SIM RACERS 4 LIFE - BT44 SEASON - ROUND 1 -SAO PAULO - REPORTS

[Ricknau]

Edit: revised after watching replay

Man that hour went fast! I qualified P17 and ended up P15. I did no pit stops. Had some great and long lasting battles with Santiago, Dan B and others. Good job everybody on lap 1 T1. Though I think there might have been a little bit of jostling it seemed pretty good as I went through. I got bumped and spun at T1 of lap 2 when Emory and Tobias tangled in an overtake move. Put me in P last. But I fought back up to mid pack with some hard racing with Mariani and Lipscomb. Got lapped on about lap 22. Then a brief defense against a faster Dan Bayford before he got me. From there on it was all about me and Santiago.

He was on my rear at about lap 25. I held him off with for several laps using defensive lines, which made him desperate. After a couple of love taps I let him by on lap 30. But then he went off on lap 31 and gave P14 back to me! Well then it was no more Mr. Niceguy. I raced as hard as I could, again taking defensive lines but made a mistake of my own on about lap 35 and gave P14 back to him. And though he didn't open a big gap I could never mount a challenge and settled for P15 at the checkers.

[Harri Mac]

I firmly but gently removed El Gato (Chairman Meow) from the room and set myself up with my noise cancelling headphones.

Qualy - not too shabby

Race - had a great battle with Ed but wore my tyres out, sorry for love tap Ed, decided to pit and finish last 12 laps on fresh tyres, it made it fun to drive again.

[1959nikos]

Re: SIM RACERS 4 LIFE - BT44 SEASON - ROUND 1 -SAU PAULO - REPORTS

Last night the DJ saved my life
from a broken car.

Really, I had terrible freezes, the car was undrivable and then DJ suggested I go lower graphics down.
It worked and in whole race no freeze!

In race I was determined not to crash with anybody so I put on my low low low profile and I didnt take even Swire's bait for battle.

No mistake in all race, all went good and when near the end Paul was pushed out, I was ready to take and keep the position putting my pedal to the metal.

I love the car, attendance was great, 27? racers, looks like it will be a great season.

Thank you SR4L!

El Gato (Chairman Meow)

lolol

[gorgias1976]

Practice
----------
I was still doing setup changes in my race setup. The final adjustment was the key for a better tire handling. The tire in worst condition at the end of the race was the right front which was at a 75% state, a lot better than I expected.

Qualy
-------
I was pushing hard for my third timing lap, I was a bit too oversteery at the 3 slowest corners. I though that was going to be a bad lap and suddenly I saw I lapped a 1:25.9
I went for a fresh set of tires and tried that same technique and I gained an extra 2 tenths.
Decided to do no more attempts and save my energies for the race.

Race
------
Had a good reaction time but dropped clutch a little too fast and lost all revs. That costed me to enter turn 1 side to side with David. By turn 2, being on the inside line I tried to give him enough space. Don't know if it was enough but we touched, he spun and I lost my speed getting out of turn 3 in 9th place (sorry about that).
I then pushed hard lap after lap and started overtaking cars until getting 3 seconds behind Rikard who was on 3rd place. Suddenly he was no longer there. It was DjC 6 seconds ahead leading the race.
I kept pushing as hard as I could just scratching a few tenths lap after lap.
By lap 25, even though the rear tires were in better condition than the front, the car started to be a bit oversteery at acceleration. I had to be very carefull with it mainly at turn 3 and at the penultimate corner as the tail wanted to jump without a warning.
10 laps to the end I was very close to DjC and at lap 8 he made some kind of mistake braking for the final corner which helped me getting behind his slipstream and overtaking him to take the final victory.

Very sweaty race and very rewarding too.... at least this race Rikard has given some options we won't have in the coming racers.

I consider this my best race in my simracing years, not because of the win, but because I've been able to do 40 qualy laps without a mistake, which feels superb.

[Hedlund]

Nice turn out! Feels good to be back.. Or well, not right now, but I'm glad the network issues are gone.

QUALI
With so little practice, I was quite happy with 4th place on the grid. I had like 8 different setups and I had no idea which one was fastest, and none of them suits my driving style. I felt like I could go back to default and it wouldn't matter... totally lost.

RACE
Bad start, lost one position but took it back in T1.. 2nd place was given to me when Coyne and Gorka spun. I tried to hang on DJ but he was too quick. After a few laps I found a better rythm and managed to keep the gap static. But I think I suffered from that I had not done more than 5-8 laps in a row in practice, because my consistency was not very good and I made many small mistakes. I felt quite uncomfortable in the car all the time. So it didn't really come as a surprise when my race ended on lap 12 (I think). Coming out from T3 I lost the rear and crashed into the armcos on the inside.. game instantly freezed. Probably a bug in the track in this specific spot, had it happened once during practice too, but that time I fell down into eternity. Suddenly all points lost..

Congrats to the podium finishers. See you all at Kyalami (hopefully I don't have to work, but I don't know).

edit: personally I would like to see a comeback for the 2 race format. It's just nice to have a 2nd chance if one race is ruined.

[bullwinkle]

well it was fun to be back qual only fair race started great for me doing good till my pit stop and a penalty set off a comedy of errors so I fell way back bad result could have been better

[edwin]

My personal best in practice was 1:27:9 or something and qualifying just isn't my thing but......

Quali:

Well like i said it just isn't my thing to hotlap so 15th it was.

Race:

Had a good start and gained 4 spots. Expected mayham in T1 but i didn't see it (great job everyone)
So P11 it was right behind Harri who was definitely faster than me but i gave it a go and try to hold on. Saw DeeCee run of at some point but expected him to show up again like he did.
People in front made mistakes and after a while i was running 8th.
Lap 25(isch) Harri was behind me and we had a battle which lasted and lasted.
In the fast sections i think i was faster but in the slow section she was faster and at one point i had a love tap from her (again np Harri)but managed to stay in front. Then i saw Harri letting DeeCee go past and a few laps later he also took a move on me which worked out for him.
Well race went on and last 5 laps i once more had a great battle with Mel. Me running defensive lines and Mel just couldn't make his move like he wanted.
In the last lap he gave it an extra shot to overtake but that also didn't work out.
So 7th it was 8)

The length of this race brought in some extra (tire management) me thinks and i have to say i like it. I get what Rikard says tho being able to get a second chance when first race is messed up. So maybe we should consider a sprint and a longer race like sprintrace 20mins(isch) and long race 40mins.

[Dan Minges]

Great race today!

The start went very well. Everyone around me was fast but careful. By the first half lap the race normalized and off we went!

The first 20 laps were uneventful. Gorka was right about the tire wear. At exactly half distance my front tires went yellow. I had settled into 6th or 5th and was trying to catch Mike Bennett without pushing the front tires too hard. I could keep him in sight but every time I got close I would make a mistake and drop back. It looked like I wouldn't catch him, so I concentrated on not screwing up and conserving the tires. Traffic was very good about letting us through! This was the best traffic driving I've seen in an online contest for some time.

The last 10 laps were quite challenging. My tire caution and usual concentration lapse errors had brought Jerry Santucci in sight behind. Time to get back to work - then I screwed up and Jerry was right on my tail! Time to forget about saving tires. It was quite a battle!

I really like the long races, and I especially like not having a pitstop requirement. This should be a fantastic season!

[gorgias1976]

I liked it that tire wear behave better than I expected. Even though the suffering by the end, David and I could lap quite consistent laptimes. Started on mid-hig 27s and progressively ended in high 29s - low 30s by the end.
Seiong this I doubt a pitstop for tires would have been any faster.
Kyalami should be less aggresive with the tires and that's good new for everyone.

[donrandom]

Great car, great track, great field! I am really glad to be back racing with you guys!

The BT44 season couldn't have started better for me. I have put some efforts working on a setup that allowed me to nurse the car over the full distance without changing tires. And it paid off.

Q – It wasn't easy to get a lap in without traffic. No wonder having 27 cars on track trying to do the same. Finally, I manages to do a 1.26.7, which was close to my PB and earned my P5 on the grid.

R – I had a good start, but took it easy in T1. However, T2 was quite a challenge seeing the 2 leading cars getting caught up. I had to brake hard to avoid Rikard and others, but somehow made it through T2 and T3. After a few laps, and after being caught and overtaken by a recovering DjC, I was running more or less on my own. For the next few laps I managed to pull a gap to Mike who ran behind me during the entire race. About a third into the race, I went into tire saving mode and managed to bring the car home in third without changing tires.

Although finishing more than 20 sec behind Gorka and DjC – grats guys! awesome racing – I am extremely satisfied earning 3rd place. What a comeback after missing the last season. However, I am aware that the podium finish was kind of gifted to me due to the struggles of Dan and Rikard.

Can't wait to see you all in Kyalami!

[lamer of fortune]

very frustrating start of the season for me.
I really enjoyed the training laps (i did quite a fefw) and felt rather comfy with the car and its setup.
I was still experimenting too much with settings in Q and did not find a good rythm, still ended up somwhere mid field with a high 1.27.
in the race I had a small collision in T2 in 2nd lap that did not feel too bad but the car s was turned into a lame duck afterwards. There was no damage indicated in the panel and repair only took 15 sec when changing tyres (it was no faster after that).
I had a bigger crash with Teammate Bruce but the car was slow before that incident alreday
I was 5-7 seconds slower than my usual lap times and could not figure out why. The car felt similar to when it was ok. Could it be the graphics here too boggingdown the computer? I had terrible warping whenever somone came close despite low ping values. Any idea.
I first though it is the fuel load but it did not change with loer fuel values.
At least I wanted to finish which was then rewarded with zero points.
After the race i did a few lasp again in race trim and was much faster again
ok lets forget about this race
Kyalami here I come!

[Harri Mac]

Tobias, I had issues with very slow car in the fun race. My graphics card is an nVidia GTX660, I have set display to:

Circuit Detail; Player Detail; Opponent Detail; Texture Detail = High
Texture Filter = 16x Anisotropic
Special Effects = Medium
Shadows; Shadow Blur; Soft Particles = Off
Rain Drops = No
Road Reflection; Environment Reflection = Low
Visible Vehicles = 10

The game ran smoothly for me this time, only pauses I had were when people join or leave the server. Don't know if this has "fixed" it but it worked.

[Mike Bennett]

Fun race! Grats to the podium!

Very pleased to just stay out of trouble and enjoy the drive. Was nice to hang on to a 4th place at the end too

Really nice turn out. Looking forward to the next one. Cheers!

[jerry 33]

good race for me. had a great time with Dan Minges - Good -Clean Racing, and I echo Dan's thought's on traffic - Very clean - especially Lapped traffic, at a track where it is hard to get out of the way - they did! Thanks guys......
Congratulation's to all! Job Well Done!

[gorgias1976]

Tobias, check as Harri says.

I think in game you can press Control+D , Control+F (or is it any other key combination?) that shows two bars on an upper corner of the screen. One shows the GPU load and the other the CPU load.
That way you can see which of the two is being overloaded.

[gorgias1976]

Tobias, I had issues with very slow car in the fun race. My graphics card is an nVidia GTX660, I have set display to:

Circuit Detail; Player Detail; Opponent Detail; Texture Detail = High
Texture Filter = 16x Anisotropic
Special Effects = Medium
Shadows; Shadow Blur; Soft Particles = Off
Rain Drops = No
Road Reflection; Environment Reflection = Low
Visible Vehicles = 10

The game ran smoothly for me this time, only pauses I had were when people join or leave the server. Don't know if this has "fixed" it but it worked.

I really struggled when I had my GTX550ti with graphics.
For the last two years I've been having a GTX760 and performance is rather good, though the BT44 seems to demand a bit more GPU than other cars, maybe because of all the big vibrations.
I'm thinking in upgrading the GPU as a self-christmash gift. Anybody will want to purchase a second hand GTX760 in a near future? ;D

A co-worker has recommended me a GTX 1060 6G. Good performance for a price around 325€ at this moment.

[sdancourt]

This seasson seems to be an outstanding one.

Qualy: Cant understand this car yet, so very slow times. Need to find the way to improve handling. P14.

Race: After two or three laps, I was between P8 and P10 behind Dan B and Jerry, car steering awful eating front tires very fast. Decided to change tires on lap 20. Bad move, go down to P15 and start a very good fight with Rick Nauman that last many laps. Nice moments. P14 in the end.

See you at Kyalami.