I still need to finish the videos, but once again tonight's races turned into me scrambling to get a good result by the final time slot.
Manufacturers: started off with a good qualifying, 3rd place right off the bat, I had a good battle with second place up to the last two right handers before the downhill towards the finish, he left the door open and I went for the move, I don't know if its lag, or something but on my screen it seemed like I barely graced him on the inside, I thought nothing of it, as I've had the same move done to me a million times this season. Well.. the penalty gods decided that today I was going to be their ragdoll, immediately slapped with a 4 second penalty. by this point I'm furious and before I can make it down the downhill towards the main straights I am rammed and pinned against the wall on the right hand side of the track, somehow I get a an orange arrow to add to my already mounting frustration, by the end of the 1st lap, I had dropped from passing second place and having enough pace to over take first, to my tires being destroyed and me floundering about trying to hold it together in 9th. After what seemed like an education in "cant get right", I come home to a lowly 18th, with a wonderful A SR rating.
I jumped into daily race B in order to get myself back to S rating in the hour waiting period between rounds. after 3 podium finishes, I manage to get myself to 89/99 SR. by this time the second round of manufacturers is about to go live and I jumped in, hoping to make amends. 421 points, that was the winning pot for the second race, by this point I just wanted to get a podium and bring my SR back up to 99/99. I end up with a solid 3rd and a clean race bonus, thankfully helping my already bleak situation.
Nations: in the break between the second and third manufacturers race I decided to give the third and final nations race a try, I had been watching Tidgney's stream all morning so I had a basic idea of strategy and what cars would work. at the same time I had run a total of 0 miles at the Redbull ring ever so I had 12 minutes of practice and 10 minutes of qualifying to figure out the track. I managed to get myself qualified in p19, which is what I expected going in, but what happened afterwards was in my opinion the best drive I've ever put together. I had chosen the Atenza since it was really good on tires, and got myself to work. I moved up the field like a scalpel, capitalizing on others mistakes, taking on 0 penalties while others seemed to get caught by every track limit one, and maintaining lap times in the 1:31s for what seemed like every single lap. I decided to pit one lap after the leaders and found myself in the top 5 by lap 8. after completing my pit stop I come out in just outside of the top 10. I once again got to work on chipping away at the cars in front of me, pass after pass, I felt more confident and by the end of the race I found myself in 7th place. a hell of a confidence boost after a disastrous first round.
Final Manufacturers race: this one was a good room, lots of closely matched drivers and 1585 points on the line. I couldn't match the qualifying magic of round 1, but I enjoyed the new found focus after an amazing nations round. started up in 8th, the race was mostly uneventful and I even got to race with another fast mustang driver, I came home to a solid 6th and 1100 points in the bag, enough to hopefully seal my lead for ford.
Now, my only disappointment is that since this is my first FIA season ever ( I started playing again in January, after not playing since launch) I unfortunately do not have an S rating, and my understanding is that in order to qualify for the top 16, you need to be in the top two for your manufacturer and have a S DR rating which is only given after the season ends. I was actually looking forward to participating in that race, but I guess it isn't my time yet. Videos will be up once I get home from work and I have time to post them.
In reality it didn't really effect anything.
