Zandvoort reports

[deecee52]

Cant say I really liked this track / car combo , the inherrent understeer of the Williams meant I had to make the back slide to get the laptimes , this punished the rear tyres , the fronts were already being hammered by the understeer so tyre wear was going to determine the race for me .
Sods law said the Hard drive where RF2 is stored decided to give up on Friday so all my setups were lost - BUGGER

Qually

Had a few runs to get the time , it was very easy to push too hard and take the life out of the tyres , had to get a grip and calm myself before the times started coming . Got 3rd

Race

Got an OK start and went into turn 1 alongside Ramon , unfortunately we both wanted the same bit of track in the little kink and we interlocked wheels, Ramon bounced off to the side and I desperately tried to get the car striaght and slowed for the next corner , unfortunately for me I got a double hit from Ramon and Dan Tani which put me into the wall , car was damaged and understeering like mad.
I chased after the pack and made a few places as others had problems and dropped in behind Andi , stayed this way for a couple of laps but then I managed to get inside him at Vodaphonebocht and was alongside on the approach to the chicane , I must have been unsited to Andi as he suddenly swooped over and pushed me into the wall where I got more damage , but as ever the Gentleman driver he is , he pulled over and gave the place back .
I was now chasing Ramon but I couldnt live with him , my car was swopping between understeer and oversteer and the tyres were melting , decided to get as many laps as I could out of them before I had to stop , but I only lasted a couple of more laps .
Went into pitstop and got repairs 54s came out in 12th , I then tried to drive as quick as possible whilst trying to preserve the tyres , very frustrating but I managed to last until my scheduled stop , came out in 7th and started to chase down Marwin who was 30 secs up the road , I gradually reeled him in and then had a nice little fight for a few laps to get past , whilst this was going on we came across JP recovering from an off and he rejoined behind us but like last time no blue flags ??? , I gave way and carried on battling with Marwin until he made an error that let me pass , finished in 6th -PHEW

For your info guys, Steam backed up all my files all 50gig of them so restoring was quite painless , BUT , it doesnt save your player files , setups or skins so you may want to do a backup of these before disaster strikes

[bullwinkle]

Well not sure what is happening to my computer it has been flawless but yesterday I lost connection a few times then got into the race. I was 10 in Qual which was ok for me. In race I was trod ding along in my fashion and suddenly my screen jumped to windowed mode and my screen was flickering and was hard to see then I looked and my FPS had gone from its usual 130 and was down to 31. Lost my concentration and a bunch of time when is jumped so I had to get out. Not good fun. Sorry DeeCee

[argl]

I chased after the pack and made a few places as others had problems and dropped in behind Andi , stayed this way for a couple of laps but then I managed to get inside him at Vodaphonebocht and was alongside on the approach to the chicane , I must have been unsited to Andi as he suddenly swooped over and pushed me into the wall where I got more damage , but as ever the Gentleman driver he is , he pulled over and gave the place back .

Ah that was you, I am so sorry, total brainfade on my side. I was distracted and did not look where I was going for some reason. Totally moronic move on my side, embarrassing. Happy that you could continue.

Other than that, I got what I deserved for not practicing, 10th after I lost the front wing in another incident. It was good to have a more technical track after all those high speed adventures, but without sufficient time on track I usually run out of talent pretty fast. Grats to my team mate who managed a well-deserved 4th!

[Bruce]

Quiet race for me. I think I went off track a couple of times but no damage. Did the whole race without stopping so got a good view of the racing as I was passed by small groups scrapping it out, with Crew Chief giving me updates of lead changes off etc. The front two where very close and I tried not to cause and problems for those passing me, I did get a small tap once, sorry for that. I was happy racing against myself and the track

Have been racing here (virtually) for years, since the days of GPL and I don't seem to be much faster than I was last century. I did a 1min 31.27sec in a Brabham BT24 back in the day; this time I did a 1min 39.23 in a Brabham BT48. I know the track is bit different from 1967, but the fastest GPL guys are in the 1min 22s (in the '67 GPL cars).

EDIT: just checked the times on the GPL Rank.

[gorgias1976]

I could watch the race live from the spectator side of view. Nice battles for positions all the way.
Very well deserved 3rd place by Daniel earned on track.
Very good pitstop strategy by David stopping three laps earlier in his second pitstop and getting the fresher tire advantage to get back the lead (bad luck for the fuel miscalculation)
Congrats to JP for a big win .

[gorgias1976]

Another thing I wanted to say. If you win the race, drive the full lap back to the pits (maybe do some doughnuts too) as you'll get the full attention of the cameras of the live stream)

[J-P SImard]

Tight in qualif as in usual, it is always interesting because we know that we are close enough to the limit.

DJC took the lead at the start and the fight was constant during the first stints but we were of similar speed, there was no chance of overtaking. I did the undercut during the first stop which made me resume the first but DJ caught up with me quickly and passed the second relay in my gearbox.

I knew he was going to try to stop earlier and I wanted to get ahead of my own stop , but I didn't think he would stop soon like that. After that i pushed like crazy but unfortunately I hadn't called the pits in time and my team was not ready. So I did another lap but I got stuck behind another car which I learned had no blue flag.

Naturally I came out behind DJ and I knew that if I wanted to win I would have to overtake him on the track and I tried to put a little pressure on him but he made no mistake. It was impossible to overtake and my only chance was outside on the tarzan turn. The first attempt did not work and during my 2nd I unfortunately made a spin.

At that moment I knew that the race was lost but unfortunately for DJ he had to stop to put gasoline which gave me the victory. It's a shame for him because he deserved the victory, he fought well but I'm happy to win because I worked hard me too.

It was a superb race, both front and rear, congratulations to all the drivers.

[cookie]

sorry i bumped you tim , i was trying to race you but based on qauli i should not have been able to keep up so it did seem you were having issues and very much off your pace

the renault was the bomb on the front straight but lost too much ground in the slow parts , it was very hard to carry speed behind other cars but there was some good racing and the team finished ahead of those wacky guys still ....still bummed about all the williams idiots , single minded old farts

good to see my former teamate Rick around too !!! where the heck is mel , i know he is out there

[bullwinkle]

John if you bumped me while all the crap was going on with my computer I didn't even know it but thanks anyway. Leave us old Williams guys alone lol