Yes, but he was only pulling level with me after bumping into my rear quarter on the right hander before the uphill section which made me slide wide and scrubbed speed. At that point he should have backed off slightly. If I ever bump someone and force them wide, I don't take advantage of it, I'd always ease off a little.
Remember not everyone is level headed, especially in Sport races. Most people see open space as an invitation to pass and don't have very good racecraft, or racing knowledge.
I think pretty much anyone with a decent ammount of racecraft knows that Seaside's esses are not a passing opportunity on their own; in my opinion only the first left hander that starts the sequence is and only from the inside as you have the better line, however the other person can easily outbrake you into the following tight right hander that leads to the COD, so personally I don't go for passes there too much.
But going to pass from the outside? To quote Maximun Verstappenning:
"What the 🤬 is he thinking to overtake there?!"
In my eyes you didn't do anything wrong and had no reason to back off yourself. Not only did he play bumper cars with you on the right hander leading to the downhill (may not have been intentional, people get that braking point wrong all the time), but also insisted on going for the outside pass not only with no space (you left him just enough room so he wouldn't go on the grass, I've got to commend that awareness
👍), but also side by side, he did not have enough overlap to even try to outbrake you and swing to the inside or something.
I don't know what he was thinking. I've been in that situation multiple times, like in Maggiore, in the esses. Been shunted off a lot because people think it's a passing point, even though they have a long-arse full power section with a hard braking zone afterwards. Happens to the best of us, I guess; you can't control other human minds!
On another note, been qualifying for Race B and C (because 🤬 Fuji, simple as that, sorry but I do not like the track).
My Sirotkin (Scirocco) got a 1:45.401 after some practice. Don't know why, felt better on offline time trials... but nevertheless, pretty good time. Monza, on the other hand, was a 🤬 fest of a qualifying session.
I picked the memelord w i d e b o i (Peugeot VGT Gr.3, some of you that are running Race C should try it. Trust me, it's better than what you expect it to be
) and went off. Wasted a half hour of my life on RH before realizing I could qualify on RM's, and then finished the session with a 1:47.172. Decent time, but I am not going to bother improving it.
Why, you may ask?
Because Monza. Let's play a game of how much I had to endure.
Not only these, but also I got, and I counted them:
-4 .5 second penalties for track limits at the chicanes,
-3 1 second penalties for track limits at the chicanes,
-5 1.5 second penalties for track limits at the chicanes.
As Fernando Alonso once said,
"she cut the chicken"
And according to the game, I did.
🤬 Monza.
