Argentina race reports

[deecee52]

The new season got of to a good start for me and SR4L , we had a great turnout and apart from the minor hiccup at the start a well run event.

On the subject of the start , I personally thought in this instance a restart was valid , we had a new inexperienced member in his first big league race who made a cockup , we have all been there at some time , It didnt affect anyones race or alter the results and it certainly didnt make SR4L look unproffessional so hopefully its a lesson learned .



I could lap quickly here but not consistently I was finding the temps on the rears just kept climbing until by lap 12 the grip disappeared , on the basis of that I decided a high downforce setup and 3 short stints was the way to go .

My start was OK went into turn 1 alongside ED in the Ferrari but came out of 2 just ahead , I tried to hug the rear of JP for the draft as I expected ED to blast past me with the Ferraris power , luckily JP pulled me along , I harrased JP as best as I could but couldnt pass him on the striaght due to my higher downforce but I was all over him in the complex , buy lap 3 he appeared to be sliding a lot so I kept myself big in his mirrors and managed to get past when he had an unlucky moment with a backmarker , I was now in clear air where I wanted to be so just pushed as much as the tyres would let me , Anti and the Williams powered ED were long gone so I new unless they hit tyre trouble I was fighting for 3rd , first stint went ok pitted in 3 rd came out in 6th behind Eds Ferrari which I quickly caught and passed when he visited the scenery , worked my way back to 3rd and again pitted , this time I came out 4th behind Andi , I now had a very enjoyable dice , I caught Andi but couldnt get past , on the striaghts I could draft alongside but as soon as I pulled out he just pulled back ahead , all I could do was crawl all over him in the complex and hope he spent too much time looking in the mirrors and made a mistake , I eventually got past on the brakes at the end of the striaght , after that I just brought it home .

[lamer of fortune]

I was looking forward to the start of the season.
The dull looking circuit in the end was quite challenging and interesting to drive. Never looked that much onto the tyre temperatures.
Start issues have been discussed already and maybe it was getting out fine in the first attempt and then being hit and entangled in the second start what made me feel sour about it.
Setup wise I choos 3/3 wing for the Brabham which felt to be on the safe side temperature wise for the full distance. I was aware that I wont be even close with that to the fast times but might be able to drive it home and as such it worked out for me.
For some laps I was stuck behind G. Roth who was quite fast on the straights but really slow in the wide righthander. I did not dare to prove my luck on the inside as I needed the full width of the track at the end of the turn and that would have taken us both out.
I left that to Ramon who was approaching from behind and tried his luck on the inside with foreseeable results. I could overtake both cars that went off track and though to myself that this was exactly wwhat I was waiting for. I was on 10th place for a few laps but then lost the front wing when i lost concentration for a moment and had to go for an unplanned stop. Still ok with the result at P13. I am happy to have made it to the finish line. Whenever the tyres went over 110 i really had to take it slow in the combination after the straight. Not sure how the fast guys dealt with that.

[bullwinkle]

not much to say really but I was ok with letting the guy back in at start first race only. I had an ok race some fun passing guys got passed a lot and had one bad moment where I killed Ramon I am so sorry and I hope you know it was just me being a bad driver. Also hope I did not hurt anyone too bad as I was being lapped.

[cookie]

i was hit by a car re entering the track after an accident at turn 1 - 50 second pit stop to repair damage ruined my race

[Tygernoot]

After a mixed performance in the March last season, I wanted to improve by getting more consistent results and making less mistakes. I did a reasonable amount of laps to prepare, getting to learn the car and track, and as the track's grip levels kept improving, the lap times kept going down. It's a fun track and I hadn't driven here since the Ubisoft days of F1RS/MGPRS2, which must have been some 20 years ago

I was expecting better lap times, but the grip levels appeared to have dropped a bit in the league server and we didn't improve over the training times. I expected a tough qualifying, and was surprised to see LRT to take the front row. I thought I had pole position with a gap of 0.04, and didn't go out for some final laps, until Antti beat my laptime by 0.01 in his very last lap haha. Good fun.

I got the hang of the car, but one thing I never managed to get right was the tyre management. After 4 laps the inside of the rear left kept heating up and no way to get the temps down. Even doing a 2-stop was going to be a struggle. I was unsure whether I could make it to 12 laps. In all my tests I overcooked the tyres with small slides and couldn't drop the temps anymore. My teammate Antti was doing better in race pace, which meant my driving style just didn't suit the tyres at all. We tried different setup changes on Saturday night for me, but to no avail. I was just going to have to wing it.

With a lighter car and a slightly better start I was in 1st position into T1. I pushed as hard as possible in the first few laps until the tyres would give up to get the biggest possible gap. After that it was tip-toeing around the track, keeping away from any dangerous curbs and avoiding any possible slides. Amazingly I made it to the first pit stop without problems and keeping a reasonable pace. I caught up with Antti before his first stop, but made one vital mistake.
Going into the slowest hairpin I suddenly couldn't turn... the car was just going straight on, I wondered whether I had a puncture or something similar, but then I noticed I was still in 3rd gear... Argh. I spun on the slippery runoff and lost 7 seconds. This meant after my second stop I came out behind Antti again who was apparently struggling on his 1-stop strategy.

There's no "multi 21" at LRT, but I also didn't want to ruin our potential 1-2. I was planning on trying to overtake Antti, but otherwise back off till the end of the race, and see what would happen when the tyres dropped. After 2 laps I saw my teammate sliding off at full speed in the 3rd corner! Noooooooo! Luckily he was able to continue without too much damage, and we had enough lead on P3 to make it to the finish.

Perfect result for the first race, and although we had a pretty dominant win, it definitely wasn't easy. I guess all that practice paid off, and I am very much looking forward to the next race. I do hope the field will equalise a bit, as I was expecting a lot more competition.

[argl]

Q left me a second short of my PB in training. I could not put a decent lap together, also the tyres usually gave up on me after two laps anyway. But I was in the upper third of the field, so I can not complain too much. The chaos of the first start did not bother me, nobody really lost out because of it, but it would have been a shame if it would not have ben restarted.

Anyway, I got away well, no incidents on the first laps. There was some interesting stuff going on with the long straights where a slipstream pass is always possible, so I sneakily re-passed faster cars a few times. Luckily for me, some of those got entangled in their own arguments, so after a while I found myself in P4-ish position and tried to settle into a rhythm. The big question for me: I started on mixed tyres, hard on the front and soft on the rear, but the in-car pitstop menu did only show a global soft/hard selection for all 4 wheels. So which ones would I get on my 1-stop strategy? I pitted on lap 18 and I could feel that the car behaved differently, so it was soft all around eventually. Whatever, I tried to concentrate on the driving, not slip too much, and keeping up a consistent (albeit slow) pace. I was lapping in the 1:43s, if I remember correctly. Through pitstops (and mishaps?) of others, I found myself in third place even! Only to find that DC rejoined from the pitlane just behind me and immediately made some pressure. But on those straights, when I thought that he would pass me easily in the slipstream, he pulled out and just could not get past . And in the complex, I was trying not to open doors too wide. That continued for a nice while, but I felt that I could not really keep this until the end, I was already making too many small errors that hurt my tyres. So when DC passed me finally on the entry of T3, I was a bit relieved. I had a tiny contact with Marwin while lapping, but no damage done and I did finish in a glorious P4 with what I am very satisfied.

Teamy Ramon did not fare as well, but bravely soldiered on to P7 with a car severely damaged in the very early phase of the race.

All in all not sure if those tyre games are really my thing, this rubber is really quite unforgiving, overheat them once and you never get them back. But its the same for all and those cars are quite a challenge. The track is OK, the graphics are too dated for me and its such a featureless terrain! I am not really a big fan, but it has grown on me a bit. Its not an easy thing to master.

Grats to the podium people, I was miles off your pace (as usual).

[J-P SImard]

On my side a very bad start, an DNF is the worst result wi can have.

I was missing some speed on this track, I have my 3rd place on the grid at the draw I had following David, and obviously I had the rear tires heating up.
Also, I was completely wrong on my race strategy by going on a hard tire on 1 stop so I was very slow at the start of the race but my top speed allowed me to keep Dave behind. I unfortunately had a confusion with a bacmarker and I damaged the front of my car and Ed took advantage to pass.

The rest of my race was very painful, I had no more speed and I was getting over all sides. I finally lost control on the outside of turn # 3 while Dan was passing me inside.

In short, a race to forget but congratulations to the winner and all the participants. A beautiful grid.

[donrandom]

had one bad moment where I killed Ramon I am so sorry ...

no worries … I pretend to be unkillable .-)

My race was already doomed at the start. I was forced off before I turned my wheel into T1 and consequently joined the field dead last and with a slightly distorted car. After the second crash seemed to have straighten the car (in a way), I continued my race and had quite some fun making some ground to finish in P7. Good points for the team!

Above all I am glad to back on the grid after a longer break and I am looking fwd having a great season racing with you guys!