Well, before I recap my own race let me thank everyone that took part, I understand for some it wasn't as fun as it should be, I just hope whatever the experience it won't take you from other future mini endurance races with some severe settings like damage and tricky weather conditions. My aim is to make everyone like this kind of racing (it's the one I love the most to do) even if I understand we can't have it often, just the odd event every few months.
I also understand the AI is always a tricky thing to adjust to, I had decided to get rid of them if we had at least 10 participants but we fell one short of that number so Ikept them in. To be entirely honest I still think they add something to these races (traffic and/or benchmark in laptimes for us) ad I think I have found a pretty decent setting for this race (although, granted, Le Mans is an easy track to share with AI cars considering how wide it is and how long the straights are).
Also frustrating are the quirks/inconsistencies of this game that get us if we dont check and even DOUBLE-check everything. Namely the setup bug that caught out
@half_sourly. We shouldn't have to load it every time we start a race, but sometimes and for some reason the settings are lost (or aren't loaded again as they should) between sessions. It's also annoying that we must re-activate the pit strategy for every new session of the same lobby and event.
Now, my own recap of the race. I will mention or comment the important moments, I will time-stamp them is in relation to my Youtube stream video posted above so you can check there what the hell I'm talking about!
00:01:00 - Pre -system checks (reload setup, re-activate pit strategy)
00:01:55 - Race start, very VERY careful going into Dunlop Chicane
00:02:30 -
@half_sourly vs the AI
- I'd say with Andy Garton it's racing incident and that Charles Mader was just an innocent victim of an unsafe reentry
After these first few - and always eventful - corners I clawed my way up the field until I got to 3rd, after clearing the best placed AI driver. By then
raeggee (1st) and
@GTP_RPREGO (2nd) were already 10 seconds ahead, so all I could do was try to close that gap.
00:13:20 -
raeggee spun at Dunlop while leading. Regained the track in 2nd, with me right behind. This allowed me to chase him after Tretre Rouge and, by using draft, I overtook him into the first chicane (00:14:15). So I got 2nd at that moment, with
@GTP_RPREGO leading.
00:17:00 to 00:17:30 - This is the bit where
@GTP_RPREGO thinks I was an optimist, while I think I was just lucky that he didn't crash us both by not
"leaving me da space!", as Alonso would put it. We both went off into the gravel trap, he spun, I didn't,
raeggee got back into the lead, I remained 2nd, Ricardo 3rd.
00:23:30 - Still chasing
raeggee I spun at Arnage and hit the wall. Wasn't a big shunt and didn't get much damage in numbers, but the car became clearly unbalanced and I decided not to risk a second heavier shunt while trying to drive a damaged car. This would wreck an ideal 2-stop pit strategy but then again in a race with damage this was to be expected.
00:24:30 - Entered the pits for a full service (tryres, topping the tank and repair all damage)
00:26:00 - left the pits in 6th place, some 1m30secs behind the leader (
raeggee). in 5th was
@PANDACoff33 , a nice surprise considering his relatively short time playing this game.
00:29:30 - Back to 5th, because
@PANDACoff33 pitted.
raeggee and
@GTP_RPREGO still 1st and 2nd, two AI cars after in 3rd and 4th.
00:33:20 - Back to 3rd after the AIs pitted. Wasn't gaining much on the leader, still 1m20secs to recover
00:40:45 - Back to 2nd (
@GTP_RPREGO pitted). still a 1m10secs gap between me and the race leader
00.44:30 -
FIRST TIME LEADING THE RACE (but it's nothing to be proud about, just that
raeggee pitted, probably shouldn't have used the caps lock and red ink
).
@GTP_RPREGO managed an undercut so after all pitting he was 2nd and
raeggee 3rd.
01:03:25 - Noticed that Ricardo pitted for a 2nd time, not sure why. Still he left the pits in 3rd place
1:06:40 - My second pitstop, everything ok, new tyres, tank full, no damage. Left in second, some 17 seconds behind
raeggee and about 30 secs in front of
@GTP_RPREGO
1:22:00 - Pushing as much as I could to catch
raeggee (I still feared I would need a 3rd pitstop) I did two consecutive FL in the 3:37's but threw it all away when I spun on my own at the Dunlop Chicane. Thankfully didn't hit anything and got no damage from this.
1:25:00 -
raeggee pits. 16 race-minutes to go and that
brings me back into the lead (no caps this time, just the red ink). At this moment I was still unsure I had to pit again for fuel (which would put me back behind raeggee ) but I noticed that he got a 10 seconds penalty entering the pits (speed probably) and I thought "well, thanks for the cushion, I may need that" . But since Ricardo was now 2nd and I had no idea if he had to pit again (as it turned out, he hadn't , and didn't ) I still didn't feel safe.
1:30:40 - With 11 race-minutes to go and an obvious need to pit for fuel again it was time to consider my options and maximise my chances, so I dived into the in-car strategy menus to change my pitstop to a splash&dash. You can see me going through the menus down the Mulsanne straight ...
1:31:35 - ... and go off at the Musanne corner because of this! 
1:32:00 - with everything set I called the pits
1:33:00 - Pit entry
1:34:00 - Pit exit. Still in the lead, by a mere 14 seconds, with 7 minutes to go!
1:41:15 - Last lap. Did a "Verstappen" and went for FL so not to lose concentration. Was helped by drafting a GT car down Mulsanne, reached 322 KMH!!!!
1:44:50 - Race end, with a 3:36,428 lap (1 full second faster than the previous FL). 
Once again, thank you all, enjoyed reading the reviews, hope we do something like this again in the future!
, we try to be fair and aim at some competence, but we do blunder sometimes and surely none of us possesses alien skills so this is mostly aimed at fun, no matter what the end result turns out to be!
