Please allow me to clarify my thoughts.
First off, my statement was not not an attack on
@Sven Jurgens ar all. I like them very much and they are in my friends list.
I have also flopped down to lower Sr levels before. I was just stating that it is unlikely to get so far down without having control of the situation. I've flopped down there myself, but I was able to recover by becoming hyperaware of my surroundings. You need to give those guys room or sometimes let them by. As daan told me, you can't race those guys. Just have to sacrifice dr to get out of that hell.
You cannot race below Sr B. You simply have to pull over and give ludicrous amounts of room. Any attempt to race them as you would an S driver will result in a crash. I learned that the hard way.
I don't see it as an attack at all, I was merely trying to experience myself what happens if you keep racing fair at SR.B and lower, and I've got my answer.
My style of racing is quite straight forward:
- I prefer faster corner exits and passing on the straights.
-> problem, get alongside a dirty driver on the straight, he'll try to ram you off. Some wait until you are alongside, by the time you see him veering for you have 2 options. Either you keep going straight and correct directly after the impact, this will 80% of the time leave you without a penalty. Or you try to brake and fall back yet then they hit you with their door or rear bumper and you will get a penalty 80% of the time.
- When I am still behind (not level) before the braking point I will brake early out of the slipstream to fall behind and aim for a faster corner exit
- When I am fully alongside or ahead at the braking point on the inside I will brake a little early to stick to the inside line in the corner and leave over a car width of space at corner exit (not counting the curb or grass, leaving plenty room)
-> problem an outside dirty or oblivious driver will ram me at the apex, depending on whether he started braking on time he's either slightly ahead at point of impact or slightly behind. If he started braking late and tried cutting the corner as if I was not there, I usually get the penalty.
- When I am fully alongside or ahead at the braking point on the outside I will brake at the last moment that I can make the corner. If the inside car brakes a little early and I have room I will still leave a car width at the apex yet no more. If the inside car brakes alongside I will go as wide as I need to stay out of his way. If the inside car brakes too late I will brake longer in a straight line to let him go ahead into the sand.
-> Problem a dirty inside driver that first brakes on time, realizes his 'mistake' lets go of the brake and then uses me as a guide rail pushing me out at corner exit if not earlier. 50% of the time that gives me a penalty.
Those are not the only opportunities for penalties. I already got rammed right at the start in the last two chicanes, occasionally bump passed there by a corner cutter and receiving a penalty for it. Not qualifying doesn't mean starting last, it means starting behind the slowest qualifier, in front of the next fastest non qualifier.
Then there are the opportunities to get caught into a pinball fest. On Sarthe it's easy for groups to draft back up to you after you cleanly passed them all the previous chicane. Often the car in the back tried to dive overtake the whole group including me at the front and pinballed cars into me. The only option is to not brake and skip the chicane....
Plus Sarthe is incredibly harsh on avoiding dirty drivers. Step out of the track anywhere to dodge an attack or oblivious driver and you get a time penalty.
Despite all that, it is possible to have a good race at lower SR levels, it's just not possible to maintain or regain SR in a sprint race on Sarthe on Saturday. I had plenty fun races as well, and all those attacks didn't really hurt my pace and I could nearly always avoid getting punted of the track. Yet absorbing all those blows does add up. My DR was actually climbing until the final blow.
Tonight I'll see what happens on a daily C starting at D/E. I might be stuck down there until a cleaner daily C comes up. Mount Panorama GR.3 sits at an average of -2.8 SR per player per race. Sarthe hasn't updated yet for yesterday I think, it sits at -0.5 per player per race, probably the result of GR.3 on Sarthe as the daily C a little while back. Once my race history updates I'll check if it dropped from yesterdays B race.
Trying to achieve back-to-back podiums by being one of 'them' when my SR was at B was a really stupid hill to die on.
