Round 2 Autodrome Lago Maggiore GP - Fri Jan 29, 2021

That was so fun to watch John , you made my morning ,hhaahhahaha ..,great video !

 

I’m struggling to join the server. Just says unable to join. Any ideas?

Edit.. seems to be my download of the mod, I can’t join single player either. I’ll redownload

 

I've re-downloaded. Deleted the old file and saved the new one into tracks but it still can't load the track. It can see all the layouts etc, just says race cancelled when it opens. I'm not sure where to go to try and fix this?

 

I downloaded it from this site. I’ve downloaded the new one but it now says ‘circuit is missing’

 

Ok, at least I know it's definitely my end then, thanks. I'll keep trying

 

I've got it working now. I did a fresh install of assetto corsa. I installed the custom shaders patch which i didnt have before so i think it may have been something to do with that

 

I had a bit of a nightmare at first, with forgetting some parts of the track after some laps I took last week. But the race was again great with everyone having a shot at this. Absolutely no problem, John I saw (heard) what was going on, so I was prepared for a shunt. It's a nasty downhill turn in and braking zone. Just didn't want anyone to spin out and end it in all tears hhaha I had edgy moments almost blowing up the engine with miss-shifts down for the banked right hand hairpin, and also several little contacts. Mostly with a lack of judgement where the other car is at the moment and how much room there is. I race on a single screen and sometimes Helicorsa doesn't do the close racing justice. I had a contact with Maxime out of that same last turn, first time going for the lead. I was trying to hold the inside line and gassed it for the exit but I didn't notice the car started understeering a bit and that we had a contact. Didn't feel that contact at all, otherwise I would've let you go there, Maxime. Well, I lost the lead soon after anyway, so had to try again. But the tires are doing their punishing if sliding and wheelspinning too much. I rather try to slow down in time and coast at some parts and load the front tires as much as possible through turns, instead of using the brake and gas too much to help it turn in and out of turns. It's hard to resist to gas it however when racing close. It seems that I had just a lap or 2 laps more life in the tires at best, because I wasn't so hard on them at the start, but they were also pretty done with good grip, couple of laps before the finish.

 

I was surprised with the pole in qualy. These new tracks that I don't know well are not the best ones to set the pace. I prefer chasing and learning from the race-faster drivers in these tracks. Lago Maggiore is also a complex track. Quite technical I'd say.
I had a good exit and took a slight advantage benefiting from the fights behind. @Tom Fowler closed the gap but @Maxime Tendil (my teammate) was really charging for the top spot. I wasn't sharp and Maxime overtook me quite easily in T5, where he follows quite a different line. That early in the race, I thought it would be good. I could follow Maxime and, with luck, leave behind the rest of the pack. It started like that, actually after some struggles to follow him. We opened a gap with P3 and I thought, if we could team up well and keep the pace, we would decide the top spot at the end of the race...
But @Filip Stoyanovich had a different plan and Maxime started to struggle a bit so we found ourselves losing time unintentionally by messing up a bit our own lines. Filip caught us and, as usual, was very fast and difficult to contain. Took P2 and I decided to keep a low profile and see how the fight between Maxime and him evolved... Perhaps I could have a chance in the middle of their battle. At some point that looked plausible but, I got distracted with a message from my CrewChief and found myself having to correct like hell to avoid leaving the track. Lost a few secs and, other than by a miracle, all chances for P1 or P2.
Maxime would correct this though by having an awkward moment and losing the F50 in a very unlikely place. That gave me a P2 as long as I kept the car on track... A good race in general although this was one without the spark and eagerness for the battling... Probably it worked best to keep a good result.
Enjoy the video of the race:

 

@John vd Geest,
I mentioned that we had some thoughts for you to consider and we would share them on the forum.
@Filip Stoyanovich, @Maxime Tendil and I stayed chatting a bit after the race at Lago Maggiore and reflected on a few issues that are affecting this series in our opinion...

1. The F50 tyres don't really last the race but the length of the event doesn't help and stopping to change tyres is not an option as time lost at pitstop cannot be recovered in time by the end of the race... No matter how much tyre management you do, the last five or more laps are on red tyres and that kills hugely the chances for sustaining a 'safe' fight to the end of the race (generally). I believe if the race was a bit shorter or tyre lasted a bit more, it would be still fun, but ice skating for the last 5 laps in every race is a fun killer in my opinion. I think with the similar pace we have in this series, we would be running battles to the wire if we kept more grip in the last 15mins of the race.
So I would humbly suggest for consideration that this is addressed to make events more fun by:
a) Forcing a mandatory stop to change tyres for everyone. This would introduce a bit of strategy gaming and keep the fun for longer although I appreciate pitstops don't come without their own issues.
b) Increasing the tyre wear in the server (i.e. same as above but without the mandatory element although more balance to allow somone's pitstop strategy to properly compete with the risk takers of not changing tyres.
c) Decrease the tyre wear in the server so that tyres last a bit longer and we don't swap to ice skating that soon in the race.

2. The second issue was about the tyre blankets... There was consensus amongst us three that it would be better not to have that artificial aid early in the race. We really cannot afford the tyre blankets

3. And finally, track grip. There was a suggestion to start at 95% and slightly increase the grip without necessarily reaching saturation (i.e. 97% at the end of the race).

I hope I reflected fairly the points being made by Filip and Maxime (but shout otherwise!) and the above makes sense. I appreciate changing series configuration in the middle of them is challenging but I think the above would increase the fun for everyone. (Naming everyone else here so that this is not missed: @Tom Fowler @Csaba Lako @Ronny Hauser @Kimi Martikainen)
I leave it there for the judging.
All the best,
Jos Ogos

 

As someone who is towards the back of the pack, i quite like the lack of grip as it feels to me that my times are a lot closer to those in front of me when this happens, however, it does seem to happen for a few laps too many. I think the 90% that John has implemented will make the tyres start skating right at the back end where it should be