Round 5 Charade long

Been practicing on Charade ...challenging but really like it. Need to have some times to aim for

 

3:06.6 so far. Really tricky track.

 

Unfortunately I had a busy week without any chance to do a single lap.
Just watched the video at the top of this thread, and I'm doubtful I'll learn the track in 30 mins.
So, if I'll be abe to come back well before the start of the qualif session to do some laps and learn the circuit I'll join the race, otherwise I'll watch the race from a privileged seat.

Even if I already know how it will end... In any case... See you tomorrow

 

It's definitely a pretty hard track to learn. There are so many odd bumps everywhere.

 

It's a fun track to hotlap but I'm not sure about it as a race track.. we'll see tonight.

 

Now I suddenly can't get below 3:10! I've no idea what I'm doing wrong.

 

Sorry for the lack of stream last week. We're back this week with live qualifying and racing! Good luck guys!

 

Qualified in P3. Was 8 tenths faster on my last lap but went off. Either way it was not enough to improve as the top 2 were 2 seconds quicker..

When the lights went on for the start I depressed the clutch and applied a little bit of throttle. The car advanced a bit and I got a drive-through. Don't understand why, maybe because the track is slightly downhill where I started, only thing I could think of. That caused me to miss the lights out and some cars got past. Slight contact from Mac Sheperd on the straight.. then on the next turn I'm on the tail of John. Unfortunately Bill Grewcock hit me from the back there sending me in the fields. I tried to get back on track (once I found it again) but there seems to be an invisible wall between the poles. I left the race there.. Massively disappointed by this

 

Yes Laurent ... it was the slightest of taps but it upset your car enough to send you right off the track ... my sincere apologies, I saw in my mirror that you went off so I did a drive through . Other than that it was a fairly lonely race for me with many excursions onto the grass. In the final couple of laps Louis came within reach and it was great fun trying to catch him but to no avail and I ended up in P8

Good job as usual by Caitlin with a very interesting broadcast

 

Really wasn't looking forward to this race because I'm not a huge fan of the long, twisty road circuits we've raced on so far. Struggled again in practice to set the car up but eventually found some really good things to change just before qualy. Screwed up on 3/4 of my laps in qualifying by outbraking myself twice at the hairpin and then running out of fuel on my final lap. Could have probably gone up to a second faster but not much more than that.

Had a great start from 7th on the grid and got past @John vd Geest immediately before getting great traction out of T1 and making a move on @Laurent Londes with a little bit of contact in the process. A few of the leaders made mistakes and I managed to get up to 3rd before I made a mistake myself and went back down to 7th. Apart from the start it was a fairly dull race but I just spent the time on track trying different gears and lines for corners to see what was faster. Manged to get in a fairly good rhythm by the end of the race and was catching John but didn't have time to get fully up to the back of him. Happy with finishing 5th though.

Congrats to the podium and all the finishers

 

It was a really difficult race. I had the usual fps problems, but in any case I managed to race. I need a new PC, mod tracks are often very heavy.

My race was not clean and not with a costant pass. I did laps every time in different way, doing small mistakes always and everywhere: one time too inside, the ather time too outside, etc. The Cooper was absolutly dangerous in the central part of track, where it flies. Almost uncontrollable.
I started well and I fought with John for long time. I did a grass-outing and he passed me. Then, after several laps I re-passed him, taking the 3rd final position. It was a great battle!

Jukka and Tim did another fantastic fight, I enjoyed the battle on streaming.

Congrats to all.

 

That was an utterly fantastic race.
I went into it without bothering to do any practice with a qualifying setup - on a track this long and complex it's a waste of time to try and qualify until race day IMO - especially as my wheel had started playing up again on Weds and I was expecting a repeat of the race at Deutchlandring as a result.
Getting the Honda upto about 5th in the charts on full tanks was more than enough to satisfy me so I just carried on with race practice.
I made a small error in actual qualifying as a result and forgot to raise the rev limit, this would have been worth some time in several locations - but as I hadn't bothered practicing on low fuel I doubt I'd have gone any higher than 3rd.

I've come to the conclusion after this round that Jukka is actually a cat posing as a person, as he definitely appears to have a number of lives available to him for getting out of major errors!

The start went perfectly for me with everyone deciding to fall off, but after a while Jukka's car lightened and I made a few minor mistakes - including over heating my rear tires (which was a big problem as to maintain speed I had to drift more, which only made them hotter ).
In the end I managed to cool them enough to slide around less and go faster again, only to slightly mess up under braking at about the halfway point - Jukka took the chance and was straight through!

After that I concentrated on re-catching Jukka, there are several points where the power of the Honda might even allow me to re-pass without an error on his part - although I never got that opportunity.
I'm still annoyed at myself for the slight off after passing Jukka in the closing stages - I was on the wrong side of the road on full throttle and hit a bump that isn't there on the opposite side of the road, this caused the car to snap left onto the grass and I had to back off to save it. Jukka used another of his 9 lives to get back in front of me and I resumed chasing again....

A few laps later I locked the wrong wheel while dropping down the hill into the sharp right hand hairpin, as a result instead of over-rotating right and allowing me to drift through the corners usual my car jumped left and threw me at the scenery. I don't remember hitting anything (hard at least) but the recovery cost me about 3 seconds - with 5 minutes left to run I knew I was now out of the running short of a major error on Jukka's part.
On the final lap I came flying through a twisty section only to see something green on the grass by the road, my heartrate rose until on the next straight I could look at S-tracker and realised it had been a Brabham - presumably getting over to make lapping easier for Jukka and myself.

Despite throwing away a potential win that probably has to be my favourite round so far, aside from the first 5 or 10 minutes I was in a close battle for the entire distance - and once you 'get' the track and learn where you need to feather the throttle, and where it's safe to leave it floored the track becomes an immensely enjoyable challenge.

Well done to Jukka for the win, Fabri for 3rd, and to all of the finishers who managed to cling on until the end. And a big bad luck to Laurent - what a way to exit the race.
Big thanks to Caitlin for the broadcast - although I should add that Charade is still functional today,as opposed to being closed. It's popular for trackdays and historic racing still (In fact it's pretty high on my list for when my track car actually becomes reliable again).

Assuming I can keep out of the fields and avoid the killer telegraph poles then Longford might favour the Honda (I hope!), even if not then I'm still looking forward to it - see you all next Friday.

 

cleaning my glasses put them on to see that the red lights went out. To my horror I hadnt pressed drive button so I was put into pits with controls locked for 30 secs. Totally scunnered,(scottish word). Im just not getting this, I used to be an ok racer but now I am way off the pace . Doing 3.17 in practice . Changed gearing a little and do a 3.11 in quali.
I dont have a clue what I am doing so wrong to be at the bottom of the grid every week.
I will keep going for a bit longer though and try to figure this out

 

Just a thought, but check your inputs. At some point I was also abnormally slow and it turned out I had a little bit of brake on all the time. Check your brake and throttle inputs.

 

I did ok for 8 laps and then got slightly sideways coming out of the final turn, touched the wall, and... uhm...