Split 1 - R5: Hockenheimring - 16th April 2018 (1 Viewer)

[SillySausage]

Not a bad race for me. Qualified in P13 which I was happy enough with. I was very impressed by everyone keeping it super clean at the race start. I managed to gain one position but unfortunately a few corners later I had to run wide onto the grass to take evasive action from @Eugene Flerko going a bit deep under brakes up the inside and tapping @Nighttiger wide towards me.

After rejoining three positions down, two corners later @Elodyr got a bit loose up on the curb behind me and just saved it but missed his braking point into the next corner, tapping my rear and causing me to spin off, rejoining down in second last, just in front of my teammate.

Over the next half a lap I'd regained three positions but coming into the hairpin I took the inside line as the three cars ahead ran wide, unfortunately @Col_McCoy couldn't see me from his postion and cut to the right to try and overtake the car in front of him and just tapped the front of my car while I was turning and spun me again, dumping me to dead last this time.

Over the next few laps I'd worked myself back up to P15, jumping people pitting early and a couple of spinners. I pitted at the end of lap 9 to go to wets. I came out directly behind @grobi0815 and got stuck in a very awkward, slow battle as we both struggled on the new tyres, feeling like driving on ice sideways. @Dutchtastic had a moment a bit up the road and dropped back to join our battle. He seemed to be a bit quicker than me on the wet tyres while @grobi0815 continued to struggle and dropped further behind me. I settled in to P14 with a pace that seemed painfully slow (and sideways) but as no one caught up to me from behind I guess everyone else was doing the same pace around me.

As the rain started to stop and the track turned glary and steamy, I seemed to start to gain a big pace advantage over @Dutchtastic in front of me in the changing conditions. With about 15min left I'd made it to about 1sec behind him and began to push to try and steal the position. I really enjoyed this battle, walking the tight rope of pushing the wet tyres on a drying track as much as possible without going over the edge of grip. I began to have issues locking the fronts and locked up especially badly on the second last lap which cost me the ability to go for a last minute push for the position. In the end I finished P12 which I consider a happy recovery result. BRING ON BATHURST!!!

 

[Col_McCoy]

Since I see my name here, I thought I write a quick one as well .

Start and opening lap were nice GT driving.. some taps here and there but all civil and awesome. Unfortunately powerundersteered wide out of turn 3 and just managed to hold on to the car... luckily @Battenberg had a good overview and managed to avoid my car coming back on track (just to let you know, this was not on purpose ;-).)

2nd to deadlast I was trying to get back up the field.. people going wide/having spins and the only good thing about my setup was the braking, so much confidence not locking up. Just watched the replay with @SillySausage and I did see you btw, you just came from so far behind (you were still behind Dutch or Grobi, who was half a second behind me when we started braking) and I just took a normal line leaving Kman some space on the outside. I see you in the mirror of my replay, but you are still far behind me.. I also didn't feel anything, so maybe some lag involved?

Anyway, following KMan I lost the car at a point, rears spunning up, where not once had any traction problems during all my practises. Still have no clue, whether it was rear downforce (cause I had massive front grip), or combination of higher tyre pressures and 'slightly' lower tyre temps. Hit the wall, 15 aero and some suspension damage :-(. That felt as race over.

After 2 pitstops, damage and a few laps later wets, I managed to come infront of @Puffpirat (lapped ofcourse) . He overtook me in the early stages of the wet, as did @Nighttiger. Tyre pressures still higher than any practise I did, but than they started to fall. The M6 was getting in it's zone.
Managed to close up the gap of 5 seconds with Nighttiger, overtake and run off. Had some real nice overtakes on P17,16,15, thanks to @FlyingKman for being the awesome character he has always been. Tapped him slightly into the hairpin, but no complaining, as he said after the race.. lets go and continue racing. Luckily no damage involved anyway.

In the end only finished 16 seconds behind Puffpirat, which meant my wet pace was pretty good when the tyres finally got into the rythm. If only wouldn't have had that spin in lap 2, this could have been soooo much more fun. But still awesome racing in awesome conditions. Big congrats to @fab. ICEMAN for him having the balls and courage to even test and than do the strategy

 

[Jonno]

Really sorry for the comms in stream guys. This was my first time streaming with comms.. I messed up sorry.

 

[CatchAGlimpse]

Really sorry for the comms in stream guys. This was my first time streaming with comms.. I messed up sorry.

Thanks for the commentary dude, once the audio was sorted around lap 13/14 it was enjoyable to listen to.

 

[Jonno]

Thanks for the commentary dude, once the audio was sorted around lap 13/14 it was enjoyable to listen to.

Wait how were you listening lol you were racing hahahahaha thats just being cocky now lol...glad you enjoyed it. Really need to sort my mic out tho lol...

 

[Eugene Flerko]

Wait how were you listening lol you were racing hahahahaha thats just being cocky now lol...glad you enjoyed it. Really need to sort my mic out tho lol...

I think he, like myself, watched your broadcast after the race

 

[fab. ICEMAN]

Oh boy I gotta cut a piece out of this race and pin it onto my wall

That win came absolutely unexpected and I'm so super happy about it. During the practice I noticed that Hards are on the limit of cooling out and Softs are on the edge of overheating. Well, right side tires were already overheating for 50% of the lap. But I was still a few tenths faster with Softs and without overcooking them on right hand corners it was not too bad to race with them. I knew that as soon as the raindrops start to fall more frequently, the tires will start to cool out and running Softs will make me a lot faster than the guys with Hards, plus the advantage of being able to stay out longer because Softs will grip more with light rain on the tarmac. I told @CatchAGlimpse about that strategy and he was immediately super hyped about it xD

The race start was very clean, only a little bit of body contact with @Cluck on first corner but nothing to worry about. I had to run wide and Cluck actually slowed down for that - which I wasn't expecting. Then all of a sudden Alex overtook @Puffpirat who seemed to had an issue or something. I was able to overtake as well and was already feeling pressure with defending from Puff in the following laps. A couple of laps later I found my rhythm and caught up to @Alex Salmon, which ended in having one of the greatest battles (again)! I had a run down Parabolika twice, but his defending was absolutely on point and I had no chance to get him at this point. Alex then pitted and I wanted to stay out to go for an undercut. It turned out that I was still having a very nice grip level out there - the speed difference to the guys with rain tires on was just insane.

That was also the time where I was on the edge of screwing it up completely.. There was a lot of lapped cars in front of me and I was simply overestimating their braking and cornering. I did not expect Soft tires to be still so much faster - and that ended in shoving @Eugene Flerko out of Turn 1. I'm really really sorry for that Eugene! It was a miracle that I got no damage from that and I just hope that you haven't received any damage as well and that this didn't compromise your race too much!

One lap after another, I watched my lap times and they were still way below the 1:50s so still no need to pit in. When ultimately my car was more of a boat than a car I decided to pit Out of the pits I was 20s in front of Project DP and I just hoped I can manage that gap. In the end I could and that's how my race has been

Big GG to my teammate! Very well driven and a fantastic team result. Looking forward to the last race!

 

[AndrexUK]

Sorry to @AndrexUK and @Jamesl91 for compromising their race :/

No worries, think it was only about 4 front damage, so didn't affect too much, other than the loss of positions.
Didn't really have much of an effect on the race for me.

 

[Cluck]

The race start was very clean, only a little bit of body contact with @Cluck on first corner but nothing to worry about. I had to run wide and Cluck actually slowed down for that - which I wasn't expecting.

Given that it was the first corner and was crowded, I had no idea if I had hit you, you hit me or was just a bit of gentle first-corner-rubbing. Rather than distract everybody and try and find out from you if it was a fault on my side, I did the gentlemanly thing and eased off to let you past. You were quicker than me anyway so it made sense, especially as the 1st lap is when we all need to be concentrating the most

 

[AndrexUK]

My Race:

Qualy put my almost exactly average, and right in the middle of the field.
Think it was about 15th or so, but it was still 2 secs off pole. Not that I was expecting to be in the top 10, but 2 secs was more than I would really have liked, but I didn't build a pure Qualy setup, and the BM was built with the rain in mind.
I knew my dry pace wasn't up to much, but was just hoping to more or less hold position till the wet stuff.
M6 is not too bad in the rain, and the strategy was (as always), keep the thing pointing in the right direction, even if slow, and wait for others to gift me positions.

Lap 1 went ok till the left hander in the stadium section, when @Elodyr went wide on the fast right, and went over the curb, upsetting his car, and slightly missing his braking point - This understeered him into me on his outside, and then me into @Jamesl91 ? on the outside of me. As said, only 4 aero damage, so nothing too bad, and not sure I could really feel it at all, but then , it was lap one, so hard to say. Had to pit for wets anyway, so only added a couple of seconds to straighten it out.

Car felt fine in the wet early on, but a little slippy when the track was fully soaked. But @fab. ICEMAN lapped me before his stop and drove away like a scolded cat - Very Impressive Mr Moses! He had an extra 5 secs on me half way through tat lap, but then he was loosing all his time on the brakes, and I was catching up a lot (read: Eeeeeek, he's braking earlier than me, I may run into the back of him here..... ) - Nearly caught me out, but then he decided to pit at the end of that lap.
(We have a Dry > Wet race at Zolder in AOR this week, so decided to try a practice run by staying out on the softs till after what I would think is the ideal pit time - Just running even 1 more lap, and it was like the M6 turned into a hovercraft - Not doing that again!!! Don't now how Iceman managed it!).

Was running in 9th, but as the rain started to ease off, I was catching the 2 guys up ahead.
They were clearly having grip issues, and managed to drive by them later on.
I think I was a bit late (overly cautious) in pushing harder towards the end, as I was catching P6 fairly quickly.
But would have needed another 2 or 3 laps to challange @Nighttiger ahead.

Still, very happy with P7! M6 (and Me) seams to like the wet!
Will not be pitting late in the AOR race....

 

[Nighttiger]

Had a very fun race, just managed to secure a new seat, and the car handled way better in the rain than in testing. Had some good scraps with some drivers and eventually I settled in P6. Sometimes I had blitzing pace in the rain and a few laps after that I had none, but that was more down to me.

I just wanted to point out what an amazing simulator we have on our hands here. This is the first simulator that you constantly need to adjust your driving (braking, throttle, steering input) to the ever changing grip levels (which always be different even when you would do the race again in the same situations) instead of a scripted weather/grip transition which you can just memorize, you really need to improvise. For me it was amazingly challenging and fun to be aware of this and explore it! As real life drivers point out, you can have a perfect car on Friday in practice and the next day in qualifying it can handle vastly different (#lewis last race) and trying to drive around this makes the driver!
 
And a shout-out to all drivers for racing so cleanly in the first laps and these difficult conditions!!

 

[Diluvian]

Was there no stream this time? Congrats @fab. ICEMAN

 

[Jamesl91]

Was there no stream this time? Congrats @fab. ICEMAN

Jonno streamed the races last night. I will ask him to post a link to the stream @Jonno

 

[CatchAGlimpse]

 

[Mark]

Hello chaps
Did anyone other than Jonno record or stream this race? I am in need of the qualifying results for the bottom five racers but Jonnos' stream doesn't show these, only the top 17.

 

[Nakor]

This race was a good one for me. I just enjoyed racing with you all and had fun!
Starting from P15 was unfortunate, mostly my quali times are not that good mostly. (speaking for my performance level )
I somehow found out short before the race the softs were the right tires to start and also they were faster when it starts raining.
The race started and I managed to gain some positions in the dry, perhaps because of the softs and mistakes from others. When it started raining my plan was to drive with the softs as long as it is drivable. So I think i climbed up to P3. I didn't notice, my Teammate told me. But then was the time my car begann to slide a bit and I also stoped for wets. Came out as P9.
As I hadn't really prepared for the rain, i drove a bit slower than needed but at least made no big errors. But i lost some places to better rain-drivers. As we found out I could have driven many faster laps more on the softs.
Sometime later fab.iceman lapped me, but short time after this he went to the Pits.
Feanor and Elodyr were make up ground behind me, but I managed to keep them behind some laps^^. Later in the race it stopped raining. I was about P13. Then I had the 'bad' Idea to go for softs. I had not much to loose i thought, but if it had worked it would be really great. The Problem were the puddles, and mostly the new tarmac in the middle of parabolica. At the end of the race I could handle the tyres very well and could drive about the same pace as with the wets.
Finished P16 is really ok. And I enjoyed how the car handling was in these always changing conditions!

 

[Cluck]

Hello chaps
Did anyone other than Jonno record or stream this race? I am in need of the qualifying results for the bottom five racers but Jonnos' stream doesn't show these, only the top 17.

@Mark - They're uploaded into the appropriate folder now Mark

 

[m4nu]

Greetings from where ever I am

 

[m4nu]

Some videos, greetings from the upcoming Jim Clark Revival at the Hockenheimring

 

[Ashnoom]

@t0daY I don't know what's up with most of those recordings, but my left ear is happy, but my right ear feels left out :-(