Assetto Corsa Round 5 Knockhill "The Devlin GP"

I see results from the race session that came around while I was practicing.

With some setup tweaks I'm finally down around 54.0 consistently... I count that as a personal victory since I only just downloaded the track this week.

Fuel numbers look like everyone will be able to sprint the whole way to the finish.

The course is fun but I have no idea where or how anyone will be able to pass without hip-checking. In places it feels even narrower than Mount Panorama.

 

Rob, still need someone to do a testrace?

 

hey when is the server up?

 

It has been up the whole week. And the race has just been run.

 

Was it broadcasted?

 

No, but I can hook you up with the replay. The battle for the podium was great! Extremely hard and fair racing. Very high mutual respect between those drivers

 

Ok, race report.

During free practise it was obvious Dzintars would be the man to beat today. He managed to set a 0.51.4 lap while I could only manage a 0.52.0...

Quali;
I made a mistake on the outlap damaging the car on the chicane, but decided to press on anyway. On my first fast lap it dawned on me that this was not going to be a good one. Only did a 0.52.6, so I decided to get back to the pit and repair the damage. Went out again. At that time I only had the 4th time. Not good... Pushed on and did a 0.52.209. 0.009 slower than Alex. Dzintars was in a league of his own setting a 0.51.573 Oh, this was going to fun...

Race,
Starting 3rd had me on the inside line for the 1st corner, so at least that was good. However due to the nature of this track I knew there would be no way past Alex or Dzintars on the first few corners unless they took eachother out. I knew that was not going to happen as both are fair racers.
Lights went on, light went off. Go go go! I had a fairly descent start staying close to 1st and 2nd. Knew I had to be carefull to get the braking right so as not to run in the back of either Dzintars or Alex. Having Roel on my bumper was a worry too as he seemed to be fast here too. Anyway, all went well. All seemed to be going good for everyone on the first lap. So on with the race. Like I said, Roel was on my bumper so I had to go a bit defensive making me lose a few thenths to Alex. Then on the 2nd lap I was a bit to focused on Roels car in the mirror making me slightly mis the turn in point of the Clark chicane. Luckily, no harm, no foul. But it gave Roel the chance to get even closer. Decided I needed to create a gap, so I ignored the big red Seat in the mirror and just go for a few fast laps. That seemed to work, because slowly but surely the gap grew. At that point I saw that the leaders weren't really getting away from me, so et least that was good. Both of them were having a good scrap, but were losing a bit of time fighting. That had me closing the gap to them. Not wanting to be too close to them I maintained the gap at around 1second thinking if anything went wrong with either I would/could profit from it And yes, Alex went wide on Duffus Dip, only he was lucky enough not to lose so much speed that I could pass him. There I was right on his bumper. We did a lap being no more than 0.2 or 0.3 seconds apart. He then went into the Clarck chicane a bit to fast going off road on the short straight on top of the hill. That gave me 2nd. Not to bad. Dzintars was at that point about 2 seconds ahead. Knowing how fast he could be there was not much I could do except for trying to maintain the gap. Over the next 10 laps or so he managed to gain a second, but it had me thinking he was either not taking risks or he had some kind of problem. On lap 26 he came upon 2 backmarkers fighting for position. They were clearly in the "zone" because I had the feeling they did not see Dzintars lapping them. The 3 of them crashed on Duffer Dip. I was "lucky" enough to see it happen and even more lucky to avoid 3 spinning cars
What? I was in 1st spot now Still it didn't feel right. Anyway, kept the head down. Dzintars however seemed to have found his speed again and slowly creeped back to me. I then made a small mistake, but it lost me more than an second. Having to go defensive on Taylor's Hairpin gave Dzintars a better exit from the corner making him get along side me. Altough I had the "right of way" into the next corner I decided not to tempt fait and conceded although I'm sure that if I had taken the corner nothing bad would have happened. Anyway, that had me back to 2nd. And now Alex was back on my tail. What a race this was turning out to be Next lap or the one following that, I'm not sure, Alex had a extremely good exit out of Taylor's Hairpin. He just flew by me on the start finish straight. Having no option really but to let him have the corner I was now in 3rd again. Ah well, that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. This time I did not let off and kept as close as I could to the both of them. And yes, a couple of laps later Alex misjudged a corner again. Back to 2nd. From then on it was just going all out and hoping I could get close(r) to Dzintars. It didn't happen. He controlled the race perfectly and won deservedly. Not sure what happend to Alex after all that, but James appeared in 3rd at the finish.
So the result was, Dzintars 1st, Roy 2nd, James 3rd.

2 things I must say here.
1st, Alex and Dzintars, Thanks for this extremely hard fought race. We did a fair deal of position changes without ever touching eachothers cars. THAT IS GREAT RACECRAFT Gentlemen!
2nd, except for the Dzintars incident (let's put this one down to tunnel vision) the people being lapped were very well behaved.

I really enjoyed this one! On to the next one

 

My race report will be shorter than Roy's. In fact it can be summed up in three words : Horrible, horrible and horrible.

Regarding the lap 26 incident with Dzintars that Roy talked about that was with me. I had just passed Pasha and I saw the opportunity to let Dzintars get by on the long straight before the windy bits so I slowed down but Dzintars did not seem to want to go past me. By then it was too late to accelerate again. When he finally got beside me I was completely off the throttle and then he went ahead of me just before the corner. Ouf! I was on the inside and was just going to slip in behind him when he completely braked and contact. My fault? Perhaps, I certainly did not expect him to brake like he did.
Anyway that gave Roy the chance to put his nose in front of Dzintars. In the end Dzintars came first so happily our little get together did not change the outcome.
Congratulations to the podium and let's not come back here again!

 

Yeah I would write one of my normal reports but I just can't stomach it.

I suspected this would be a rough one like Bathurst. I was encouraged in practice that my sector 1 and 3 times were actually pretty close to the leaders, and I was trying to figure out where I was losing time in sector 2. That became apparent in the raceday practice when I caught Roy (I think?) by surprise with my braking point into the chicane and got tossed into the sand. No blame on his part; there was nothing he could do to avoid me. But at least I knew then where I was losing my time.

The race began and suddenly the people I was competing with in practice were somehow a second faster in the race, so it was a fight for my life from start to finish. I guess all my braking points were wrong because I got punted out of T2 and the hairpin on multiple occasions as well. If AC had iRacing's damage model my rear bumper would have been gone by the end. I wish the Crew Chief app had a way to tune Jim's expectations for the race, because he seems to only want to win, and I'm getting pretty tired of him sounding mad at me at the end of every race.

I knew the middle four races of the season would be rough for me (I personally detest Vallelunga, and had never tried Bathurst, Knockhill, or Brno before) but this is just depressing. At this point I'm just in scrappy survival mode until I can get to RA and Spa. Doesn't look like the learner badges are coming off my car any time soon; maybe I'll replace the blue stripe with those black-and-yellow "caution" stripes.

 

Hi, this was one crazy race. Also this race was the hardest of all and full of different emotions. On practice and Quali sessions was perfect.
How I was so fast? ... Thanks @JasonPlato (BTCC)
At start Alex advantages, because he had ideal line and I let Alex first so there is no crach. Then Alex made a mistake and I got 1st. But then surprise! On 2nd lap I felt that
there's no grip on the 1st corner. Why? I don't know until now. That was the key to good lap times which I can not use. Then everything went wrong. I could not make a safe gap so I had to concentrate not to take out in damned 1st corner. Up to lap 26. I enjoyed the race, but then... Why backmarkers need to fight with leader?! What you fuc..ng want to prove???!!! Just as well I could hit you out of the track so you don't disturb me! Question: Oh really they don't show backmarkers blue flags? If thats true, the only explanation is that he really did not see me. Although everyone else of backmarkers let me past them! Good that everything ended well
Anyway, the race was fantastic! Thanks Roy and Alex for correct racecraft, you made me concentrate for all race.
See you in BRNO.

 

It is very easy to complain on the forum, to put your views in the spotlight, but the forum is not the place to do it especially when you attack someone. I suggest you put in an official complaint.

 

Sorry Larry, Kimi Raikkonen waked up in me.. peace

 

Thanks John,
You know my reason for lack of consistency, but my speed is still there.