FKR GT3 Round 4 Dubai Post race & screens

today had a lot of problems with the steering wheel, could take difficult turns

 

Ok, well I've calmed down a little from last night. Was feeling very tired but gave it my best shot.

Just couldn't string a lap together without going over track limits which was becoming a major pain. Sometimes it took just two wheels on a kerb to upset it. So I gave up trying to set a lap in qualifying. I did some practice earlier in the week and was in the 59's and managed a low 58 at one point although I think i was just lucky with that one! lol

Start went ok, avoided the carnage on the first lap and ended up behind Rob for most of the race. I'm not sure but I guess we were both falling foul of penalties because sometimes I would take two seconds out of you and then I would have to back off myself and the gap went out again.

I was probably one lap too late for wets but the car was not great in the wet track conditions, however the game did look amazing in the wet.

Noticed the reflections disappear from the track and just went for soft slicks as soon as I dared. The car was transformed and right back on the money, unfortunately I couldn't make enough of a dent into those in front of me to take advantage.

I then started to suffer with engine damage, I think I must of not had the opening wide enough, I was up to 12 with five minutes to go and the car felt like it was not pulling very well. Bruce was catching me quickly and I was pushing like crazy to stay ahead, caught a stream across the track on the last lap and binned it. Totally my mistake and I was very annoyed with myself.

Well done to the winners and finishers, great job.

Not sure whether to continue with the league or not. Not because I don't enjoy it but because it's always on my weekend in at work, so I do two fourteen hour days before racing on Saturday (I finish at 1am and then up again at 6am for daytime work) and my concentration is not great. Anyway I'll give it another go and fingers crossed this one goes ok

 

Andrew, I hope you stick with it as I love having a full track and you've had great sportsmanship and clean racing all around. If you don't though, I totally understand as that's a grueling schedule for sure.

 

@Andrew Harper you were unlucky to lose it when hitting those puddles that remained on the track, I was very wary of them. The last two laps would have been interesting had you remained on track, it was a pleasure racing with you in Dubai so i hope you continue

 

Qualifying went well for me as I managed to start in P3, but I definitely spent more time practicing and setting up the car than I ever have before.



At the start of the race, Dario (P4) got a better launch than me and he kept it tidy down the inside through turn 1.



Later on the first lap, Gyorgy ran wide pushing track limits and and searching for speed, but he took out the first (100) braking marker, which you can see exploding in a puff of white below.


I didn't realize the marker was gone until the next lap, when I blew past my braking point as I was using that marker as my reference. Lesson learned, pick permanent references for braking points.


This cost me a good 4-5 seconds to Dario and thus began my slow crawl back to try and challenge for a podium. 30-40 minutes later, and just two laps before the rain came, I had finally caught back up to Dario.


I didn't adjust to the rain quite as quickly as Dario and he started pulling away, but we both still had plenty of grip and continued to push on for 2-3 laps after the rain started.


As we were in the middle of a great battle, the sportsmanship and quality of car control from the lapped traffic we encountered in the wet was superb! I very much appreciated the level of gentlemen drivers who managed to not impact our battle, even in the rain.

 

However, three laps after the rain came, Dario lost it at the heavy braking zone and we nearly collided as I managed to finally make the pass.


High on adrenaline at this point, I thought I'd push it one more lap to try and build a gap as Dario pitted for Wet tires, however, that proved to be a mistake as I was sliding all over the place as the rain picked up, but I did manage to lead the race for 1 whole lap!
When I finally went into the pits, I nearly lost it.


In the rain, I had pretty good pace and was hunting down Gyorgy for P2, which you can see him 3-4 seconds ahead in the shots below, but while trying to pass a lapped car and really put the pressure on him, I took a different line than usual and lost it over one of the big puddles.


This spin managed to overheat my rear tires and that coupled with the rain slowing down meant that there was less water & cooling effect for them. However, Gyorgy and P2 were still slower than me, which caused me to push too hard and resulted in two more spins the next lap and I ended up giving up P3 to Dario as I found myself facing the wrong way on track at the same spot where I had passed him earlier.

At this point, Dario and I both headed into the pits for some Hard Slicks, but this would be as close I got to him for the rest of the race as again, he managed much faster and more consistent lap times while the conditions were still damp.


We both managed to pass Gyorgy while he was in the pits, as I'm assuming he stayed out on his Wet tires for too long. Overall, I'm very happy with a P3 finish as this race had some very fun battles and the challenge of dealing with the weather was great! Hats off to Dario and James as they were much faster and more consistent than I. Congratulations!

 

I used to race with the gentlemans Club Racing, which then became Revolution Sim racing and there was always this one driver who would deliberately take out the braking markers to take away the help it gives. its a low unsporting thing to do .

 

Yeah I was well impressed with myself after that little mess up! lol

I was trying to drive straight and on the inside line (where it appeared there was less water) so I was trying to straight line it each time rather than apply any steering input. Not sure but I may have put a tiny bit of left steering on and that was it, I wasn't even full throttle which is annoying.

I also may have made a mistake going to soft slicks after the rain stopped. Only did that assuming they would gain temps quicker on a damp track but they were starting to suffer at the end so hard compound would have been better.

Have to say though the weather effects are really nice and looked very good. Reminds me of the Grand Prix games, the sort of live track effect, very cool.

Oh I'll be there for the next one. I had the same issue with most of the RD leagues, they always fell on the Saturday when I did a double load of work!

Pleasure racing with you too my friend, I see you are P3 in the championship at the moment, awesome job

 

Oh wow, that's pretty sneaky tactics! lol. How odd that someone would stoop that low.

 

As you may, or may not, know I had huge problems with the FFB for my first pCars2 race at Road America. With the help of SRO members I thought I had got that sorted out using the Jack Spade solution. And with the offline tests the FFB was good.
Then came the race. The feeling that I had offline was no longer there. It was as though the calibration kept changing. For example, during the race I would come out of a corner and straighten up for the straight and my wheel would sometimes be at angle. If anyone has an answer? For info I have a Fanatec CSL Elite and I do not have this problem with AC.

 

Not as yet. Will check it out. Thanks Rob.