F1 Fanatic

@sato113 Is that an old Panasonic TV? I recognise the green volume font! Your “brake failure” thing must be down to the controller rather than the game. Have you tried with a spare if you have one? It seems to be braking a bit but certainly not as much as you’d want it to.

@jamiefranklinf1 I was only kidding about being Sebastian Vettel! :-P But sure, if there’s a driver whose racing skills are comparable with my online gaming skills, I’m not complaining if it happens to be the current — and triple — Formula 1 World Champion…

@slr That is profanity? I’m guessing you’ve never been to Australia.

@Olliekart What is your secret?! How are you driving so fast on a drenched track with options on lap 22?

Anyway, I’m going to try my best to explain what happened during my race. This will not be easy, as I’m not entirely certain what happened yet, myself!

When I saw rain forecast in qualifying, I knew I was in trouble. The fact I’d never played F1 2012 in anything other than dry conditions meant I was in for some difficulties. But driving in the wet wasn’t the main problem, as it turned out; I simply didn’t know when it was best to be on certain types of tyres. I spoiled my first lap with a spin and didn’t make it back out in time to post a dry time on my new set, which meant I was about 5 seconds off pole in the end.

At the start, I took a very cautious approach into turn 1, and when I saw cars being catapulted into each other from all angles ahead of me, I was thankful I’d qualified so poorly! I had time to squeeze by on the inside, but unfortunately I was hit from behind, which meant I ran into @electrolite and @brooksy007, undoubtedly contributing to the mayhem. I exited turn 1 in 4th and that’s where my race-long battle for a podium with Electrolite began. I was nudged into turn 3 which meant I lost the place, and I spent the rest of the first lap being careful not to spin out on the increasingly wet track.

At the time, I wasn’t aware of how F1 2012′s weather system affects the cars, so I pitted along with Electrolite for intermediates at the end of lap 1. He made a mistake on the pit exit and I managed to squeeze by, only to lock up and slam into the wall at turn 3 at the beginning of lap 2. (By the way, how was the FPS for everyone on lap 1? It doesn’t exactly show up in my video, but I was convinced the game was about to crash as we all filtered through sector 2…)

Electrolite and I were inseparable from the beginning, and as we mirrored each other’s mistakes, we gradually moved up into the podium positions after everyone had either pitted or spun from in front of us. Electrolite was caught in one of the accidents which meant I was ahead of him, but Olliekart was already over 20 seconds clear in the lead. The gap grew and shrunk as Electrolite and I took it in turns to make the same errors (most of the time at turn 3) and on one lap, he even made a mistake when I didn’t! Finally I had a tiny bit of breathing space. For the time being, anyway.

The track conditions appeared to remain constantly wet, but gradually the inters became less and less sticky. According to my race engineer, I was now driving on a dry track, despite drops of rain falling from the sky and the track looking rather shiny… So when those behind who had fitted dry tyres started breezing past us, both Electrolite and myself headed in for a set of dry tyres ourselves. We rejoined having lost out to @JamieFranklinF1 (who had already passed me on the track, such was his superior speed with dry tyres) and @aus_steve, who I assume pitted one or two laps earlier.

@David-A once again stayed out longer on his tyres than most (this time intermediates), but iamsa8 passed him and moved into 3rd. The order at this stage looked something like:

1: Olliekart
2: JamieFranklinF1
3: iamsa8
4. David A
5. Myself
6. Electrolite (he was just behind me)

I passed David for 4th on lap 10, when it was clear the intermediates were no match for the conditions. But with rain on the way, I could see why he was trying to continue. He was definitely a contender if the weather was to do what my engineer was telling me. As you can guess, Electrolite followed me through, and we resumed our battle. The gap to my team mate ahead remained constant at around 6 seconds while Electrolite was not appearing to get closer than 5 seconds behind me. Then iamsa8′s options went off, and with rain still a few minutes away, he’d have to do an extra stop for dry tyres. When I finally caught him, he peeled off into the pits.

During this time, I was trying to type a message to my brother while driving down the straights to get him to come and see me with a new camera. My camera had gone flat, so I had him put his iPod in front of the TV to get some footage of the remaining laps, which thankfully came out okay. I nearly crashed into the wall at one stage when I wasn’t looking where I was going, though!

When the rain arrived again on lap 19, I was hasty to dive into the pits for intermediates. This would prove to be the wrong decision anyway (as the track was still suited to dry tyres), but it didn’t matter because I pressed the wrong button while talking to my brother and opened the fuel mixture settings instead of selecting my tyres. I couldn’t get the fuel options to go away in time and as I pulled into my box, I saw 4 red-marked tyres bolted to my car. So after every other mistake I’d made all race, I now had what was effectively a 4 second stop-and-go penalty to recover from.

I pitted the very next lap and got my inters, but it took two or three laps for the track to become damp enough for them to be effective. I was now in 7th and chasing @supernicebob for 6th. We were both gifted a position when iamsa8′s power went out (we’ll call that an alternator failure, yes?) and another for a reason I still haven’t discovered. Perhaps David pitted, although I’m not sure if he was ahead at that stage anyway.

I tried to stick with Bob, but I wasn’t able to get close enough for several laps until he made a mistake and gave the position away. It was unfortunate, because we were very closely matched at that stage and I’m sure it would have been a fun battle if I ever caught him.

So with the Caterhams in the lead and Electrolite in 3rd, I was back to chasing who has probably become my closest rival for a podium. The gap wasn’t coming down, though, and I realised I was going to come home in fourth (which was quite nice considering the race I had!). But I noticed he was caught in an incident with a lapped car on my mini-map, and the gap instantly halved. Despite failing to catch him, a penalty meant I inherited his third place and scored what has to be the most unlikely podium I’ll ever luck into.

I have a feeling @Magnificent-Geoffrey will love watching this video, all the while knowing that everything I did wrong resulted in a podium. And everyone is going to love the music. Or hate me for reminding you it existed… Anyhow, I have better taste than @silverkeg.

If my memory serves me correctly, I have started this season in identical fashion to the last. A second in Melbourne and a third in round 2 after a penalty for Electrolite gifts me his third place… :-D

@alfie I accidentally clicked delete when editing my post (luckily had it copied to the clipboard!) so that’s why it appears Slr is replying before I’ve posted my question!

@jamiefranklinf1 @common_monsoon

Ill kill 2 birds with 1 stone here, and say the reaseon that;

1. I was on the kerbs
and
2. Quick on options on a damp track

was because i had a partially dry/wet setup, plus i did i a few laps at the end of quali on slicks to get an idea of how the car will handle on slicks on a wet track :P

@commonmonsoon Yes, you are right Damon. I, like most of the rest of the world, had entirely forgotten about Holly Valance, and in particular her music “career”. Or is she still popular down under? I think I’ll be haunted by that spin for the rest of my days…

Also looking pretty likely that I’ll miss the next round on the 30th, which is a shame as Montreal is one of my favourites. Don’t suppose there’s enough people missing out to force a calendar change and another pair of back to back races? No worries at all if not, or if it raises further issues elsewhere. Not as if I’m in the running for the championship.

wat

I could hook my camera up to my TV and hit record?

@commonmonsoon

Abu Dhabi last year ended up really horrible for me… but I believe in the THIRD race you gifted a podium to me, so we’ll see what happens at Montreal :P

I’m a bit annoyed with myself for getting the penalty in Korea though. For me to rejoin the actual track and carry on with my lap would have meant me turning around 180 degrees, pottering across the run off for about 50 metres and re doing the section! You live and learn, though.

I think the gap suddenly shrinking was my incident with @thespuditron he mentioned earlier!

@commonmonsoon its actually a sony tv. just got myself a LED samsung though so quality should be better next time around.
and please update ferraris points. it’s 15 not 14. thanks

And also, I want to record my races, but don’t want to pay the price of the top of the range models.

Any old video camera will do. Last season I used my mobile phone which could only record for 20 minutes and the quality wasn’t great.

Otherwise, stuff from Avril Lavigne’s first album might go well with racing action.

“Complicated” would have fit very well with your Korean video.