Project CARS 2 R1: Road America (2 Viewers)

[Michael]

What a start into the season…
Q1
I couldn’t get the sectors together and was 3 seconds off my personal best. Furthermore, having crossed the S/F line shortly below the 2 minutes mark, hoping for one last good attempt, @Freak Superman came onto the track (which was absolutely pointless, as he wouldn’t have had the chance for a timed lap), and we went into T1 together, which rendered my lap useless… P24 it was.
R1
The formation lap was odd, big concertina effect. I had to take evasive actions in T1, which resulted in suspension damage with a crooked steering ☹. Into the pits right before the lights going green, so I was dead last at that point.
“OK, Shep, get your s*** together, focus, pedal to the metal…” I quickly caught up with the people in front of me and in L5 I was already five places up again, as others were struggling too.
I then came into a very nice 3-way battle with @Sonic and @Jomba. We were changing positions for a couple of times, but I also had an off-track after the carrousel, which unsettled the car and nearly sent me into the wall after the kink (as seen in the stream). Luckily, I had absolutely no damage from that.
I could close the gap again, and the two also seemed to have their moments, as I could get up to P14 in lap 14, and I was able to hold till the line.

Q2
Was a tad better than Q1, but still a second off my PB. At least my teammate @FuBii and me were next to each other in the formation, ready to work our way up a bit.

R2
%$§#!!!
On approach to T1 I was on the inside and “someone” thought it was a good idea to make it 3 wide there by dipping into the middle and have a door rub with the car on the outside, which caused a little chain reaction that sent me off-track into the wall… Limping to the pits (I am used to that, ain’t I) for repairs, when I had to avoid a car re-joining from the infield of the carrousel and getting punted from behind by another one, which sent me again off-track… Mojo gone, I muted my mic to not give a total rant at that point, and retired the car. Stewards, here we come…

 

[Puffpirat]

@Puffpirat you save me, thank you!)))

Wow that was close, my car was in a horrible place so I retired to pits. A wonder no one slammed into me.

Had so much fun tonight - actually really enjoyed this combo. Only downside for me was the dirty air was unexpectedly heavy so when catching up to back markers, closing in that final 1sec gap would cost a second or two in lap time.

2nd in both races was way more than I was hoping for so I'm over the moon. Loved battling with @Puffpirat in race 2 in particular, such a shame the moment happened with the back marker. Super happy with the two defensive moves

Yeah good battle mate, just a shame it ended too soon both races. I didn't expect dirty air to be so horrible, so after race 1 where my car was all over the place I put on 1 click more DF on the rear after I didn't put it on pole for the second race.

 

[MarkyPea]

Highs and lows for me. I was very apprehensive about the calibre of the driving given that some were giving their race pace as being mid 1:57s, and at that point my setup was 2:04 with a full race load. I was anticipating qualifying mid 20s and maybe getting to high teens as people had incidents.
Q1 - Had to wait for almost the entire field to leave the pits before I was permitted to move from my box, but still managed to get around unhindered. Put in a decent time for me and was 12th, pretty elated about that.
R1 - Just plodded around within my limits mostly trying to stop my nerves from causing me to do something silly and crash. I chased Red Fox for a little while until sadly he had the Ginetta curse on the last corner and I slipped by. My focus for the rest of the race was trying to keep a gap to Red Fox however he was able to negotiate the back markers more efficiently than I could and pulled me back in a short time. However he did not quite get close enough to make a move. Finished 6th, which was pretty cool.
Q2 - Less nerves this time managed 9th on the grid, was 8th until the last car, who was Red Fox and he took 8th from me.
R2 - Was sad that Red Fox who I was qualfied behind was DC'ed as I was looking forwards to following him around, from what I had observed in R1 I really like his style and manner. Followed @UnstopaPaul around, really enjoying myself. @Puffpirat was sat in the middle of Canada Corner having had issues with a back marker, Paul went left, I followed, @Blue Monkey went right being more the racing line and got the jump on both of us. I was hindered by a back marker and lost my 1-2sec gap to Paul, dropping back another second or two. Was pulling it back when DynamicsRacingOne lost it and wiped me out. Hit the wall, got some decent air, car seemed to be driveable so I chanced another lap. Car felt like I was drunk, I got in the way loads (I do apologise) I was doing my best to let everybody past whilst also getting to the pits asap so I hindered as few people as possible. Even the guy who wiped me out came past me. It's a shame I didn't have hazard flashers!! Repaired the car, drove around feeling sorry for myself. Spent the rest of the race venting to my wife, who was miffed with me already as I asked her to not stream tv incase it dc'ed me from the server.

Now I am more relaxed about my capability to drive around with you guys. I have about 900 hours offline racing, and about 2 online (PC1&2 that is). Much like when I am tearing around Silverstone in the fast group with actual racers dreaming that instead of being old and slow, that I'm actually Valentino Rossi (who is almost as old but infinitely faster), it was really cool to be in VR with real people really racing, feeling like this is what some lucky skilled chaps do for a career.

I would also like to very much publically apologise to @Jonno , I was in no way accusing him of wiping me out. Perhaps in my post race emotions I was abrupt with my statement and question as to whether it was he who wiped me out and it could easily be misinterpreted. The fellow in question had been noted several times as to offering poor driving standards and I was really really enjoying racing about in a good position with excellent racers. I literally could not care less about the points, however it was the missing of the potential pleasure of racing with @UnstopaPaul etc that I felt was taken from me that upset me. I was a fool as I thought that he had moved aside (finally), and then bang.

Also the official stream is amazing, with commentary etc, I am astounded by the quality, my boys loved watching it over their breakfast this morning!!

 

[FuBii]

An interesting return to a league race for me! Having to rebuild a pc a few days before the opening race did not help haha.
Had some controller issues for the first round as the game had reverted to default which meant the car was trying to give me full steering lock at full speed... Normally it would be about 1/3 at full speed.
Q1: still managed to get the car around for a clean lap & qualify in the 2 minute mark, a full 2s off what I was achieving before the pc died.
The first race didn't go too badly till I had a tank slapper leaving the long right hander. I managed to catch it & only at grazed the wall but that's all it takes in this game. Into the pits for a repair job & out again. Apologies to anyone if I got in your way, I tried to keep off the line, taking to the grass more often than not.
As the race went on, my kept losing the rear & this got worse. Eventually retired the car as I was becoming a danger to others.
In the interval I quickly tweaked the controller settings to help my style. It was better, but still requires fine tuning.
Q2: nice. A little slower than my Q1 time but that's because I was using my race setup. Oops.
Race 2: side by side with my team mate I felt some relief approaching the start line as I knew nothing silly would happen. I seemed to be lucky as the entire right side just seemed to stand still on the green green & I gained a few places. I was able to shoot the car up the inside of someone into t2 but I think someone was trying to do the same on me as I got hit at the apex which sent me into a spin & onto the grass. Thankfully there was no damage. Waited for the field to pass before rejoining in front of @Shepard. From there it as a relatively lonely drive to the finish. Some silly spins in the final laps cost my 20+s & 2 positions.

Improvements to be made.
Though I don't click at all with COTA. Can never get into the circuit rythem...

 

[Born2BSlow]

All lows for me, but definitely lessons learned and I hope to do better next race.

Q1 - Setup bug got me and it was too late when i noticed that my tanks were full and I had no pace, I think I qualified down in 20th 2 seconds off my practice pace.

R1 - I gained a few places in the first few corners (where peeps had incidents and left the track) but I think lack of practice following other cars closely got me as I clipped the outside kerb on the exit of turn7 lost it into the wall and had to limp back to the pits. I made sure to let everybody pass before rejoining. One long pit stop later and I'm in P26 so at least I'm in the points. I managed to scrap my way back to P19 and did my very best to keep out of the leader's way, but I managed to try too hard when unstopapaul was closing rapidly and completely messed up turn1 and losing at least one place. Highlight of my race was when t0day caught me battling for position after his full speed pit lane run which baffled me at the time because I thought he was a long way in front of me, I managed to let him through at turn3 without leaving the door open.

Q2 - A little better but still didn't find my practice rhythm and qualified 10th a second off my practice times so I'm a little disappointed with myself.

R2 - Race loading screen froze at 46 secs to go, then when the grid formed I just saw my HUD and the VR grey screen behind it, technical failure and I had to abort. I watched the stream and the guys did a great job, well done to my team mate @CatchAGlimpse for his solid driving and 2 second places, I'll be collecting my P45 if this carries on though.

Overall, I did enjoy the racing I managed as I usually do around here, but I just seem to trip over myself or other people's incidents...clumsy stuff, hopefully more practice and more race experience will smooth things out.

If anyone feels I impeded them in any way please do take it to the stewards so that I can improve my driving, I would appreciate the input.

 

[Determined Hangman]

For race one I forgot I had the engine on lean from the rolling start. I'm such a noob.

 

[UnstopaPaul]

For race one I forgot I had the engine on lean from the rolling start. I'm such a noob.

top tip. Instead of running lean on the rolling lap....put an extra litre of fuel in! Lean starts are surely only relevant if you are in an endurance race and running full tanks already?

 

[The Breeze]

Sorry for being a road block...and therefore sometimes a pain in the... well you know... there where the daylight never comes.
My car was a nightmare, no grip at corner exit at all.. and no time left to change the settings. I did TT as a preparation to learn this, to me, new track.
I took my TT (sub 2 minutes) setup to practice and tried to tune it for the race.... stupid idea... better start with default loose setup next time, and work from there.
Or copy my team mate @Nakor his set up, he had a pretty good pace.

At the start of race 1, I ended up in a pile of cars after turn 1, aero and suspension damage. Requested to pit.. maybe they told me it was occupied (stupid game feature, maybe Nakor was in) but couldn't hear it because of 'legal' TS chatter. Went to pit, no red sign... but pitted on the only empty place with pit crew and the emelt sign was shown. Went back out, car was already totally crap so didn't notice nothing was repaired by my pit crew. Until I entered the carousel and the car had massive understeer, causing me driving into a faster car on my left... sorry for that. So pitted again...
Had no chance defending or attacking... with a low exit speed, it was easy to overtake me on the straights. Could get some time back by braking late, but not enough to get closer to the cars in front.

Race 2: did a 2:04 during the race, lowered the rear arb which gained me 3 seconds per lap...
Finished a bit higher.. 22nd or 21st I think.

Well, let's focus on the next race and hope for a better setup.

The Oculus Drifters will be back ... faster than ever !!!

 

[MarkyPea]

At some point today I need to stop watching the official replay and concentrate on work - the (not really a) downside of working from home :|

 

[Taorminator]

Good start of the season for even though I'm gutted to have been disconnected in the first race (there was some voodoo black magic in that race it seems )
Q1 : couldn't do a single good lap, I was held off everytime by people rejoigning the racing line coming out of the pits + dirty air blablabla
R1 : had a good start and was climbing up the field, I had a good battle with @Nakor (always a pleasure to battle with you buddy you have such a high level of respect and always leave the right amount of space!) But I finally was pcared following a brief contact with @The Breeze . Gutted to start the season on a dnf...
Q2 : I managed to steal P4 to my teamate @Corentin_Bergès for 1/1000 s it doesn't matter if you win by a hair or a mile eh?
R2 : I missed the start because I was expecting @ProjectPD to call "all drivers get ready" and was surprised to hear "green green green" right away my foot wasn't even on the gas so I lost my position to my teamate. After that it was a race of consistency to secure my position against @Elodyr but towards the middle of the race I realised I wouldn't have enough fuel to finish the race So I had to step down and save fuel till the end with @Elodyr catching back. A very stressful end of race : I finished with just 0.3 l of fuel but managed to being P4 home

I'm glad with my pace so far and the car feels great let's continue at COTA and challenge @CatchAGlimpse

 

[Corentin_Bergès]

BREAKING NEWS
By T. Yesterday, our journalist for RSR

After the very spectacular accident before the green flag of the season's opening race, a question remains. What happend ?

This nightmare vision still haunts many of the spectators who were sitting next to the start finish Line. At the end of the formation lap, the car #82 driven by @Corentin_Bergès of Stickos Madness Motorsport suddenly took off, like if a giant spring had suddenly activated itself under the car, throwing it at an altitude of several meters.
But what could be the reason ? Black magic ?
Well the reason is pretty simple. It could be the team's fault. One of the staff member said to us after the race :
"At Stickos, we like things to be fast. Extremely fast. We have no time, you see. So the pit stops must be fast."
In fact, the car, like all race cars, uses hydraulic cylinder, that are used in the pitstop to lift up the car, for example to change the tyres. These hydraulic cylinder are activated by a compressed air line which is plugged in by a mechanic.
At the last pitstop, the hydaulic cylinder was stuck, hence the car took the start with a remaining high pressurized air in the line. But this would not have leaded to suck an impressive scene if Stickos was not using a "veryveryveryvery (sic!) powerful cylinder which is able to lift up the car 1000x faster than normal ones".

The mechanism was suddenly released at the end of the formation lap.

The future will say if Stickos Team will keep on using alien technology leading to disaster for 1/1000th of a second spared time in the pit straight.

 

[Jamesl91]

BREAKING NEWS
By T. Yesterday, our journalist for RSR

After the very spectacular accident before the green flag of the season's opening race, a question remains. What happend ?

This nightmare vision still haunts many of the spectators who were sitting next to the start finish Line. At the end of the formation lap, the car #82 driven by @Corentin_Bergès of Stickos Madness Motorsport suddenly took off, like if a giant spring had suddenly activated itself under the car, throwing it at an altitude of several meters.
But what could be the reason ? Black magic ?
Well the reason is pretty simple. It could be the team's fault. One of the staff member said to us after the race :
"At Stickos, we like things to be fast. Extremely fast. We have no time, you see. So the pit stops must be fast."
In fact, the car, like all race cars, uses hydraulic cylinder, that are used in the pitstop to lift up the car, for example to change the tyres. These hydraulic cylinder are activated by a compressed air line which is plugged in by a mechanic.
At the last pitstop, the hydaulic cylinder was stuck, hence the car took the start with a remaining high pressurized air in the line. But this would not have leaded to suck an impressive scene if Stickos was not using a "veryveryveryvery (sic!) powerful cylinder which is able to lift up the car 1000x faster than normal ones".

The mechanism was suddenly released at the end of the formation lap.

View attachment 6502

View attachment 6503

The future will say if Stickos Team will keep on using alien technology leading to disaster for 1/1000th of a second spared time in the pit straight.

Maybe your spring rates were too soft, causing you to bounce a bit too much?!

ps thats a great read!

Post automatically merged: Mar 22, 2019

At some point today I need to stop watching the official replay and concentrate on work - the (not really a) downside of working from home :|

Get back to work! Seriously though its great to hear how much you enjoyed your first race with us, and look forward to seeing you around for many years to come!
For more broadcasts from previous seasons you can checkout the Pcars2 archives

 

[Taorminator]

BREAKING NEWS
By T. Yesterday, our journalist for RSR

After the very spectacular accident before the green flag of the season's opening race, a question remains. What happend ?

This nightmare vision still haunts many of the spectators who were sitting next to the start finish Line. At the end of the formation lap, the car #82 driven by @Corentin_Bergès of Stickos Madness Motorsport suddenly took off, like if a giant spring had suddenly activated itself under the car, throwing it at an altitude of several meters.
But what could be the reason ? Black magic ?
Well the reason is pretty simple. It could be the team's fault. One of the staff member said to us after the race :
"At Stickos, we like things to be fast. Extremely fast. We have no time, you see. So the pit stops must be fast."
In fact, the car, like all race cars, uses hydraulic cylinder, that are used in the pitstop to lift up the car, for example to change the tyres. These hydraulic cylinder are activated by a compressed air line which is plugged in by a mechanic.
At the last pitstop, the hydaulic cylinder was stuck, hence the car took the start with a remaining high pressurized air in the line. But this would not have leaded to suck an impressive scene if Stickos was not using a "veryveryveryvery (sic!) powerful cylinder which is able to lift up the car 1000x faster than normal ones".

The mechanism was suddenly released at the end of the formation lap.

View attachment 6502

View attachment 6503

The future will say if Stickos Team will keep on using alien technology leading to disaster for 1/1000th of a second spared time in the pit straight.

Hum why is there another car in the air on the 1st picture?? That's some black magic alien spooky sh** I tell ya! (puts on aluminium foil hat)

 

[Corentin_Bergès]

Hum why is there another car in the air on the 1st picture?? That's some black magic alien spooky sh** I tell ya! utsonaluminiumfoilhat:

My replay is dirty as hell, so yeah given it was all done due to a unvisible car (visible in the replay) planted in the track, CatchAGlimpse is also in the air xD This game was completly broken ^^

 

[UnstopaPaul]

I was really happy overall with Road America. It definitely took some preparation - the car is interesting to get used to (particularly if you'd been in iRacing for a bit), but I generally felt there was a lot of potential for the car to be really fun. Once you learn to tame the monster a little it gets better, particularly with a bit of setup magic.

Race 1 was almost processional. Qualifying on the 3rd row (4ms behind my team mate @Elodyr !) I got to avoid any T1 shenanigans, got through the first couple of laps and settled in. It then became a constant catch and drop back from @Elodyr . Sad to see @Puffpirat ahead go out, but his loss put me into 4th. While @t0daY caught a little at some points, it really felt in my control to keep him out of range. Smooth(ish) racing to the end and 4th place. Really happy as this is possibly the first season where my first race didn't involve a self inflicted spin out.

Race 2 looked like it was going to be more of the same. In fact it was looking eerily similar as Crew Chief announced that @Puffpirat had binned it ahead. Getting to Canada corner I unfortunately didn't have much option but to go around and left of the roadblock, in retrospect a poor choice, as 2 cars behind speed through while I tentatively got back on track. From my point of view this turned out to be pretty unfortunate as for the rest of the race I constantly caught back up to @Blue Monkey , but could never quite make a move stick, losing me about half a second or more each lap. A helpful backmarker nearly allowed me to get past at Canada / last corner, but a "robust" defense in the last corner forced me to fall back enough that it was several laps before I was in position again. This all ultimately concluded in my decision to "lick the stamp" for the last Canada corner. Sadly I misjudged my double jink and didn't come back across to the right far enough, rear ending @Blue Monkey . I have to apologise for this as it was simply a misjudgement on my part that affected his race. Fortunately despite our constant battling, we'd been pulling away from the pack, so each of us only lost one place. The end result was 8th for myself, respectable but could have been better.

Conclusion: Setup and preparation good. Really enjoyable to already be in close range battles this season (dirty air still a major factor in closing though). I don't regret going for the last lap pass, despite the loss of a place. My big weakness last season was not being comfortable enough to have a go, and if you don't practice those passing moves, then I'd never get better!. 4th in the championship after round 1. Job well done.

 

[Determined Hangman]

top tip. Instead of running lean on the rolling lap....put an extra litre of fuel in! Lean starts are surely only relevant if you are in an endurance race and running full tanks already?

Won't be making that mistake again. This is my first race with the veterans lol. I feel like Grosjean: huge potential, rookie mistakes, minus the crashing ofc. Thanks for the tip!!