Round 6 österreichring 1979 chicane

As for my race, finally for the first time had the chance to race those Group C Prototypes, and I wasnt dissapointed.
Really consuming racing, a great challenge.
My setup was fine for the tires in the long run, and the car was well balanced.
Had some great and hard fights, in the first half with Davide, and on the final part with John. I enjoyed a lot those battles, despite a mistake that cost me a lot of time in the final half of the race. That was really unnecessary from me!
The chase on John was really interesting. I was driving my best but either traffic, or some car off track, kept standing on the way and dropping me back. Sometimes small mistakes from me, also. I knew he had ballast, so most likely more tire wear, so I kept pushing. A little mistake from him close to the end of the race was enough for me to take 6th, where I finished. Really wanted this Top 6.

In love with this class.

 

That was a hard race... First I suffered from AC crashing, which I figured out it was a GPU issue, I overclocked it too much, wasn't stable. At the mid of the quali I had to reduce the clock to stock and than everything went fine... I was just testing the limit of this GPU on OC and forgot to bring it back to stock... There was no need to do it, as AC runs here at 130 FPS maxed out (excepting for the reflections, I reduce it because it annoys me... the bodywork looks like a mirror. Kunos exaggerated a bit)

Q: Crappy, for the aforementioned reasons... crashed twice, (AC once and I crashed once, lol) lost my best lap. I guess P3 or P4 would be possible.

R: It was a perfect drive, one of my best to date, but the 90 kg of ballast just made the car get 2 seconds off the pace. P4 was the best possible here, P3 would be a dream and it almost happened, but the tyres gave up and Johnny passed me. The last lap was really slow for me, I couldn't even keep a decent race line, had no traction and grip on the corners, AT ALL.
But it was a good race, with awesome door to door battles with Toni and Johnny.



PS: for the broadcaster, Mazdas don't have to pit, just save a bit of fuel... neither do C9 at slower tracks, e.g., Goodwood, Bikernieki and Interlagos. On the other hand, the 962 likes a good sip of gas. Which was a way Kunos find to balance the Gr. C... since the Mazda used more than 10 liters of fuel per lap at LM, lol.
PS2: John, want to go back to the 962? I'm thinking about switching to the Mazda for the last race too

 

hehe

 

Welcome to the club, gentlemen... the C9 drives like a London double decker even with no ballast. At least it's a beast on the straights, while the Mazda is just plain bad, lol.

 

No Problem mate, we are here to have fun, this things can happen especially with this kind of cars. To be honest though, you wasn't ahead at that point, we were side by side and seems to me you lost control of your car invading my race space and "leaned" on my car pushing me on the armco, without doing it on purpose of course, but that contact could've been avoided, in the end Motorsport is a no contact sport.
That's what I could see from the broadcast, I don't have a replay to verify in details tho. I guess I've just been extremely unlucky in that occasion.
But Again, we are here to enjoy racing all together like mates.... so no problem at all... cheers...

 

Really enjoyed last nights race, had to push hard to try and build a gap to Phil which nearly ended in disaster lapping Denis as he tried to block me and put me in the barrier despite being a lap down, suffered a bit of bodywork damage as a result but still managed to maintain a good race pace and rebuild the gap to Phil. Very pleased and suprised with the win, I look forward to racing you all again at kylami.