This is a great track and one I'd not visited before or even heard of for that matter. Well done Ken for finding it. I was a bit worried as the track limits seems easily met whilst having 2 wheels on the track but as it transpired I didn't have any problems with it. Qualy : Saw Jens put in a sub 1:38 during practice so wasn't hopefully. Sadly for Jens his connection went out so with a low 1:38 I took pole. Lucky I think. Part 1 - tick. Race: Got a great start and defended into T1 and I pulled over a half second lead at the end of the first lap. On lap 4 or 5 made a slight error in the slow section and Jens was alongside me in a flash. Thankfully he did push the advantage. From that moment on I always kept a couple seconds lead. From halfway onwards I turned off the info on the screen something I get easily distracted by and put my head down. I have to say even if it is blowing my own trumpet that was a bloody good drive and I'm well stoked - As my Aussie brother would say. One round left and I think 9 points adrift. Part 2 - tick. Fastest lap - added bonus. Well done to Jens and Bill for the podium places Well done to rest of you guys On to Assen an excellent circuit.
During the first half of the race I was able to maintain pace with Jens and so I was happy to circulate in a comfortable P3 but then suddenly my wheel felt like it was only turning the car at about half the normal rate and I spent a couple of laps understeering at every corner until I got used to the much larger inputs required. This cost me around 0.5 to 1 sec per lap for the second half of the race but fortunately the gap to P4 was fairly stable at around 10 sec. Congrats to Paul and Jens, it looks like the Championship battle continues to the final round
I've always had a problem with this car when changing down from 3rd to 2nd. For some unrealistic reason, it tends to partially lock the rear axle when changing down at a slower speed than when doing it at a higher speed. It's hard to change your driving style to accommodate such behaviour. I was using the setup I ran at Oulton Park 2 weeks ago, when the car was the sweetest handling I've had in the series so far, but it just wasn't working here, suffering understeer at both low and high speed. I tried my normal setup changes to try and fix it, but ran out of time before the race to sort it out, so had to take a stab at a couple of damper changes going into the race itself. For the first few laps it felt OK, but then I had the down-change problem occur, after which the under-steer then joined in, so it was hard to try and run some consistent laps and catch Ed, never mind Csaba, Philipp etc. A very strange race for me, but I agree with Paul that it's a great track and I'll certainly use it again in future.
Nice track, have not visit this track in any sim, nicely done and on pair with reiza track. Noted as Paul above, the track limit could be an issue but had none of them during the race. Had sub 38 in practice and a low 38 on 1st qualy stint. But then that have happen almost every time lately, the screen went black when I went back on track. Only remedy is to reboot computer. Maybe I try re-install after the finals to see if it helps. Got back with 30s to go, Paul got the pole with 0.016s margin, good for him, bad for me Got close to side by side with Paul after his little mistake, but had to fold back. Kept the gap around 4s to Paul but did 2 to minor mistakes losing 6-7s in total. But Paul had a solid drive just a little bit faster so I need him to do a mistake, but he did not. A very solid stint by Paul here, congrats Also great run by Bill securing 3rd, and all other fellow racers! Simresults can be found here as well: https://simresults.net/190313-V3J As noted in chat, it's not over until the fat lady sings, final run in 2 weeks
Not much to say to the race itself, qualified couple a tenths ahead of Ken in fith. My start was good but on the outside I had no crack against Ramon. Even worse Ken got beside on the inside and I opened up my line which cost me P5. I nearly lost the car at the next turn but I had a problems to got into a rythm, Csaba nearly passed me by getting alongside but I kept my foot in. Then Ken lost his car and from that on it was a three way fight between Ramon, me and Csaba. Intense but not a thriller, we kept pressure on each other but nobody from us cracked. I agree with Ken, the car is a bit odd especially on braking, not easy to adapt and the understeering does not help as well. For this circuit I had the feeling the window for the "ideal line" was really slim. So it really depends on the circuit what how the car behaves and obviously how good a driver can cope with that. Looking forward to the last round, seems Csaba and I will battle it out on P6.
I agree with everyone that the track was awesome. Never heard of this track before but it's a great layout. Blackstone was great also, but the problems with the invisible "somethings" ruined it. I had severe fps problems but solved it lowering the clipplanes. About the race, well I started 4th and finished 4th so... Finally a race without incidents for me, after the big deception of Nogaro where I ruined my race with a stupid mistake. I had to do the entire race at full throttle because when I made a mistake in some corner, Philipp approached to 3s, so I think we were all doing our best, he to catch me and I to try to mantain the gap. Nice result for me at the end, and looking forward to the last one at Assen, where I also never raced before. I'll try to catch Ken for the final step in the podium so let's have fun!
Sorry Ken I should have shared my setup. I found this when changing from 2nd to 1st but it did allow me to flick the car around the corner in the slower corner at the end of the lap. This is usually caused by the gear ratios being too far apart. So if you change down too quickly before the revs have died then the rear locks up. I'm not technical enough to explain this precisely. But try closer gear ratios it's a theory nice to know if its a good theory
That's the odd thing as I said, it seemed to happen the other way around i.e. high-rev downchange = OK, low-rev downchange=locking rear. I did try lengthening 1st/2nd gear ratios but it made it a bit slower coming off the turns. The under-steer was probably because I had to dial in extra coast % on the diff to stop the snap at the rear effect, although then again it was power-on oversteer not power-off. All very unusual.
