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Post by Juha Bos on Jun 5, 2022 23:01:30 GMT
Second race at the Nordschleife this year, second win. Another one and I'll find myself advocating a VLN series for next year. 
I put in quite some practice for this one as it looked to be final big points scoring opportunity. My intended setup was good enough for laps around the 9.05 mark. I then found that a shorter gear ratio would get me below 9 minutes, but it didn't do my engine reliability any good so I settled for the longer gears.
On a light fuel load, the car could do an 8.55, good enough for pole, but it wasn't having any of that today. I only managed 9.02 and started on row 3. I ended up lapping a lot quicker in the race though.
Thankfully my start was a lot better and I quickly moved up to 4th with my teammate David Jundt in hot pursuit. Anders Nilsson and Tim Hille's disappearances moved me up to second behind Brian Janik. However, David was on the shorter gear ratios and continuously harassing me with a car which was faster everywhere except on the straights. On lap 3 he finally overtook me, but I returned the favour. It took him until lap 7 to get by and make a run for it. I reckoned his engine would die soon enough so I let him go after Brian, who was only a few seconds ahead, waiting to pick up any pieces. But his engine just kept going, and so did Brian. By lap 13, I was still in third. Brian had started to fade away and I finally got the better of him, upon which he went off at Karussel and again at Breidscheid, handing me a comfortable margin. The gap to David ahead was 11 seconds. Tempted to go for broke and chase him, 11 seconds isn't much after 2 hours, hoping he'd stress his engine, I settled for second entering the final lap. 6 points would move me into the championship lead and after Brian's excursions I just about had those in the bag. David was also cruising, but I never let the gap grow too much. And then David's engine died. The practice and car preservation had paid off, with some luck.
Next up is Monza, a track not suited to my car, so it will be difficult to salvage useful points there.
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Post by Dave Miller on Jun 5, 2022 23:11:34 GMT
VLN you say.... I still have the old rFactor VLN 2005 mod.... Interesting race in the Lotus Had a good jump of the line and ran 6th for a while till I binned it on lap 6 and borked the suspension, hobbled round for another lap but in the end made a stop to try to fix it. ran ok until lap 14 after that until I went off at Arenburg backwards and popped a rear tire, limped back to the pits again for a new one and just about managed to drag the car over the line finishing all 15 laps I'll take that as a success  |
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Post by David Jundt on Jun 6, 2022 0:23:03 GMT
Didn't think I was too aggressive with my shifts or revs, but apparently I got stuck too much at staring at the redline for 7000 revs. Oh well, the "curse" of not winning a F1 race continues, maybe another time  Track looked great and it was fun, I actually felt more disappointed with other retirements. |
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Post by Brian Janik on Jun 6, 2022 2:04:17 GMT
Choked once w Jundt, choked again w Juha, then finally grabbed neutral on a downshift and freeballed into the the checkered wall(bridge?) on lap 14 Drove the last Lap and a Half with a flat RF tire and lost 2nd to Thiago right at the end Was worried about getting 6 min repairs, but should've just stopped for a tire but didnt think quick enough  Happy to finish, was exhausted BTW Kept getting a 'Cmmnd Prompt' window popping up for about a second and stuttering the game every few laps... Almost crashed each time, you can see it in the broadcast once when Juha was catching me, Inexplicably swerving on the very fast bit before Karussell. (Kesselchen?) Anyone have any ideas what that is? Or how to find in a timestamp or something? I closed a ton of background processes during warmup, but it still popped up. Actually it just happened again, while I was typing this post...  |
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Post by Juha Bos on Jun 6, 2022 9:54:29 GMT
Didn't think I was too aggressive with my shifts or revs, but apparently I got stuck too much at staring at the redline for 7000 revs. Oh well, the "curse" of not winning a F1 race continues, maybe another time  Track looked great and it was fun, I actually felt more disappointed with other retirements. 7000 was territory I didn't dare venturing into. In qualifying I did and it cried enough after 2 laps, so well done on getting 14 laps and a half out of it. And Pole as well.
I'm left with the slight feeling of the win being handed on a plate, but on the other hand, I really tried hard when fighting you and Brian so it doesn't feel like a hollow one either.
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Post by Thiago Canola on Jun 6, 2022 13:29:49 GMT
To finish was the goal. I had a good pace with the Maserati as the quali lap suggests but didn't want to take any risk with the engine and not finish the race, temps always bellow 102 and rpm under 6750. (nothing is worse than not finishing, no matter the position) I love driving around in this track, it feels like a road trip!  At the start I would imagined people would jump in front and would try to fight for positions right away so I just let people by. Very looooong race. Then when things were more spread I kept the normal pace and recovered some of the positions. I was running in 4th and I was wondering that by the pace the guys in front were, there could be some fatalities in the end. In lap 13 I noticed the Brian gap reducing very fast so I kept my head down, pretty much the same pace and I was able to catch him in the end. I had saved so much engine that I felt confident to overrev a bit to complete the overtake. The podium wasn't realistic but the circumstances (Anders and Tim disco) handled it to me. Congratulations to the finishers. Congratulations to Juha and Brian for the podium. Thank you Jonatan and Alberto for the broadcast!!! |
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Post by Anders Nilsson on Jun 6, 2022 14:06:43 GMT
I got some "Saturday night fever" on a sunday . Owell onwards and upwards Grats to all that saw the checkerflag+ all that show up  Cheersa for the stream Jonatan and Alberto |
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Post by John Thim on Jun 6, 2022 17:23:05 GMT
Over fueled the car heavily, could have done half a Grand Prix post race!
Was just managing the car knowing this would be my best pointscoring chance in this category and with 2 laps to go really messed up comming onto the pitstraigh, got damage to the rear suspension and had to limp for 2 sweaty laps.
Enjoyable race, so challenging. Congratulations to Juha, podium and all the survivors.
Nice to see the recap aswell, great insight as allways!
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Post by Bruno Chacon on Jun 6, 2022 19:12:40 GMT
Smooth start to the race, without exposing myself to risks and a good battle with Mr. Dauger, who was much faster on the straights and easily followed me in the winding sections, he passed me and opened up the lead. The other Cooper from Amaral started a chase but I managed to keep the difference between us under control. Everything was going well, saving the brakes and engine, changing gears at 6,000 rpm when on lap 8, braking on the pit straight, my car swerved to the left and I hit the fences hard, getting across the track and seeing Amaral pass by me.
I thought, next behind me is Michael, 25 seconds apart and the car was fine. Up until that point, I was able to maintain a lap pace between 9:30 and 9:35.
I started on lap 9 and again the car started to bend under high speed braking and lose its balance making it impossible to steer, making me practice guessing which way it will lean on each braking.
In the middle of lap 11, already at a pace close to 10 minutes per lap, the car suddenly swerved to the left throwing me against the fences and ripping the left front wheel. End of race for me.
Congratulations to the winners and everyone who managed to finish the race. Congratulations on the race broadcast, always very informative and enlightening.
I have a problem with my internet browser that doesn't allow me to "LIKE" other pilots' testimonials. Some extension I'm using (and I don't know what it is) is blocking this access.
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Post by Christian Dauger on Jun 7, 2022 8:17:59 GMT
First race on this circuit (I have always refused to race there, whatever the category of car...!) I had to make up my mind one day! Great fights, first with Bruno Chacon, then further on with M Drechhsler or R Riddall (I don't know anymore!) for 7th then 6th place!  (unexpected!) This one will (finally) make a mistake on the penultimate lap, and although my rear suspension has been broken for a few laps, I'm still on the track at the start of the last lap...unfortunately the engine will decide otherwise, I had spared it, no more than 6000rpm...broken less than a lap from the finish...  |
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(unexpected!) 