F1 Fanatic

Qualifying went better than expected for me, but on my second run I forgot to change to another set of intermediates – I span on the first lap and decided to pull into the pits to give other people room. Think I finished up about seventh.

The race started quite well for me, I was up to about third at one point until my true pace showed itself and I started to drop down. Got two penalties in as many corners for racing incidents, one with Bob and the other with David but neither of these were too detrimental to anyone.

It was then that Damon was right on my tail and tried to pass into the chicane just before the bridge – the arrows said he was a couple of car lengths behind but as I moved over we connected and I span into the run off. Ended up disconnecting on lap six after I had dropped almost to the back of the field. Disappointing, but I still got a point!

@slr Doh!! I totally missed that you’d done the results already! :S

I’ll give the recording thing a go the next time then so.

I accidentally deleted my post :( I would like it if my points scored today for Marussia are recorded under Williams as that is my team, so that should take Williams points total to 25.

Quali: 6th

First thing I noticed was the rain, oh no. Second thing I noticed, I’m in a Marussia? As Jamie said, I fell prey to the Marussia trap.

As it turned out, the rain was a blessing in disguise. It levelled the field somewhat and I managed to sneak in a relatively clean lap which slotted me in at a surprisingly high 6th.

Race: 8th

The race started dry with only 20-something percent chance of rain, so it was inevitable that I would lose my 6th place. This happened very quickly as like all Australians, I got a poor (lag) start. I fell to the back of the pack, but with all the shenanigans throughout the first lap, I had returned to sixth. I can’t quite recall what happened next, but as I was passing a Lotus? I was tapped into a spin and fell to ninth. Later in the lap, @Shyguy93 missed his marker and gave me a nice push into the runoff are (Clearly peeved that I wasn’t in the Williams :P)

As supernicebob reminded me, I span into the pitlane quite early on which was interesting. It meant my first stop was earlier than I had hoped, which compromised me later in the race. I settler ahead of just @supernicebob and @Spud moving up to seventh with the disconnects and Spuds DSQ. In my last stint, Supernicebob was catching me hand over fist, I had no response and I eventually threw my margin away with a spin on lap 28.My tyres were gone and bob was ahead, so I decided to pit for options for a last hope run at supernicebob only to exit the pits to rain and Jamie finishing the race.

Eighth was better than I expected, and despite coming last of the runners, I was happy with how I drove in the most part. There isn’t a video from me as I am at my father’s, which also means I have TERRIBLE internet which was the cause for any lag on my behalf, sorry for that.

All I ever seem to do on this forum is apologise. This time it is for my foul mouth. I knew I shouldn’t have turned the mic back on on my camera, though I’m not usually this vocal whilst driving. I’m having a bad day/week/month/year/life.

Qualifying was pretty poor. Spun on most of my laps on inters, think I got a clean but slow lap in. Thought it may have been wet enough for full wets but that was not the case so I ducked out early as I didn’t have enough time left.

Made a decent start but carried away with a silly move on Jonny for which he got a penalty. Ultimately nothing really came of that, and I certainly lost a lot of time as a result of my actions (hit a bit of a glitch recovering too). After that it was pretty much spin city (wish I’d spent more time on the options in retrospect) and me getting very angry with myself. It quickly became another race of trying (but failing) to stay out of trouble, and then trying to close the gap to Silverkeg which I eventually did.

My first ever Collantine Cup disconnect! It had to happen eventually.

Anyway, to my race review: put in a slippery and messy qualifying lap which I was sure @JamieFranklinF1 would beat considering I only just pipped him to provisional pole. So I pitted and did another lap that was apparently quick, although it felt very slow as I was driving as carefully as possible! Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learnt, here…

And then there was the race! Another bad start (although not as bad as some!) left Jamie well in front by turn 1. In the chaos surrounding the first corner (actually, wasn’t chaotic, but I was panicking because I’m just not cool or something), I forgot to downshift into 2nd, and the car understeered into the wall and bounced in front of everyone. That possibly caused a bad crash, but in all the banging and crashing and sparks and lag, I have no idea what happened! I then spun again before the DRS zone on lap 1, before doing the same thing again on the next lap!

Ploughed my way through everyone — and I don’t mean I was quicker than others, I think I actually lag-rammed @Jonnyw360f1 and @slr out of my way — before suddenly I was second behind Jamie with 20 seconds to make up. My heart sunk a little at that, but after the first stops, I was just 15 behind with around 22 laps left to complete! I convinced myself I could catch him if I took 1 second a lap…

So I tried, and it was working for a few laps before I lost my rhythm a bit and didn’t gain at all on one lap. I overcame my silliness and then disconnected with around 12 seconds (I think) to Jamie ahead with about 15 laps to go. I’m not saying I would have done it, but maaaan, it would have been interesting! :-( And hopefully close. Bla bla bla first you must finish, as they say. I suppose they say it because it’s true.

Fun racing, a bit sad to disconnect, but eh, I tried. My router has been disconnecting every hour or so lately and I was pretty certain it was going to happen during the race tonight anyway.

@sirspuddington Unfortunately, we will not be accepting any more entrants into the Cup this season. You are more than welcome to put your name down for the list for next season’s cup when it comes around though. As has always been the case with the Collantine Cup, it is done on an invitation basis, so you aren’t automatically accepted. Instead there will be a vote held on new entrants to the competition. As I say though, you are welcome to put your name down if you are interested.

@Supernicebob Loved the video…Especially the laughing at my unfortunate pit entry :P Glad someone got it on record.

@sirspuddington We’ll remember you! Just check back in this thread in early November as that’s when the new season starts getting planned and we’ll be asking who wants to sign up.

@JamieFranklinF1 I just re-read your post with the benefit of some sleep beforehand and I noticed you thought we ran different tyre strategies. I guess we did, but we were actually using the same tyres at the same times. I edited the default strategy to change my first stop from lap 9 to lap 10 as I knew in previous races I had managed at least an extra lap on the tyres than the game predicts. So I stopped at the end of 10 for the primes, as I’d planned, which I had also planned to take an extra lap than the default strategy insists. Ideally, I was going to make my second and final stop for the options a lap or two after you (quite near the end of the race) so I’d have newer and faster tyres to finish the race with. Now that I’ve looked at it again, I probably wouldn’t have quite caught you if I kept making mistakes, but I’ve really never been as excited by the prospect of a battle for the lead as I was last night! I was pretty sad when I disconnected because I’m sure we could have maybe managed a clean fight had I caught you.

Oh, I do not like my internet connection. We’ll call this an alternator failure!