rFactor 2 Round 3 Belgium 66

Could it be clashing with the rfmod from the race we did here two years ago?

 

Not one for the records as the final result was pretty much decided on the first lap of the race but one that I'll keep as my first win at SRO (hope there will be more!). It wasn't great that @Caitlin Penny and @Paul Anstey couldn't make it into the race...(hope those technical issues are resolved for the next race). Qually was quite good with @Otto Skypala and @Gert-Jan van Osch pretty close and my first time on the 4:17's (though quite high). I was confused at the start as Gert-Jan didn't seem to get on and Otto was slowly moving before the green flag (nothing serious though) but I managed to overtake both Gert-Jan and Otto and take the lead of the race (that felt good).
Otto seemed in a hurry to take the lead and the pressure was brutal... Until we reached the terrific Stavelot and Otto overcommitted... That was it. I got some damage on the collision but, although I lost a lot of speed, I could continue the race (I understand Gert-Jan and Otto were heavily affected . I had enough speed to manage the distance with @Jens Roos and the remaining 10.5 laps were careful drive-management to the end. Congrats to the podium, thanks to @Ken Jagger for setting up the series and see you at Kyalami.
Here the video of the race (as far as it was of interest to watch):

 

Congrats on your first SO win, Jos. Thanks for being so friendly today.

 

SRO*

 

Had to take a call during my quali lap and subsequently messed up.
Had a good start with some great side by side racing until I had to back off for yellow flags at Stavelot and lost a place Continued but was then clipped from behind sending me off track into the trees and retirement Apologies received by pm but looking at the replay it was just one of those unfortunate racing incidents.

A shame as I was really looking forward to this one. Old Spa is one of my favourite tracks and the reason I bought rF2 when it came out. Went there a few years ago and gave my old Saab a ragging around what remains of the track one morning before the cows were up. Hope we get to race there again soon.

 

Cool. Maybe even 3 races using the F3, F2 and F1 variants of the Eve/Spark cars.

 

My recap:
I had a super setup for this race great speed and easy to handle. I qualified on pole, with 3 cars within 0.2s (Otto and Jos). I messed up the start, because I forgot to select 1st gear on the grid and revd the engine into the limiter when the flag dropped. I quickly shifted in 1st gear and continued in 3rd behind Jos and Otto. Halfway on lap 1Otto and Jos were side by side attacking like mad men on cold tyres and I already expected a big crash to happen so I backed off a bit. Otto cut the corner and crashed into the building and I ran into the hay bail that crossed the road, which caused me to crash underneath the ambulance beside the road.

I was able to recover from that dead last with damage on all four corners with the car fishtailing all over the place. I went into the pit for a 69s repair job. After it was repaired I was half a lap down on on Jos. I continued trying to catch up but knew I was to far behind to catch, but hoping to benefit if other driver would make mistakes. However this did not happen, but I closed the gap from 1:15s to 23s to the car in front of me.

I was really beeped off that I could not get a good result due to 1st lap incident. If I did not ruin my start I might have been ahead and had a smooth race but that is all in hindsight. I was looking forward to an exciting 45 minute close race with great slipstreaming battles, but it never came to this.

Better luck next time. To finish first you first have to finish... Congrats Jos on your first victory, it is well deserved.