SIM RACERS 4 LIFE - BT44 SEASON - FINAL ROUND - BRIANZA - REPORTS

[1959nikos]

That was looong

A very enjoyable end of the season with the usuall suspect DJ picking up again the championship.

WELL DONE DJ!!



I thought I would have an easy evening, but I didnt.

Looking my own bussiness, I was driving steady, when I had the stupid idea of taking Mel at the Parabollica tucking in his slipstream.
It worked, but when I came out at his left, just at the moment I was passing him, Mel decided he needed more elbow space, so he tangled his wheels into mine.
We spun, but managed to avoid the barrier, but ended up with a huge flat spot which the wife really minded hearing.

So I went and changed tyres just in 10th lap and promised I would take it easy.

After a while I was even lapping Paul, but the bugger has colour blindness in blue so he wouldnt let me through and I stupidly spun at Parabollica, touching barrier but not much harm done.

I was in a cool and safe 13 position, with Tobias half a lap down, when, on the apex of Ascari, I pulled one hand of the wheel trying to pick some fruit from a plate.
I touched grass, car went in a terrible tank slapper, I hit opposite barrier at speed, and I started climbing the sky.

In a moment I remembered seeing at my mirrors No1 and 2 following me, and as I came down from the sky I prayed I dont come down on their heads.

I must have missed them by inches pheew.

Miraculously damage to my car wasnt fatal, but Tobias caught and passed me, still I was doing 2 seconds more every lap and as it was about middle of race I doubted I would make it to the end.

I did, to a cool 13th place, and all went cool.


Report to us how you did people.

[deecee52]

I was in a cool and safe 13 position, with Tobias half a lap down, when, on the apex of Ascari, I pulled one hand of the wheel trying to pick some fruit from a plate.
I touched grass, car went in a terrible tank slapper, I hit opposite barrier at speed, and I started climbing the sky.

In a moment I remembered seeing at my mirrors No1 and 2 following me, and as I came down from the sky I prayed I dont come down on their heads.

I must have missed them by inches pheew.

You scared the c**p out of me , i could see you in the air but couldnt judge where you would land so i went for the edge of the track and did a quick prayer that you had your flaps down to slow you ;D

[bullwinkle]

Well all hail those that finished. I was plugging right along back n forth with Ron and the leaders came up on me I tried to move out of way finally they passed me then Ramon Hit his brakes way early and I hit him sent us both off I guess he was saving tires but I did not expect that I am very sorry. Forgot to load fuel for first stint I had it for second but I messed that up then on the lap I had to finish to get points I went off track and hit end of guardrail and lost wheel 48 out of sixty and I am done darn it. DeeCee out of gas on last lap are you kidding so sorry. Congrats DJ and team champions was another great year I am not good but I enjoy it. I do hope we do two 30's with pit stops next time. My honor to do points see you all soon.

[gorgias1976]

After a while I was even lapping Paul, but the bugger has colour blindness in blue so he wouldnt let me through and I stupidly spun at Parabollica, touching barrier but not much harm done.

Not only in blue, but the whole spectrum (as my rainbowed car is painted), he also didn't like me outbraking him at Parabolica and so he made me know :-\

Qualy
-------
Having not driven the car for 4 weeks was quite noticeable in my lapping. I was losing all the time in parabolica, most probably being too aggresive at the entry.
The final minute of the session I was catching Paul's slipstream which was going to be a big one, from lesmo 2 to parabolica, but ruined it completely at lesmo 2 kissing the wall and spinning. So my time was only valid for 4th or 5th place, can't remember now.

Race
------
Determined to take the challenge of doing no pitstop I filled my car with 172 liters. My idea was to lose some places the first laps and then use the draft of one of the cars ahead to keep under his pace until half the race.
Sadly that didn't work. The car was too slow on acceleration being this heavy and every time I tried to get close to the car which had just overtaken me, my car became a nightmare to drive. No front grip at all.
The first third of the race was horrible. Due to the lack of front grip in traffic I went wide in Parabollica twice, one battling Andy and the second braking hard behind John losing big seconds, stalling the engine, restarting.... at least I didn't damage the car and could avoid trees and billboards.
Starting the second third of the race things weren't any better. The car started to suffer unexpected oversteers at Curva Grande, the worst place to have it in this track. I had to change my driving through it for the remaining of the race to avoid a crash.
As people started pitting and crashing I went up in the grid up to 5th place.
15 laps to the end I saw smoke ahead and I found Ramon in front of me in third place (Dan was no longer there or I didn't see him).
This was my best moment of the race battling him for several laps and for the final 10 laps pushing as hard as I could to avoid him catching me. I did my fastest laps of the race at that moment lapping 21.1s and pushing 100% as my tires were screaming for mercy already in the yellow (both left tires).

Dave, you didn't need to let us go through, you deserved the victory and didn't mind it was the last or first race. Thanks anyway

[argl]

Ha! Second place saved for Team Reanz! Had a PB in Q, P8 not too bad, but Harri of Team Oooot (our direct competitor in the team championship) did a stunning one for P4 or so. Luckily, first laps went well and I already was in front of Harri early on.

The usual dangerous trading of positions in the slipstreams started, and on lap 8 the inevitable happened when Harri hit me slightly in the braking for Parabolica one rare server glitch hit Harri and me and we both spun out into the gravel (see video down below). No damage, save for the tyres. I set up for a rattling first stint which went well, but I pitted early on lap 26 when I could not take the rattling any more.

Eqipped with shiny quiet new wheels I really took care to not flat spot them again. Things went swimmingly, but I noticed that Harri was directly behind me, about 5 secs back. Not directly in my slipstream yet, but eerily close. And closing in s-l-o-w-l-y, a few tenths a lap. The mother of all remote fights. Any error would mean closing the gap to slipstream distance, and then all bets would be off, so better to stay way in front. Every backmarker was a chance to get some slipstream goodness for myself and get a few tenths back. Or hit them just before the Lesmos and lose some on the all-important exit of Lesmo 2. And dont take risks. And dont flat spot the tyres, dammit! It certainly got my attention up for the duration of the race, but in the end I stayed in front and finished fourth overall, making it a 3-4 for RBR, while Oooot disintegrated with a DNF-5.

A great finale to a great season, looking forward to the 75s in the U S of A.

[Harri Mac]

Hi Andi, just so you know, I didn't hit you. In the video playback you momentarily disappeared then reappeared on my rear wing. I was spun out across the gravel of Parabolica as a result. I checked my replay to see the event and told Paul about it with some trepidation as it looked just like the problems the server had been having before. It must have been a connection issue for either or both of us at the time as no one else had this problem, thank goodness!

This is the replay from the server, as you can see, this was a no fault hit, I was driving with due care and consideration!

[youtube]CvaB-ir_1Ug[/youtube]

My tactics (the map is not the territory fully applies!) were to not be bothered about position for the first 5-10 laps to let things settle and not to crash then fight for position. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, yeah right! After the Parabolica smash I dropped to 15th place, had flat spots and bodywork damage but it was driveable so I drove until lap 30 for the scheduled pit. Finished 5th because DC dropped out.

[deecee52]

Qually

I thought this would be all about who can get a good tow fortunately I latched onto Tobias at just the right place to get a great long tow , this clinched me 2nd .

Race

Got a good start , DJ and I were alongside each other to the first corner but I had the inside line so he dropped in behind , for the next 30 laps we passed and repassed each other ,neither of us could break away .
Towards the end of the stint I appeared to pull a small gap and I had the feeling DJ was suffering with tyres , although my own tyres were worn the car felt good and my lap times were still dropping . when DJ went to pit I still had 4 laps of fuel (I had messed up on my fuel load) and I could see traffic ahead , I thought there maybe a possibility of taking time out of him , I pushed and got through the traffic and pitted .
I came out 2 secs in front of DJ and decided to push like mad striaght off to keep him out of my draft , got a little hairy through the Lesmos on cold tyres but I survived , by the end of the lap DJ had got the gap down to 1.4 but fortunately thats as close as he got .
I think we were both doing qually laps for the next 30 laps , he trying to catch my draft and me trying to keep him out of it , the gap kept opening and closing as we hit traffic . We had one big moment when we came to lap Nikos he lost it and went airborne fortunately we both got through .
On the last lap I decided not to cross the finish line as I didnt want to spoil the championship for those that had competed all season , I had a great and exciting race with DJ and I was happy with that.

[argl]

This is the replay from the server, as you can see, this was a no fault hit, I was driving with due care and consideration!

You are absolutely right, I did not watch the replay and I remember that it felt odd at the time. I did not expect it to be one of those dreaded warps/lags/glitches since the server behaved so nice lately. Bummer you had real damage from this, but you certainly were able to put a lot of pressure on me in the second half of the race!

[jerry 33]

well, last race of the season........
my plan was one stop about half way thru and conserve my tires. had a good start and kept my nose clean. i was along side Andi when he disappeared as shown in video. i thought this very odd, as i have not seen any warping for a while. On lap 11 while in 5th place in the back straight i ran over a marker that someone hit that sent me off and i had to pit and fix damage. came out in 18th place. with heavy fuel i trudged on, got up to 16th place on lap 18 and then in almost the exact same spot as earlier damage -someone spun and stopped right in front of me - Sorry - I had nowhere to go but FLY. i tried to post photo of flight but current SR4L site problems prevented me from doing so. Anywho - race over for me, another goose egg in the points column.. :-\
nice to see DC back and Classy way to bow out of race..
Big THANKS to Paul for working his butt off to fix server and to Gorka, Tim and all that made this season Happen!

[DJCruicky]

Got a good start , DJ and I were alongside each other to the first corner but I had the inside line so he dropped in behind , for the next 30 laps we passed and repassed each other ,neither of us could break away .
Towards the end of the stint I appeared to pull a small gap and I had the feeling DJ was suffering with tyres , although my own tyres were worn the car felt good and my lap times were still dropping . when DJ went to pit I still had 4 laps of fuel (I had messed up on my fuel load) and I could see traffic ahead , I thought there maybe a possibility of taking time out of him , I pushed and got through the traffic and pitted .
I came out 2 secs in front of DJ and decided to push like mad straight off to keep him out of my draft , got a little hairy through the Lesmos on cold tyres but I survived, by the end of the lap DJ had got the gap down to 1.4 but fortunately that's as close as he got .
I think we were both doing qually laps for the next 30 laps , he trying to catch my draft and me trying to keep him out of it , the gap kept opening and closing as we hit traffic. We had one big moment when we came to lap Nikos he lost it and went airborne fortunately we both got through.
On the last lap I decided not to cross the finish line as I didn't want to spoil the championship for those that had competed all season , I had a great and exciting race with DJ and I was happy with that.

I can not add much more to that, looks like you wrote my race report for me . Very nice drive. 60 laps and both kept 2 seconds most of the way.

Nikos, I know you like your flight sims, but what were you doing flying around up in the sky during a league race? it's a bad time to practice your flight technics. Can you please keep both your hobbies separate from now on please .

Another championship win this season for me. Gorka was looking good at the start of the season but with some DNF's from him, and with DC missing most races, it ended up being easy for me in the end.

See you all in the next season.
(in the mean time, don't forget Jon's Tuesday night league)

[1959nikos]

it's a bad time to practice your flight technics.

You must both admit my dive bombing has improved.

[sdancourt]

Very nice champ and very nice last race.

Thank you very much to all SR4L people who made it possible.

[dan bayford]

Just want to say thanks to all off the people who make sr4l possible and a massive thanks to my team mate for sticking by me he really does everything bar drive my car and I really appreciate it man good luck to all of you racers congratulations to DJ and all top drivers I can't wait for next season to start until then besafe all

[deecee52]

it's a bad time to practice your flight technics.

You must both admit my dive bombing has improved.

Nah ya missed us

[1959nikos]

it's a bad time to practice your flight technics.

You must both admit my dive bombing has improved.

Nah ya missed us

Next time I wont

[donrandom]

Viva SR4L! and thanks for a great season – especially to Paul, Gorka and Tim!

The race was a worthy season final: a splendid server performance, a numerous starting field, and a classic track over a full race distance.

Q – I managed a PB (1.20.3) which earned me P6 on the grid. Congrats to the top5 qualifiers like Harri.

R – I had a good start and survived Curva Grande and the Lesmos – task 1 accomplished. For the first lap or two I was challenging Gorka who obviously was on a no-pitstop-strategy. Since I was going for a stop I had to try and stay in front. I did, but only because Gorka went wide and lost some time. From then on I had Dan in front of me. It took a while but I managed to catch up with him and, after some draft dancing, I managed to pass him and to open a gap of a few seconds before going to the pits in P3.
After stopping for fuel and fresh tires I still was in front of Dan and Gorka, but I ran into quite some traffic. I was hoping to catch some draft while lapping, but timing was not on my side. Usually I was closing up just before the Lesmos and sometimes I ran into a battle for position. Ron and Tim had such a battle. I managed to lap them before Parabolica and – since we all were on overdrive reaching almost 310kph – I tried not to brake too late. Obviously Tim planned to brake later and we both spun through Parabolica (… thats racing). The car was still surprisingly drivable, only the tires were seriously offended. I found myself in P5 or 6 behind Dan and Gorka. Again I tried to keep up with Gorka, but after a few laps I had to let him go. Because Dan made a second pit stop (?) and DeeCee didn't cross the finish line (out of pure sportsmanship), I found myself again on the podium. Grats to DJ for winning the race and championship and also to Gorka for runner-up in both race and championship!

P3 in the final race and in the championship is more than I was hoping for. I am aware that my podium positions are due to the fact that DeeCee and the Hedlunds missed most of the races this season. However, as a team (RBR) Andi and I delivered a more than solid season ending up second in the team championship.

Looking forward to the F1 75 season!

[Keeper]

My first SR4L race went OK, all things considered. Never got a good tow in qualifying, and ended up 10th. Decent start until Parabolica when I did something I do far too often: Give too much room to someone and drive myself right off the track. I didn't spin but fell almost to last place.

I never took the opportunity to try a full race stint in practice so I didn't know if the tyres would last; I assumed they would. I was wrong, so having a full load of fuel was a big disadvantage and the car understeered horribly as the left front wore down.

At one point, Ricky Keene came out of the pits and seemed to have handling issues. Exiting the Lesmos he tail-slapped off to grass on the left, but as I went past, keeping well to the right, he lost it completely and shot across the track, spearing my left rear. I lost a few more spots recovering from the resulting spin, and suffered pretty good damage, but soldiered on until I finally decided the left front definitely wasn't going to make it, so pitted shortly after halfway to change it. I told the crew not to repair the damage.

I don't know if it was having only changed the left front (the only tyre showing any wear), or the rear left damage, but when I came out of the pits the car was wicked loose. And of course the more it slid, the looser it got. I was actually glad when Tim caught and overtook me so the car would tighten up in the draft. But then he had the incident with the third-place car as it lapped us, and I was alone again with a loose car.

I concentrated on late, heavy braking, hard turn-in then smooth through the corner to heat up the left front and cool down the left rear, until finally I had a neutral car again, but now 10th place was catching up to me. I still had some consistency issues in Curva Grande, occasionally having to lift a lot. When I got through it OK, I wasn't losing much or any ground to the third- and fourth-placed cars that had lapped me while I was still loose. But every time I didn't get an expected turn-in to Curva Grande, I'd lose a lot of time. Nevertheless I was able to hold position to finish 9th, though with a disappointing quickest lap of only a 21.7, I think -- a full second off what I would have expected. The damage may have slowed me a bit, as well as just not trusting the car enough to really push it.

[gorgias1976]

A shame my strategy didn't work because of the close traffic the first third of the race and thus the heavy understeer from the tubulence created by the cars in front.
In the paper it should have been as quick as doing a pitstop bringing a close battle by the end of the race.

[Harri Mac]

A shame my strategy didn't work because of the close traffic the first third of the race and thus the heavy understeer from the tubulence created by the cars in front.
In the paper it should have been as quick as doing a pitstop bringing a close battle by the end of the race.

I tried out my setups (with modification to 0 pit strategy because the weight of fuel badly affected handling) using 4x fuel and tyre wear practice races. I found that 0 stops was the slowest, 1 stop the fastest and 2 stops 2nd best. For 0 stops, the weight of the fuel slowed lap times down and increased tyre wear significantly, the understeer was abysmal! I had to rework the setup for 0 pits but I suspect that car development is not properly finished as it was almost impossible to get it setup to manage this, I just didn't have anywhere to go with tyre pressures, spring rates, etc. Having to increase other stuff in order to make the correct "shape" setup just made it very unstable as I couldn't take my settings low enough.

I'm not sure how I feel about racing another unfinished project car, 1975 F1, as a result of this season and the setup issues.

[gorgias1976]

I tried out my setups (with modification to 0 pit strategy because the weight of fuel badly affected handling) using 4x fuel and tyre wear practice races. I found that 0 stops was the slowest, 1 stop the fastest and 2 stops 2nd best. For 0 stops, the weight of the fuel slowed lap times down and increased tyre wear significantly, the understeer was abysmal! I had to rework the setup for 0 pits but I suspect that car development is not properly finished as it was almost impossible to get it setup to manage this, I just didn't have anywhere to go with tyre pressures, spring rates, etc. Having to increase other stuff in order to make the correct "shape" setup just made it very unstable as I couldn't take my settings low enough.

I'm not sure how I feel about racing another unfinished project car, 1975 F1, as a result of this season and the setup issues.

I could handle the car in the heavy start of the race, but I didn't take into account the high turbulence created from the cars ahead. If it hadn't been that high I could have kept chasing the first pack of cars, easy victory after everyone pitted.
Reality was way too far from theory, anyway, having the championship already decided doing the same as the others didn't motivate me at all.

I must still practice the F1 1975 cars. No idea how they handle, how the tires wear.....