rFactor 2 Round 5 Baku City - Sun Jun 1, 2025

Great race overall, really enjoyed the start! Later on, I ended up a bit on my own. Ed Jones closed in, but he was clearly quicker, so there wasn’t much of a battle there. Apologies to Toni, I messed things up a bit when you tried to lap me. Hope you didn’t take any damage from it.

 

My final lap in qualifying could have been 2.09, but I couldn't get out of the last corner.

I practiced, it was interesting to see 2.09. It works out quite well, but I couldn't do such a phenomenal 1 sector as you did

 

after I lost my wing in the last race and saw how fast it was on the straight I decided to draw inspiration from it and run with wing 1 front and rear and build the setup around it, was a rocket ship on the straight but lost an equal amount of time in the corners as a result and keeping it off the barriers with low downforce was not easy, a few scrapes along the way, managed to get a good start but could not slip stream into first at the first corner as matej was wise to it and blocked the inside but made up one place, managed to dispatch peter on the straight a few laps later but by that time matej had a decent lead and we were equal on pace so decided to play the long game and let the strategy play out, managed to chip into matej over the next hour and get the gap down to 2-3 seconds and save enough fuel to do 2 extra laps which meant 5l less fuel at the stop so I came out of the pits just in front of matej, he had an issue soon after with a back marker that lacked spatial awareness and I took it easy after which was a mistake as matej reeled me back in, he got within 0.5 sec in traffic but just managed to cut through the GT cars to have enough of a gap at the end.

Well done to my team mate Robin Taylor who got a podium from the back of the LMP field.

 

I had a shifter problem which set my engine alight. The down shifter was jumping down in the gears for some reason thats yet to be found.

 

Q: I had a high downforce setup for Q and made a few good laps that got me pole
R: I had a high and a low downforce setup prepared for the race. Because of pole I decided to go with the high DF setup. I was aware of Nick's 300km/h, and I knew I had to hold P1 on the start and a few good laps to pull away from the others. It all went according to plan until lap 9 i think - I completely misjudged overtaking of GTE and slamed hard sideways into the wall. It comprimised lap times for more than half a second. Until the end of the race I made a lot of friends with the walls in Baku. Close friends, actually intimate
To the point that I suffered puncture on penultimate lap and just hoped I can bring P2 home.
It was a good race, and I am happy with P2, although it could be P1. I enjoyed chasing Nick after the pit stop. Congrats for the win!
Not sure if I will make it for Suzuka.. I really hope I do, the track is awesome!
See you all

 

It's Robin not Richard , I pitted a lap before you I think.

Congrats Nick and Roman, I also went for a high downforce setup but kept hitting the limiter down the main straight once I had DRS.

Quite a lonely race, but meant I could look after the tyres and keep myself out of the walls. Pitted for fuel and was able to jump from 5th to 3rd. Looking forward to the last round.

 

Yeah it was good fun my friend, I was trying to pack in learning the circuit, setup, strategy and not bouncing of concrete walls. Lol.

However, some more time.and I could probably shave off a few more seconds for sure. The balance wasn't quite right, and there was almost a delay between steering input and response from the car which meant I couldn't take the faster corners as fast as I wanted to.

Amazing it's a street circuit though. Seriously fast even in a Lmp2 spec car.

@Peter Jones Yeah I feel your pain. There are some mods where the tyre changes are incredibly slow at a pit stop. One mod we used I lost over a minute in the pits, I was running 4th at the time, finished last, one lap down! Lol...

 

I disabled any damage repairs and I took just 35 litres of fuel. I requested a pitstop over half the lap in advance. Is there a rule stating you are allowed to use just one set of tyres?

 

It would be awesome if we could limit it to two sets for qualifying and the race. I know you could for automobolista but I don't think RF2 is set up for it.

EDIT: I am happy with the way it is. Just a fun thought.

 

So surely it shouldn't be allowed, right? The top 2 didn't change tyres at all

 

Ive had that back in the day...there is a setting that puts minimum time between downshifts. Its there somewhere in settings..hmm ill check...sec...Setttings-Gameplay-Repeat shifts ( its in middle column and probably have this at off. set to 200ms or something and if not working add more ).