Round 6 Zolder - Thu Dec 10, 2020

Appreciate that Phil

@Tim Muttram Don't worry mate. I didn't watch the replay yet, but I guess that our contact was really unlucky. I did take a look at Helicorsa right before the braking zone in T1, and it seemed to me I was clear on the outside. Don't know if I tightened the line by mid corner a bit too much there. I should check the replay. Unfortunately I had to wait that all the cars passed me on the virtual track map before to insert the reverse gear. I did want to go on at that point, cause you demonstrated sportmanship as ever, but that mistake during the fight with Jonzo and Phil was pretty horrible, and I was not able to forgive myself at that point after that bullxxit.

So I took a DT to atone for my sins, and then, after stopping the car on the gravel, I tightened the sackcloth on my leg and quitted the race

Sorry again for my poor performance yesterday.

That said, congrats to Tim for the championship victory, to the fast and tenacious Filip for second, and to Laurent for third place.

Well done to Toni, Mac and Jos for the Div2 champ podium. Great fights during the champ.

 

I had a good start, went a bit wide in T1, then kept to the outside not to be in the way of other cars. That meant I was on the inside (and well not the ideal line) for T2. I think Toni didn't see me as he turned in on me instead of going wide. Toni went off track and I spun because of it.. Not sure if this was a racing incident or my fault or Toni's, I'd have to watch the replay. But anyway, that meant I was in P13 I think? Tim also let me through at some point which was not necessary. I thought he wanted me to go through the traffic dangers in front instead of him risking it It's not very hard going through the field in a Div 1 car on straights. Nice overtake by Tim, I did not expect him to attack as soon and had to give him space. Happy with P3 in the end.
I had a lot of brake issues in this race. Can the brakes overheat? I ran wide a lot during the braking during the race and the brake distance seemed to be different each time.. with this many hard braking zones that made my times inconsistent.

Well done to Tim with his championship win! Great win from Filip who would have preferred more action I'm sure. He deserves second place in the standing, I also admire how he wanted to help people get the most out of the mod during the season. On his comment of me being a bit more aggressive. Perhaps yes, I thought the same after some races indeed. I'm not sure if it would have worked out or not but I could perhaps push a bit more but I also need to stay incident free. I'll work on that

Well done to Jos for staying away from incidents once again and my mate Toni for Div 2 win! Too bad we came together at the start there.

Thanks Caitlin and John and I hope our next championship won't be too long from now.

Good plan, I'd like that!

 

Really cant say i enjoyed that last round, a tough track. Nobody to fight apart from the odd Div2 car so was a very lonely race. It was brutal doing 60mins with a DD steering wheel with those chicanes, 90 degree turns and an understeering beast. I nearly dislocated my elbow in qually when the brakes snatched at the 2nd chicane and dragged me hard right without warning so drove the race with a painful left arm which didnt help. The track was noticeably quieter too with the lower turn out
But only had two spills the whole race, didnt get further than 100m at race start before someone kindly punted me hard into the armco from the spinning mess ahead of me My only other spin was when Tim caught me to lap me, i did the fatal glance in the mirror before the first chicane knowing how quick that M1 can close on me, and missed my braking point, tried tipping it in and inevitably span over the kerb hope it didnt put him off his stride...yeah right
The rest of the race was a lonely dull slog. Can only blame myself for poor car choice for this DRM season, at least a quick Div1 car could have enabled me to fight others but think i would have had a lot more fun in Div2.
Just watched the replay (shame it doesnt replay incidents like the start mayhem) but enjoyable as ever, and enjoyed the Toni v Jos battle.

Very Well done to both Div1 and Div2 champions
and big thanks to JvD for organising a fab series using these cars and Caitlan for bringing the races to life through the replays

 

@Tim Muttram Oh... well I didn't even do the proper math last night. I thought I was third finally, but just saw the points right now and 1 point? Pffff! Well, good but kind of sorry to see that for Laurent.
@Laurent Londes Well, I say more aggressive which could bring you up a bit closer for fights and wins. And that was what I needed to do in the Toyota. But still on the other hand, you were pretty successful and kept picking up all those points as I said. Turns out that the cars with that horsepower can be driven with not too much risk and still do pretty, pretty, pretty good.

But I don't want to forget to thank @Caitlin Penny and @John vd Geest for all those broadcasts that made the series even more special and hosting this in the first place!

 

Wow you guys are so far ahead of us in terms of pace. I really don't understand how. So Tim almost stopped twice to wait for Matteo which means you must have been way of the back of the pack and then you simply drive through the field. Filip nearly lapped everyone up to 7th. Wow. I'm am super impressed with you guys and super annoyed and depressed at the same time. Where the hell is the speed in this sim as its not just this mod its been all of them. I get the feeling my driving style needs to change. It's rFactor 1 all over again. For years I was off the pace and then it suddenly clicked and I began winning. I know I'm not the most talented guy in the field far from it but I'm driving the nuts of this car (possibly trying too hard). I honestly thought I was doing great until Phil showed me there was several seconds left in the Ferrari (Way to make me look bad Phil ). I know setups are not the holy grail of speed and your setups could possibly be unsuitable for us mere mortals but could you top guys post your series setups just in case were missing something. Kudos to the top 5 guys it's great having you in the series but for god sake slow down a bit you're making the rest of us look like we're driving milk floats.

 

I didn't do the math either, I noticed I lost 2nd for 1 point after the race But still, well deserved.

I think I got better with the car throughout the championship. I also did not invest much time in practicing or setup work. Yesterday's race I had issues with the braking mostly but I think I was otherwise quite on the pace.

 

Based on when I get asked to sort people out on trackdays one of the biggest problems people suffer from is carrying too much speed into a corner, or sometimes they take the theoretical 'perfect line' through a chicane but forget that doing so puts them on the wrong side of the road for the next corner.
Take a look on the last page of the Sebring race thread at the video I posted for Mark as it highlights the effectiveness of hitting your apex's at the correct speed and angle.
As I say in the text exactly how you deal with the corner is car/track specific, but you can use the video as something to work from.
While doing so I recommend turning on the stock loss/gain app (the one that shows segments and a simple moving bar graph to show where you're faster and slower + predicted laptime).
I use that heavily in practice to experiment with lines, brake and throttle points. In 20 minutes using that you can find a couple of seconds that had evaded you for days sometimes.

If your braking and lines are good (I haven't watched you in the replay to see) then another thing you could try is experimenting with gearing and gear choice - Because Grp7 cars have a massive selection of engine capacities the torque and power curves wildly vary.
In something as peaky as the Toyota or Capri you need to keep the revs high at all times or you suffer badly as the car won't pick up pace in the mid range. The larger engined cars like the Ferrari, Porsche and BMW make much more power through sheer displacement and have enviable amounts of torque.

If you watch your replay and centre on my car then a good example is turn 4 leading onto the back straight. You'll see that I take it in 3rd gear - I could use 2nd but then I have far more power than I can use on the exit, and also have to perform a change just as I'm hitting the exit kerb. It is MUCH faster to ride the wave of torque in 3rd and just mash the throttle - the only hard part is that engine braking that far down 3rd isn't enough to rotate the car on it's own so I have to use the brakes right up until the throttle point just to turn the car (additionally the M1 has fairly bad lag so I'm actually mashing the throttle before I hit my go point, I'm not sure how the Ferrari behaves in this regard - I'm heavily advantaged in the DRM series as I drive a laggy turbo car IRL so know the tricks well).

s-tracker is great too, I've lost count of the number of times I thought I'd nailed a car/track/setup only to have someone else come along and take seconds out of my previous best time. Once I know something can be done I'll then go back with the incentive to figure out how the other person did it.

 

Even if I'm not in the top 5 in this champ, I just give you an opinion by my side on these matters. First of all, I need a lot more training laps to be fast and with a constant pace during the race. Without some proper training I'd not be able to push that much and match Tim and Filip laptimes in any race. Some drivers need less laps to reach their limit, but that's not my case.
Second, but not less important, is the fact that I'm used to Assetto Corsa rather than rFactor physics, and there's surely a sensible difference in terms of driving style and braking. I had recently a race with rFactor 2, that I managed to win, but I had to keep myself busy for a couple of evenings to be able to compete with Caitlin Penny and Michal Mazurek. In my first attempts on rFactor 2 with the McLaren F1 of 1979, I raced against Gert-Jan Van Osch and Michal Mazurek, and both of them were sensibly faster than me, despite my training. So, I guess it's more a matter of habit. I never had a race against Gert on Assetto Corsa, so I don't know how fast he is on this sim, but watching at Michal Mazurek races in the DRM champ, you can see his troubles in keeping the pace of the fastest drivers in many races. Add to this that DRM cars aren't so easy to manage cause to be fast you need to be always in a "controlled drift" style, and braking and tyre temps are not so easy to manage, that means you'll need a bit of time to adapt your usual driving style to a new sim.
I would be glad to share my setups, but I don't spend so much time in setting the car on any sim usually, and my setups are pretty close to the defaults, except for small adjustments to tyre pressures, wings, gearings, anti roll bar, and differential setting sometimes. Once I can brake properly and put down the power down on the rear tyres I'm usually satisfied. Time improvements, at least for me, comes only after I manage to do a series of laps in row at a constant pace.

To be honest, as I wrote in the past, I'm amazed by some of you jumping from a sim to another in a couple of days with such good pace and results. That is pretty remarkable

Edit: After reding Tim's more technical post, I absolutely underline his point about the excessive speed people sometimes carries into the corner. That's surely the main point to focus on a mod like this. I was usually a latebraker, and Tim know this very well I guess, but I had to change my mind after watching him driving and after some suggestions of my friend Gavino. I noticed that this was my most frequent mistake, and that will cost you some tenths per lap. The focus must always be on put your right foot as fast as possible on throttle. That video by Tim is truly explicative about this

 

@Laurent Londes i was so happy surviving T1 and as going into T2 was really happy. Im second, gonna run into sunset and noone sees me anymore.
That said, I had no clue you were there. Surely would have gone wider.

 

The final race of the championship and a second win (shame Suzuka wasn't part of the series) that felt great!
It wasn't a walk in the park, in spite of the events on T1 and my escape from the faster Lancias. I need to check but I think the Escort has been the only car running in absolute P2 position on a race for a good 10 to 20mins! That obviously finished as soon as the div1s composed themselves after the mayhem on T1. I knew the Lancias had more pace but I had accumulated a considerable advantage in the first few laps... However, the process of being overtaken by slightly faster div1s really slowed me down. I was very cautious not to have a crash with them and ruin my chances for a second win with the Escort...
With this slowed-down pace, @Toni Talvitie was catching up quickly. I could see that on the map and thought that conserving my tyres for the unavoidable battle would be, strategically, my best chance for a win, knowing that I could use my defensive skills better with more tyres and the Escort 100% turbo...
Preparing for that before the race, I configured a couple of buttons to put the turbo up and down on the wheel as Zolder doesn't give you much time to press the 9/0 in the keyboard... It worked well and you can see in the video how frantic I was to gain a bit of an advantage and keep Toni behind on the most dangerous part of the track where the Lancia had clearly the advantage.
I appreciate Toni wanted to win the race like a champ but, checking replays, there was a bit of an excess of eagerness in his overtaking attempts... There was no lack of sportsmanship though as he waited after the events and we were lucky @Mac Shepherd was far behind after her drive-through due to the events at the beginning of the race...
All in all, another fantastic race involving a good performance, extracting the most I could from the Escort and a bit of luck (always important - but they say that luck needs to find you working...).
Finally, recognition to my teammate @Maxime Tendil that has endured a car he was struggling with but committed to the series and stayed in it (which is very important in my view to keep quality and overall relevance of championships). The car was difficult this time but we will be fighting together again in races to come. For me, one of the highlights of this series is to have established our team: Crank of Brothers that will surely be a contender in the future.
Thanks again to @John vd Geest and @Caitlin Penny and all the best to everyone involved. See you in the next championship.
Here, the video of the race for those willing to catch up on the interminable battle with Toni for P1:

 

Aaah too bad really, we could both have driven into the sunset (well me almost, Filip was still ahead) No honestly I saw it was you and I expected we would both make the corner but if you didn't see me that explains it. It is a pretty wide corner, I must have been out of your view indeed.

 

I didnt even know you had posted a video, sorry Tim, i didnt see the notification/alert will go back and check it out. And thanks for taking the time.

 

question, how did Phil Brown and Matteo pick up 20 and 18 points respectively for Zolder when both were DNF's from about lap 3? Surely you should earn no points for a DNF?
(not digging those two a hole, just curious as i was surprised to see Phil was same points behind me as the last round in the final champ positions). is that just an end of season anomally or has happened all season? Might make the table a bit different

 

I agree with you Mark, and I don't care too much at my champ results, but this happened during all the season. Is enough to take a look to the race results of the previous races. Even if the driver has completed only 1 lap, he collected point as a finisher. Don't know if the result can be amended by John or other admins, but I will consider it a fair improvement. Even if the pointing system, to be honest on another side, should be a bit more balanced toward the race winner, instead that on constance in placement. Like is that of today F1 to do an example. You have 1st classified with 25 points, and the second get only 18 points. There are 7 points of difference between 1st and 2nd. I retain this gap more fair as an incentive to reach the 1st position in a race. Only 4 points of gap between 1st and second, are honestly a bit unfair IMO.
A driver who wins 5 races on 6 and cannot join only 1 race, cannot be beaten by a good driver that manage to do only 2nd and 3rd places during the champ. That's just my opinion however. I won't abandon this place if you don't agree anyway

 

I don't know what to say about that, apart that crashes are part of racing, even online, and that sxxt happens sometimes. I'm referring purely to the pointing system as an incentive for the driver to have a real advantage in terms of points after winning a race. In my example, that is not specifically related to any champ going on in SRO, your guess would be the only race in which the dominator of the champ had some issue (that 1 race on 6). If the pointing system were "right", and you had won the previous 5 races, you should not be beaten by a mistake caused by another driver, nor rewarded with points for a race that you barely managed to start. But anyway, in the main real world championship pointing system, a driver that win the first 5 races, will have nobody able to contend his title in the overall championship standings, even if he result as DNF without taking points in that last race.

It's just a matter of different views. I'm not saying that mine is better, but I guess is more adherent to real world competition standings. That's it

 

got to say i dont agree with drivers earning full whack points if they DNF, where is the incentive to race until the end? Losing points to contact is always painful but thats what penalties are there for, to deter people from incidents in the first place. I may as well have parked up after those guys finished early and saved myself an hours effort whilst still gaining same points....as an example.
Hadnt noticed this system in place until today.

 

If we do series with more races, let's say 10 rounds, point system work much better that these 6 round "mini" series....

 

I tend to agree with @Matteo Santini in this. When reflecting on the championship point system that applies in SRO, I've come to the conclusion whether this was intentional or not, that this point system favors online participation over position. I suppose the DNF with points also encourages drivers to appear and start racing (once you are there, why not give it a go...). I think there is a reason for this considering simdrivers approach generally.
I'm personally more driven by a race to race competition rather than looking into a full championship although I haven't been here long enough to test this properly. However, I'm keeping an eye on the two champs I've been running (the DRM one where I missed one race due to a fault with my shifter and the first race at Brands Hatch with the tyres issues amongst other things...) Those two races killed any chances to get higher in the champ. Similarly, in the Historic F3 races in rF2... I've missed two races due to the shifter issue and no chances to get up on the championship... But I understand the adaptation of the point system to encourage participation and constancy if that's the intention.