Welcome to round 4 Rouen Les Essarts Rouen-Les-Essarts was a 6.542 km (4.065 mi) motor racing circuit in Orival, near Rouen, France. From its opening in 1950, Rouen-Les-Essarts was recognized as one of Europe's finest circuits, with modern pits, a wide track, and spectator grandstands. The street circuit (which ran on public roads) had a few medium straights, a cobbled hairpin turn (Nouveau Monde) at the southernmost tip, and a few blind corners through a wooded hillside The appeal was greatly enhanced by the climb from Nouveau Monde at 56 metres to Gresil at 149 metres, with gradients over 9%. Rouen hosted five Formula One French Grand Prix races, the last one in 1968 resulting in the tragic burning death of Jo Schlesser, at the fast downhill Six Frères curve. The circuit continued to host major Formula 2 events until 1978, after which it was used for various French Championships. F1 1962 Rouen-Les-Essarts
Hello there, I just registered to this event. Should I understand we'll race with locked default setup ?
May not,race this evening not feeling good at the moment. See how I am later. I'll unregister for now
Unfortunately, I'm a dead pilot (one more).. Looks like John Geest didn't see that I had chosen left side to overtake him in pit straightline at lap 2, and moved to the left too. Then a slight contact with the barrier, and a driver going directly to the driver's heaven... It was him or me.
In my mirror I thought I had still enough room to move over as your nose was still behind me. Sorry if I made you crash. I will do a drive-through penalty in the next race right after lap 1.
Rouen is a favourite track of mine and this version was an enjoyable challenge in these cars (and it looks good too). There is no room for error here and so I drove well within my limits in order to give myself a fighting chance of getting to the chequered flag. It turned out to be a fairly lonely race but I did get to the end and took P4 . Congrats to the podium guys, Caitlin's broadcast showed that the fight for the win was taken right to the last lap and made for a highly entertaining finish .
Erf, I don't ask for you to do that neither, I mean, I know they're the rules, but after all, the race is ended now, and I guess it wasn't done on purpose of course. That move made me feel quite like Levegh @LeMans '55 I suppose but I know such a lateral slight move is "decided" about 70m before in such a car we're continuesly fighting against to "dominate". Just that car/track combo was thaaaaat dangerous that a tiny fault leads to dramatic consequences.. Thank you for your response.
Bad luck Maxime - that crash certainly worried me - I came around the corner to see you spinning and started slowing to be sure I could miss you. I wasn't ready for you to Pirouette across the track and nearly land on the Autoroute! My race was one to forget. I spent as much time playing with my PC to try and reduce the chance of the wheel messing up (I'm now almost certain that the issue isn't the wheel itself - but rather it's caused by FPS stutters occurring at the same time I perform rapid wheel movements) as I did on my setup. The good part is that my wheel worked perfectly and my setup was great, the bad part was the very strange crash in T3 on the opening lap. I drove that as I have on every other run. practice or qualifying, but the rear wheels somehow found more grip after the bump than they had previously and the car snapped around on me mid drift Big apologies to the field, and especially Jukka as he hit me (glad you survived!). I used the red mist to my advantage after rejoining and all was looking good until I caught Louis - after the race I was told he won't blink first in a game of chicken, wish I'd known that earlier as I was banking on him having to back out first due to his line. I hit the fence HARD after that (Not Louis' fault I should add - he just wears a better poker face) and had to limp an entire lap around to the pits. I think the stop ended up being nearly a minute and a half long - had I known I'd have probably stayed out and limped around. I probably wouldn't have kept John behind, but would have had a chance at least of staying ahead of Bill. After the stop I just want for qualifying laps as I knew I had no chance of catching anyone and after Mikko stopped lapping I couldn't finish any lower - Managed to spin in Nouveau monde and damage the car again so calmed down a little and pressed on to the finish. Well done to Jukka, Laurent, and John for the podium - and to Bill for a sensible drive to the flag. Bad luck to everyone who took an early bath. Looks like I'll have my work cut out now if I want any chance of taking the championship....
John ... thank you for the video in the first post of this thread. Hearing Raymond Baxter's voice again took me right back to the '60s
That was eventful race as it always is at Rouen. Was little worried since I could not manage to do accident free practice race even once. But I also knew it´s same for everyone and anything is possible here. I once won race here even I had bad accident and had to pit for repairs and was lap down on leader. It was really close to dnf after T3 when Tim span and I hit him and went up the hill. Luckily I could keep car under control but needed to take some laps easy and see if car had some damage that affect handling on corners not to spin or go off. Could not keep up the pace I had with full tank on practice sessions so there was some damage (nose was bright yellow) that slowed me down but had enough pace to keep Louis at safe distance. After accidents with Louis and Tim I had safe 14s gap to Laurent until I had total brainfart at T1 and started to switch gear there which I never do and because of that mistake I went straight. Seems like Tim has good relationship with God and He heard Tim´s prayer for me to crash Thou seems He also sent angel to save me from dying by driving of the road and down the cliff like He did 29years ago in real life. My replays are not working so I can not check where my car stopped but it stopped like I hit the concrete wall with no spin whatsoever and it was really heavy hit too that normally would brake car totally (engine too), but I ended up on the road with no engine or suspension damage (at least according to damage display). Nose was as red I have ever seen and lost about 10kph straight line speed and lost lots of time to Laurent on later parts of the track on long straight and was 3-4s down on my own pace with light car. Luckily I could keep enough speed on twisty parts of the track to keep Laurent behind but it was really close and if there would be more laps I am sure he would have passed me. Thanks for congrats and congrats for Laurent and John for podium and everyone that finished and Caitlin for excellent broadcast as usual
