Split 2 - General Chat (3 Viewers)

[UnstopaPaul]

So...who's looking forward to snow? Or maybe a thunderstorm?

On that note - just how random is random when it follows a set condition. Is it "anything goes" or does it branch possibilities from the previous weather (e.g. heavy rain or cloud are more likely than snow or fog)

 

[Dama_The_Crow]

Weather will be announced last day, or maybe in the briefing, I can't remember exactly, because we had that situation in PC1 league. There will be no snow

 

[Cluck]

So...who's looking forward to snow? Or maybe a thunderstorm?

View attachment 3857

On that note - just how random is random when it follows a set condition. Is it "anything goes" or does it branch possibilities from the previous weather (e.g. heavy rain or cloud are more likely than snow or fog)

We don't use the in-game 'Random' weather, we use RSR's patent-pending 'Random Weather Wheel Spinner of Excitement™' . The way it usually works is that we live stream a wheel of fortune being spun, upon which are all the weather slots minus those involving Snow. We usually do this during the driver briefing

EDIT : Just to add, we also usually do this 'per split' so it is not necessarily the case that Split 2 will get the same weather as Split 1

EDIT : Just to add, I'm wrong . See the reply 2 posts down

 

[UnstopaPaul]

We don't use the in-game 'Random' weather, we use RSR's patent-pending 'Random Weather Wheel Spinner of Excitement™' . The way it usually works is that we live stream a wheel of fortune being spun, upon which are all the weather slots minus those involving Snow. We usually do this during the driver briefing

EDIT : Just to add, we also usually do this 'per split' so it is not necessarily the case that Split 2 will get the same weather as Split 1

I'd probably take "thunderstorm" out too, since you know, we don't actually have any stewards or safety cars , but that's great, thanks for the info. Should be fun seeing what each split gets.

 

[m4nu]

I'd probably take "thunderstorm" out too, since you know, we don't actually have any stewards or safety cars , but that's great, thanks for the info. Should be fun seeing what each split gets.

Both splits gets the same random slot

 

[SteveO916]

whats wrong with leaving snow in? unless the season is set to snow you don't get snow on the ground* only in the air.....
and racing in Thunderstorms is fun! (as long as everybody drives to the conditions)

*and racing on snow is fun too!

 

[Cluck]

whats wrong with leaving snow in? unless the season is set to snow you don't get snow on the ground* only in the air.....
and racing in Thunderstorms is fun! (as long as everybody drives to the conditions)

*and racing on snow is fun too!

We save snow racing for fun nights only

We have indeed raced in thunderstorm conditions before, most notably it was the random weather slot for Split 1 in the Brands Hatch race in Season 2, when we ran the Caterham SP300

 

[FuBii]

That was a long race. So many pit stops

 

[UnstopaPaul]

Hi @Admins - when can we expect the calendar/forum thread for Bathurst so we can start telling tales of how dangerous the mountain is?

 

[Invincible]

I am scared. Those walls all over the hill section... They... they... *whispers* ...are evil...

 

[benimi]

Giving the fact that the track I was least looking forward to (Hockenheim) was my strongest pace wise, I don't know if I want to look forward to Mount Panorama. I'd like to look forward, but not looking forward might the key to my pace

 

[Invincible]

. I'd like to look forward, but not looking forward might the key to my pace

Same applied for Sakitto for me. I wasn't prepared well and didn't really want to race, but had a blast and P2 in the end.

 

[Michael]

Is there any final decision about the re-schedule of Split 2 to Sunday? There was a poll, but no official announcement in that regard.

 

[Invincible]

Is there any final decision about the re-schedule of Split 2 to Sunday? There was a poll, but no official announcement in that regard.

I hope it won't be re-scheduled. Because if it is, I most likely won't be able to join.

 

[Michael]

I hope it won't be re-scheduled. Because if it is, I most likely won't be able to join.

I was quite happy about it 'cause of the commentated stream for Split 2, on the other hand I haven't done a single lap yet, so a day more for practice won't be the worst option.

 

[Jamesl91]

I hope it won't be re-scheduled. Because if it is, I most likely won't be able to join.

Split 2s final race will go ahead as originally planned.

 

[Ranjanado]

Has dates changed to Sunday?
Or will it remain on Monday??
A little confused.com

 

[UnstopaPaul]

Has dates changed to Sunday?
Or will it remain on Monday??
A little confused.com

as per the calendar and other threads - it's Monday as originally planned.

 

[Jamesl91]

Split 2s final race will go ahead as planned.

@Ranjanado That's the Official confirmation Race will go ahead as scheduled

 

[UnstopaPaul]

So now the dust has settled, it's time to reflect on my first season with RSR. Where to start?

I really came into this championship with very little expectation, but a lot of desire to improve. When the season was announced at the beginning of Feb I was very much on the fence as to whether I should enter at all, having only done a few unranked events which had generally ended in a lot of bumps and bruises. Having bitten the bullet and entered though I was fairly determined to not embarrass myself. So I set about trying to work out how to do the first track (Monza) and try and select a car. The Time Trial in the Corvette was a big distraction. I mostly learnt I didn't want to drive the corvette!

I have to say that my goals for the season were fairly basic.

• No DNS/DNFs.
• Try to finish above 17th in the table, thus exceeding my "AM" status.

It's at this point I have to give a massive shout out to @SBart_uk . I'd been watching his PRD practice and asked a few questions (it's actually how I ended up joining RSR in the first place). His offer to help me out learning the ropes really changed my attitude to the season, and accelerated my learning way beyond what I would have been able to pick up in isolation. Though we sadly didn't end up being team mates as planned, being in separate splits, we still continued to work together.

Monza
I realised that I might be onto something at the end of the qualifying session. The fact that the Radgie Gadgies had qualified 1 and 2 on the grid was awesome, but I was pretty terrified. I'd never been this far up the grid in any race (I was actually very thankful NOT to be pole). The infamous "Turn 1 at Monza" incident set me back, and nerves continued to get to me as I ended up in probably the most comedic incident of the season, reversing into Darksi. A pretty decent recovery into 5th left me wondering had I already squandered the best chance of the season, but on reflection very happy that I had very much outperformed my own expectation.

Silverstone
After the fairly standard conditions and straightforward track of Monza, Silverstone seemed a very daunting beast. Complex turns with compromised lines and the promise of the great flood itself was rather overwhelming. I practiced solely for the wet, as I was going off nearly every corner on the Tuesday, with the result that I could stay on track, if a little slow, but had sacrificed my qualification attempts to do so. Sadly 11th on the grid turned out to be exactly where a corvette wanted to land ("Car on TOP"), and though I almost survived the impact, the followup shunts from the pack left me facing backwards and having to watch every car pass me before I could rejoin safely. Despite all that I managed to hunt down the pack to finish a fairly credible 12th place. Chasing down and passing cars was actually pretty enjoyable, and I comforted myself that this was how the rest of the season was likely to go for me.

Sakitto
This was really the turning point for the season for me. It was a controversial track for many reasons, including the a lack of downforce when in slipstream, a risky pit entry and the chance of falling through the world! My teammate @Stokemon had been powering through the races with a first and second (and only second having been taken out in the same T1 Monza incident that I was). A series of unfortunate events (real life, connection issues etc) resulted in the entire top four in the table either not starting or not finishing. The cat was well and truly away. At the same time I had also found Sakitto to be a very enjoyable track (when there are no cars on it), and a newly found enjoyment of hot-lapping emerged. I decided that I really didn't fancy the zero-downforce fun of racing behind other cars, and that the only way to avoid it was to be pole position. I believe in my quest to achieve pole I ran something like 560 laps of Sakitto. I probably don't want to do that again...

Actually winning Sakitto was many acts of fortune, including a fairly unfortunate spin by the leader @Invincible only a few laps before the end, gifting me back first place. The net result though was that, given the many missing racers, I was suddenly among the top runners in the table.

Watkin's Glen
There are several reasons I didn't (and shouldn't) win the championship, but the one most directly under my control was Watkin's Glen. I can't say I like this track, I don't see the big fuss about it, but even so I managed to qualify 4th. Having sneaked a cheeky place in the opening laps from @xImJakeyy , who was struggling with the last chicane, and having clear air to both 2nd and 4th I should have been able to settle into rhythm and quietly take 3rd. A stupid, stupid spin in the heel with no one around me caused damage and cost me about 18 places as I went in for repairs. Having fought back well and looking for every point I could get, I discovered the magic teleporting @Shepard, and he and I had a philosophical discussion about the nature of high speed impact physics. Unbelievably I managed to struggle back to 9th, but this race was really many points gone begging.

Hockenheim
I like Hockenheim. I also like it better in the dry. It has some non-intuitive lines, but once you work them out it's a rewarding, rhythmic track. The complication of "Light Rain -> Random" meant that my brute force approach to preparing was pretty taxed, but with lots of combinations explored I had a pretty good option for whichever condition was picked. I'd tested tyres to destruction and had realised that you could take them well into wet conditions before switching. I intended to use this secret knowledge to get 2 or 3 extra laps of soft pace before switching, while everyone else panicked and overheated their wets in nearly dry conditions. I felt pretty clever until I learnt later that @fab. ICEMAN had taken the same approach, but just turned it up to 11.

Feeling a little ambitious after some good practice times, @Stokemon and I even discussed team strategy for the race, a first for us, and I have to say, it was pretty cool to even be considering such a thing. We agreed that in the event of us both being in the front row, that we would not contest each other directly, and particularly focus on pulling away from the pack rather than slowing each other down. If Stokemon proved faster, we would arrange a safe pass on parabolika, and not mess about anywhere else on the track.

I have to say there is little better than preparing a strategy, and executing it exactly. We qualified 1-2. I sped off in the dry, proving the worth of my practice. The rain came and I gained about 5-7 or so extra seconds as everyone pitted earlier. @Stokemon caught me in the rain, and I let him pass cleanly on parabolika. When the track started to dry I had already practiced handling the wets in those conditions and new how to manage them, having already decided that the change back to softs would not work out overall on net time. With @Ashnoom about 24 seconds ahead, I knew I could afford to sacrifice some time to safety in each remaining lap, though I had not expected him to push me that close. Honestly, the only thing that could have gone better would have been to be faster than @Stokemon in the wet too, but we can't have everything Another P2 and my championship was well and truly on!

Bathurst
The Mountain. The Beast. Murder-of-Cars. Devourer of Paintwork. Ok, maybe a little over the top, but that video got me both pumped and scared. Both were probably necessary. If every video or day at work had a video like that in front of it, I'd treat every day like my last.

Again preparation was the by-word. With over 300 laps booked in, I'd identified that I could handle the soft tyres way longer than most people were suggesting, and that I could run them all the way through the expected conditions. With that in mind I verified that they would still be faster than the hards even after some degradation (they were), so I planned a late single stop onto fresh softs. The major benefits of this were: If I was in the lead, it was still faster to stay on those softs than taking the hards too early (people were saying the softs were going to be ruined before the track was actually warm enough for the hards), if I was behind then I could safely pass them via pit strategy, while coming out with tyres that (I hoped) were significantly faster than what everyone else said they could use.

Qualifying was tough - 2 minute laps and cold conditions meant a realistic maximum of 3-4 hot laps, assuming you could find the clear air. Fortunately everyone else appear the same trouble, and the qualifying times were really not what I was expecting across the board. I'd hoped to dip into the 2:00.xxx, mostly to prove @FuBii 's predictions correct. Still, Pole position and job done.

Despite some very nervy first laps and giving the lead away to my main competitor for 2nd in the championship, @Dama_The_Crow, the strategy once more went according to plan and I jumped Dama via the pitstop and then had a half second advantage on tyres for the remainder of the race. I won't lie, it was a very heart racing last few laps, praying for no incidents ahead of me, and honestly I would have given away first rather than risking my overall result, but fortune seemed to shine on my and despite at least a couple of what Manu describes as "Code Brown" moments I got through to the end intact. A P1 to end the season really capped of a great few months of racing.

If anyone had dared to tell me I'd be second in the championship at the end of the season, I'd have told them to calm down. Actually, there is one guy who kept telling me I could win it. Thanks @SBart_uk for continuing to chivvy me do to better.

For amusement I tried to work out some stats on my practice, I'm well aware I probably over-do it and possibly I'm just a try hard. Stats aren't too easy to get in Project Cars 2, but clearly they're recorded, as you can see your top 3 of things, and the odometer for each car is recorded. Given that I'd never touched the GTE class before the season announcement, I can happily say that I have driven 16,913.15km over 4 days, 20 hours and 50 minutes in the car, approximately 3000 laps, and the front seat of the Ford is now slightly sweatier than when I started.

On that note....I've just put this up on auto trader. Anyone interested?