manage to avoid all the chaos at the start to take the lead which I hold onto until the first pitstops. I was going to 1 stop but got caught out by my tyres wearing quicker than I thought they would so changed to a 2 stop (ideally I would have pitted earlier for my first stop so lost a heap of time to the recovering Lemon). After the stops I have an epic battle with @lemon for the lead!! I manage to keep him behind me with some good defensive driving but this allows @ms20 to catch us… you’ll going to have to watch the video just to see both @lemon and @ms20 going side my side in front of me for several corners!

I dropped off and made a mistake to allow @jonny705 past me before my second stop. However, ms20 disconnected so I looked good for 3rd. With 3 laps to go @jonny705 makes a mistake at the chicane, I pass him and manage to keep him behind me JUST to claim 2nd and my best ever finishing position over the past 3 seasons.

I urge you all to watch this race!

wo’nt be able to make 2night because i’ve got a nosebleed right now and might be getting 2 games tonight

One of the best races so far for me.
Qualified 2nd. Can’t remember too much from the first few laps but pitted on lap 9 after the warnings about rain as I wouldn’t get far enough to one stop.
I think this turned out to be the best strategy since I ended up very close (about 4 seconds) to the 2 up front when I had made many mistakes and had a fight with Kevin.
During the intermediate pit stop I was right behind Lemon in 1st but couldn’t get any speed from the inters. Made a few mistakes including a big slide out of eau rouge so dropped to 3rd.

Following my practice I was optimistic about today, qualifying 4th wasn’t too bad and I felt I had a good line through the first few corners so was hoping to capitalise and make some places, unfortunately I was too ambitious on the throttle going into the first corner and span, I also took Jonny out so sorry about that mate.

Over the next few laps I made my way from last to 6th and moved up to 5th when Maddog pitted early. For some reason my tyre management at Spa has always been great and I was able to hold onto the options until lap 18, at which point I thought the rain was going to come too late to make an impact so I pitted and put on a set of primes. Unfortunately a lap later I was slipping all over and had to crawl back to the pits, loosing around 20 seconds before I even entered the pits.

When I came out of the pits I was in 7th and just ahead of y2j (again) who already had a few laps experience to learn where the grip was. On the last lap it was quite close between us but I managed to hold him off for a disappointing 7th.

My problem (as it has been all season) is small mistakes, generally my strategy and race pace are good enough to challenge my team mate and the other drivers around me on the championship standings, but I keep making simple mistakes that I didn’t in the first season.

The build up to my race was beyond chaotic so i had no chance to practice, Test my base set up from October or remember the track before qualifying.

Qualifying was another disaster while talking set up with my team mate i didn’t get the gear ratios sorted so pace on the straight leaving me a easy target for the race.

Race
More calamity’s here too. Because i wa soutside the top 10 my tires were changed from hard to soft which thanks to the continue button being pressed early i rushed the strategy not noticing the computer changed my tires, Thanks whoever that was!
Start was good stayed out of trouble and capitalized on others mistakes to go from the back row to 6th before being passed by a few cars then missing my breaking point into the bus stop for the 1st of many times but on this occasion i got lost behind the barrier dropping me to 9th. Times my change to Inters perfectly but gained nothing from it. Was close to @Lt Alfred at the end but with my 20 seconds of penalty’s for missing the bus stop i settled for a disappointing 8th. Highlight of my race was a battle in two or three different parts with @strunk27 who gets my DOTD for making my race more than a time trial

^ *Monza ;)