I'll be away for this race so please make sure to start it on time with the in-game user voting. Enjoy the race .
I pulled my entry for this round a couple of days ago as I have a one-hour GPL event immediately preceding. I've just signed on again but it is with the strict understanding that I may have to beg off at the last minute due to fatigue and fading vision. It's a 50/50 deal. I've done some pre-race practice and am ready to go with fuel set for the duration. Apologies if I'm a no-show.
Well what a race..... First of all my apologies to Jos at the end, it was an incredible fight and I spoiled it by punting you there was an inch in it maybe, I thought I slowed down enough but I honestly feel worse about spoiling someone else's race than having my own ruined. It started off well, I couldnt turn a good lap in at quali but it was promising to be a good race for me after Tim seemed to have spun it in T1. There I was in the lead thinking worst case Jackie Stewart in disguise will pass me and I'll have 2nd because I was banking on driving it slow and steady to the finish given how easy it is to loose this Alfa at this track. There I go on driving, I see Tim...err Jackie is picking everyone apart and he's up to 2nd 3sec behind, I see that I need to give it the beans some and regain a almost a second back when out of nowhere in T5 Vasilis I think lost it and at the point of impact was at the apex of the corner, I didnt see him until he was literally 10m away and I tbone him, loose a ton of time, but oddly enough the steering was a little off and something was bumping in the suspension but the car didnt seem that slow. So I continued on... The rest of the race was a great fight, but eventually once I caught up to Jos we were fighting hard for laps and I punted him in T1 And ran out of fuel on the last lap at the very corner that I T boned Vasilis ...... With all that being said, it was a ton of fun! See you all at Laguna, that should be a blast.
Indeed @Alex Sander, it was much fun. Don't worry about the punting. This happens from time to time. It was also a very eventful race. The (negative) highlight of the race for me was the horrific gear change (down to 1st!!! instead of the intended 3rd) at T1 (12:30). It was also a bit of a shame 'the guys on the garage' slightly misjudged fuel amount and, in a very Ferrari fashion, I was short just a couple of litres to finish the race (I had to pit in the very last lap of the race, sort of, but glad I had configured a pit stop just in case...). But there were also many positives: the start (great clutch management that saw me to 2nd position ), the interminable fight with @Laurent Londes (28:30 to 50:10) followed up by the fight with Alex Sander (50:10 to 56:20) that unfortunately ended with a race incident... Great sportsmanship from Alex waiting for my recovery though . With 4min left and 'running on fumes mate' as my crew chief was highlighting, the rest of the race was just about taking the car back to pit safely. It was really great fun. Considering Alex seemed to run out of fuel and (I'm not sure what's the situation with Maxime...) I might have even ended in 3rd position!? No idea. I think, as Alex wrote in his post, at some point of the race we all felt we could have ended in 2nd place (Let's not kid ourselves about 1st!)... If only we hadn't made the silly mistakes we did. Here is the race if you want to watch the fantastic fights against @Laurent Londes and @Alex Sander :
It was fun as much as it lasts for me, first of all i was saved by the bell at qualifying, i came back home just in time to do a quali lap.. At the first 2-3 laps i tried to stay close with the guys in fron of me (Phill and Jos) but unfortunately i couldnt make it- they were 2 fast for me Except that i had problems with my internet connection, my ping was very very high (from 500 to 2500 :O) and i couldnt race properly, the cars was moving erratic, and with a final result to be disconnected.. I cant understand it, i have a 50Mbits broadband connection and when my girlfriend goes online too, my connection drops down.. I dont know i need to fix it.. Anyways it was fun, congrats to all guys winners or not and i hope to see you all at the next race.. Jos i am enjoying your video right now
You had an awful connection indeed. When I had to overtake you I saw your car going all over the place all the time. I was quite sure it would have turned out in a collision but you ran very wide in the corner and I tried to stay on the other side of the corner. Maybe you should ask your girlfriend what she does when she goes online If she is streaming anything that will result in a bad connection for you.
That was something different on such a high speed track ! Qualified P4. The grid was tightly packed and the car in front of me didn't get away well and I was a bit stuck behind. The cars from behind me passed me on the left and right. I spun in the first few minutes of the race trying to overtake Maxime in T1. He had a very different line through there and had to change my line and that caused me to spin. My mistake but that meant I was on the very back of the field and had to catch up. A big part of the race I had the back of Jos in my view. Closely followed by Alex. It was a very tricky situation as I tried to pass Jos but Alex was also trying to pass me at the same time. Jos defended really well, never giving me a chance at the inside line. It was very close at times but we never made contact. Loved seeing his video and car control and not making a big mistake under pressure. I tried several things to pass at T1, eventually I spun, I think I tried lowering gear and blocked my rear wheels. It was a great battle for sure, also with Alex behind. I was behind Maxime again at this point who made a mistake earlier. I had almost made the move in T1 but we touched side by side. I wasn't sure if that was too much or not so I decided to give the place back. I overtook him a lap or two later. He then understeered into my side and caused him to spin. Honestly, I did not think I would end in P2 at all. I feel bad for Phil who seemed to have lost it in the chicane. Tim was too fast again. Congrats to all. A bit disappointing that there aren't many participants for this series.
That was very entertaining - if not entirely to plan! I knew that it wouldn't be possible to complete the race at full speed without a pitstop, so after going flat out for the first 2 laps in order to make a gap I then settled into a heavy fuel saving routine. At about the same point I decided I was safe till the end of the race I had my accident. The key to lap speed here is taking T2 flat without lifting - Doing this involves putting 2 wheels over the left hand kerb out of T1 (like the approach to Stavelot at Spa, only much faster!) and then throwing the car at the corner. You only have a meter of so of leeway, otherwise you either hit the inside kerb (you HAVE to lift if this happens), or run wide (Again forcing you to lift). I'm not quite sure what I did but it was bad enough to totally loose the rear end as I hopped off the kerb, this put me head first into the armco/Haybales at a silly speed. This destroyed my nose - Permanent red on the damage display plus a broken windscreen for the rest of the race. Amazingly it didn't seem to drop my top speed or affect my handling too much - as a result I was able to push like crazy to fight back up the order from the back and still make good time. I fought all the way upto 2nd at which point Phil had his moment allowing me through to the lead again, I then had to go back to fuel saving mode for most of the remaining race to recoup after my 20 minutes of qually laps. As much fun as it was I can't say I'm keen to crash again just for the sake of a fight Oddly on Sunday my Rift had suddenly lost sound from the right ear phone - they've been very quick to respond and I'm shipping it off for replacement this week. Hopefuly the new one turns up in time for Laguna as that place is awesome in VR! Well done to Laurent and Jos for the podium spots, also to the finishers - with the awkward fuel loading and crazy high speeds this is actually a hard one. I'm also surprised at the decline in numbers for these, they have to be one of the best 'driver' cars in the game, beaten only by the GTA's and 962's. And they only win for immersion, the 33 is one of, if not the BEST sounding stock car in the game.
Does your internet provider give you a combined router/cable modem as part of their service? I'm with Virgin here in the UK and they give us their 'Superhub'. It's a single box that acts as a modem for the fibre network, a 4 port switch, and a WiFi hotspot. I have a fairly old one and while the cable modem is fine, it's a bit crap at the routing and switching side of things - especially when you turn on it's WiFi feature and have a few devices active at the same time (The original Superhub was famous for how bad it was in the UK!). It's main saving grace is that you can put it into modem mode - doing this disables all internal switching and gives internet only through 1 port. I can then connect that to my own proper WiFi router/switch to distribute to the rest of the house. Even if my GF is streaming HiDef or 4K TV my ping rarely gets above about 30-40ms, when she's out (like last Saturday) it's about 12-14ms to the SRO server despite having to go through a 2nd switch to reach my PC upstairs. If you have a similar setup it might be worth spending 30-40 Euros on a dedicated switch if you can run a modem mode on your cable box
Shunted out of my GPL race at 2/3 distance which cleared the way for doing our Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale event. Missed the start by 20 seconds as I was off draining Mr. Johnson. Shunted out early thanks to a counter-slide trip to the barriers. Grrr... Grats to Tim, Laurent & Jos!
My apologises Laurent, i hope i didnt ruin your race, for a moment i thought i got hitted from behide because of my erratic moves on the track.. i tried to step side and give space, when someone faster approached me.. Actually because of my bad connection i couldnt race properly, it was senseless to stay online and i decide to disconnect myself.. I will try to find a solution for sure, thanks for your answers guys
