Round 4 Interlagos 1975

Thanks all for the race! No emotion...

 

I did a very good race, despite one little mistake, defended my position very well, it was almost fun... but the car wasn't meant for this track, it was performing pathetically. I think the weight penalty penalizes the C9 more than the rest, especially because of the car characteristics, super fast on the straights and awful on braking and cornering, and that is what the ballast attacks, the gap to the top Porsches and Mazdas is getting bigger and bigger... now with 70 kg, it'll be interesting.

Q: it was very good, and above my expectations, as I did a 31.9 offline. I maybe lost 1 tenth at "Bico de Pato" and "Junção", but there wasn't much to improve.

R: Starting from P6 I didn't have hopes for a podium finish, luckily P4. I had two strategies at the table, the fastest and the smartest, I chose the latter. The fastest was to divide the race in 2, using mediums. It would be 1,5 - 2 s faster per lap, but I would lose track position... and, due to the slowness of this car, I wouln't be able to regain the positions lost during the pit. That said, I decided to go on hards, without the need to pit, as the C9 has a decent fuel economy (10% better than the 962, but 10% worse than the 787) and this track wasn't imposing a big wear to the rear tyres. So, during the first half of the race, a traffic jam was formed behind me, since the other cars were a lot faster than me, but were unable to complete the overtake.
Halfway to the end I saw myself in P5, after Jeroen overtook me, but I wasn't concerned, because he would have to pit.. so, the goal, P4, was within reach... 5 minutes later Larry and Toni had an incident and I was P2!!! Davide was pressing me, and eventually I made a small mistake, went wide at the hairpin and lost the position, which I got back again, at the end of the big straight... after that, he made a mistake and I just brought the ("freaking" diabolic) kid home in P2.
At least the gap to John is still doable (with a LOT of luck).

Congrats to all participants, it was a good, clean and close race on the mid-pack. Congrats to John, who was untouchable yesterday.

 

Some comments about the track...
I'm the probably the only one here who has already driven on the actual Interlagos (the new one, obviously, but the middle of sector 2 is still the same)... I must say the real track is more hilly than this version, especially "Laranjinha", "Pinheirinho" and "Mergulho". Laranjinha/Laranja is a completely blind corner, very hard to find the best line... and on this version it was possible to "see" the entire corner. But it was very good reproduction.

The negative point were the guardrails... I crashed offline a couple (dozen, lol) of times on "Curva do Café" (the one just before the start/finish line) and it generated some very weird, unnatural crashes, just like that "fences", especially those located at T1, which were acting like a wall (on an oval circuit, to be specific)... maybe the barriers still need a bit of work to be perfect.

PS: Putting that "fences" on the runoff areas was pretty moronic by the organizers, lol

 

I only managed a handful of practice laps before the event and it really showed. Sorry. Hoping work will calm down a bit now and I can find some more spare time.

By default the car had horrible understeer. Just didn't want to turn into the corners. Quickly made some adjustments which helped but in the end I got stuck in some mesh gaps on the track and then got stuck in one of the catch fences. Which dropped me back to the pits. So I lost a couple of laps almost immediately. Didn't have repair damage switched on so couldn't continue. Otherwise I would have been happy just for a finish.

Well done John. Great work as usual.

I can't make the Austria round but I'll spend a few hours on Watkins Glenn this afternoon to at least get a handle on these cars.

 

Yeah I could never understand the idea of catch fencing. If you've ever seen YouTube videos of drivers hitting these things they were the worst safety idea ever. Drivers get trapped, marshals can't get to the cars. Crazy really.

 

Great stuff Yesterday, that was fun !! Not a ideal track for the Merc but I managed to finish the race, big achievement with that understeering-nobraking-oversteering-1000hbp monster We had a great race with Pablo, I gave him some pressure until he made a small mistake loosing 2nd position, than he put pressure on me and at the end of the first straight my 5th gear didn't engage ( yes I use clutch ) and he passed me taking back p2. So I build up pressure again but this time Pablo's car was "shaking" for high ping probably and I got deceived by the weird movement and I crashed, luckily I was able to finish the race anyway. Can't wait next one !!

Well done all, congrats John and Pablo

 

My mazda setup

Someone asked how i keep it up with Porsches and for my setup.
Theres probably some tweaks and tricks I dont know about since this was my 2nd ever race in AssettoCorsa, but for these
I have practiced more than usual ( Got time to, on holiday and usually dont really have time so dont practice ).
So answer is to practice practice practice and test test test how you can go faster.
Then sleep over it and go half a second faster next day.

 

I use the clutch too... missed the 2nd to 3rd a couple of times... engaged 5th instead, nothing that some boost (and I love using it) can't make up for... but 4th to 5th is a problem. I noticed you lost some speed in the middle of the straight.

Sorry for the ping issues, nothing I can do about it, as I'm 15000 km away from the server...

 

Hey no problem mate, it's actually a miracle we can race together at this distance Congrats Pablo great driving !!

 

Not really my day, had problems to keep my concentration up. Denis Eshchenko overtook me in the formation lap and I had really no clue what to do. Because he did it very confident and showed no sign of giving me the place back.
Then I tried to overtake him but he probably did not had seen me and we did come together. Later I crashed and got stuck. Which meant the end of the race.
Hoping for a better result next time.

 

how many people were battling with lag/ping?
i was watching many cars jump around, hit them twice, then exited.
i cant drive like that.

this series really is bad luck to me

 

yes, okes dont seem to realise that the grid is staggered and the guy in front of you is actually to the side(diagonally)

 

i cannot protest, it didnt happen to me.