F1 Fanatic

I’d also be up for GT5, although I’m not great at it as evidenced by my horror show at the 24 Laps of Le Mans last year.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to commit to a proper championship series. I was only able to race on Sunday thanks to a big favour from a friend and I really wouldn’t want to ask them to do it again, let alone make it a regular thing!

I might be able to do the odd GT5 race as they are more casual and would require less effort for me to sort out, but I’m not in a position to take part in a serious league right now.

I was going to wait till my video was up before I posted my race report but im having many troubles with it so its taking a while :( if its still being a pain in the backside tomorrow I’ll drop that idea and just write a nice long race report instead of it :P

@magnificent-geoffrey – No worries :)
@thespuditron – If you reckon you could do the odd Sunday, d’you want me to stick you on the reserve list so basically, if you’re online when we race, I’ll send you an invite and you can race in the place of someone who hasn’t turned up? :)

Loved the videos @supernicebob, @magnificent-geoffrey @sato113! Some great action in each. Also interesting to see the ridiculous first corner crash I started from another perspective. Taking out my own team-mate is something to be proud of. And that means @aus_steve has been wiped out of the lead at turn 1 every time he’s raced here!

So, my race was okay apart from that. But let’s start with qualifying!

I noticed straight away that “suggested gear” had somehow switched itself on because it was quite distracting. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn it off before the race and I kept thinking I had DRS at random points! Anyway, my first lap felt really clean and quite fast. I was almost certain it was enough to put me near the front but somehow I was over a second down on @JamieFranklinF1 and I couldn’t understand why until I crossed the line and saw I was running on mix 1. Oops. Luckily, I had time to put in another few laps. None of them were amazing, and my fastest had a very messy middle sector (as you’ll see in the video) but it was enough for provisional pole until Steve did his usual trick and beat everyone.

Made a decent start, much to the delight of the audience, but @slr was even faster getting away and was immediately alongside (on the inside) going into turn 1. Not wanting to turn in on him, I apexed a bit later than usual which sent Steve down the escape road in an uncontrollable spin. Not my finest moment! Straight away regretted not covering the inside and hugging the pit wall as it probably meant the difference between Steve winning and… not winning.

Lost a few places coming out of the Senna S and followed the top three across the line to begin lap 2 before @bradley13 appeared to throw it in the wall and lose his second place to Sato. I then stole Sato’s second place for a bit of light-hearted fun. And then I had a very fun (and clean, woo!) battle with slr for the lead before I got DRS and breezed past a little too easily. I never thought I’d get an easy pass on this dude!

From then on I tried to pull out as much as possible in case I got a penalty for nothing. And it worked, for while everyone was scrapping for position, I built a 20 second gap back to a very fast @shyguy1992 who I believe had the pace to win had he been at the front initially. I tried to snatch the fastest lap but nearly crashed a few times before deciding to back off and cruise to the finish. Another lucky victory! Shyguy had to fight from the back and Steve was obviously much quicker than me. Had everything gone smoothly, I’d have been fighting for a podium, not crossing the line without having to worry about anyone. Even so, I hope it doesn’t sound like I found it easy or anything! If nothing else, I had the hottest night ever to contend with and I was sweating quite a bit. You sad Europeans may find it hard to believe, but there’s some kind of cruel heat-wave trying to end us in Australia right now.

And now all of that in video form:

ALSO! Thanks to @Spud and @silverkeg for organising what was, once more, a great season. These F1 off-seasons seem to go so quickly lately… And thanks for the effort you’ve all put in to making videos and writing up your race reports that we all love reading. I realised I’ve watched every second of footage on the YouTube channel this season and please, no-one tell me how many hours of my life that has claimed or I’ll have to ban myself from this series. But yeah, it’s all a lot of fun!

Massive congratulations again to Jamie for winning the championship in his debut season. That’s a decent achievement, I would think! But just make sure you know we’re all coming for YOU next season… :-P

@bradley13 Apologies, but I think I’ll be leaving F1 games alone until the weekend of the next Collantine Cup race. One online championship is enough for me! And @supernicebob, I’ll try to make a few GT5 races but I’m more likely to do a Magnificent Geoffrey.

Finally, a nice little graph showing the story of the season and how the championship unfolded. (Also, took a lot of time and playing with codes I barely understand so effin’ appreciate it!)

@commonmonsoon is the GT5 only open to CC racers? If its not could I get in on it?

@bradley13 Bradley, I’ve only just thought, I actually traded in F1 2012 last weekend, so I won’t be able to take part in any more races this year. You can take me off that reserve list, but thank you very much for the offer. Have fun you guys.