Review (can't say "quick" this time lol) and my pov video
First off, it was nice to be back!
I had a couple of very difficult, very nerve-wrecking races last night, but they were - both of them - great! Have to say I had almost no practise time for this monday so I had my "marks" (especially braking distances) all very fuzzy. To my advantage, I am very familiar with this track, from PS3 games of old like Ferrari Challenge, (
here's a LINK to a online victory from some 12 years ago, very poor video capture, amazing how technology progressed since) and of course I know the cars being used.
Race 1 - Managed a front row place alongside polesitter
@AndreasR and followed him through the entire first lap. Then he went wide in corner 1 of the 2nd lap and I managed to slip through (after some side by side perfect cornering with him, it was nice that we both managed it in the rain)
From then on he patiently followed me, always very close, and I suspected he was just waiting for a mistake, I was clearly slower in a full lap.
And that's what happened, with 1.30 minutes to spare I blundered my entry into the main straight and Simba breezed past, leading the race into the flag. Nicely done!
None of us pitted for slicks. Later I talked to raeggee and he told me he had made that mistake, but wasn't too downbeat about it (got FL because of it and recovered from 12th out of the pits into 8th in a single lap or so he told me. Still, he was 6th when he pitted so it wasn't the good option)
Race 2 - Again front row, but this time with the polesitter (
@Saltyjoe90 ) doing a pole lap almost one full second ahead of the field!!! I have no idea what happened to him in the M3 race but he clearly wanted to get it right with the M1. Nice to see raeggee 3rd on the grid I think this was his best grid placement ever.
I was very slow off the line and was briefly menaced by both Simba and raeggee into turn 1 but managed to hold to my 2nd position. After that and for about 15 minutes all I did was try to keep in touch with Joe. I think in one full lap he was faster, but IMHO there was a crucial section of the lap where the line he repeatedly chose was both harming him and giving me a great advantage. I'm talking about the "esses" before the last corner. You can see how differently we were doing them in my video (take for example the first two laps, you can see how different our lines were if you pause the video at 47:48 and 49:44 into my video). This gave me a great advantage because it pretty much anulled all the time I could have lost previously in that lap and, crucially, allowed me to be very close to his car at the start of the long straight. So, despite me being worse in an entire lap, I was doing marginally better where it mattered the most (if you are following another car).
Still, I only got close enough to go for the overtake (and getting to first place) after some 15 minutes, at the start of the 8th lap!
Then, a important moment happened close to the end of lap 9 (you can check the sequence of events starting at about 1:03:00 into my video)
1. I got some breathing space between me and joe (about 1 second) and we were both coming close to lap my team mate
@John Wells.
2. I used my private in-team connection to ask John to let me through (lol)
3. John let me go through right after the infamous "esses"
4. Since joe lost a couple of tenths in the esses he only got behind John at the last corner
5. So joe had to overtake John while cornering, losing another couple of tenths in the process (we got to 1.4 seconds of difference)
6. And joe pitted immediately after!!!!!
Now we were exactly at the mid race point and I know I have already lost the inaugural race to joe (Suzuka) because he did a perfect undercut there (and then, under pressure, I messed up). And I know that's what's going to happen here, because he will have fresh tires for at least one more lap than I will and that can easily mean 1.5 seconds (plus worn tyres mean usually more probable and costly mistakes).
So, I was basically left with two options:
1. pit one lap later, probably lose 1st place and try a (unlikely) repeat of the first part of the race
2. delay pitting for as long as possible, manage the tyres, try not to lose much time and finally, pit
without changing tyres
(I did the math, the race would last 8 or 9 laps more. If I kept the tyres on I would gain 8 seconds against all those that changed their tyres, and from the gap I had to joe I figured he had them changed. So the 8 seconds less inthe pits meant I could lose 1 second per lap to joe until pitting myself. It would be close, but in the end, it was the only option I realistically had to try and win the race).
And so ... it worked!
But it could've gone either way, this was decided by a couple of tenths, I couldn't believe it myself how close it was. At 1:19:45 into my video is when I first look back and see a car coming I thought "
it's Suzuka again, I lose". But it wasn't Joe, it was
@Pantheons, with Joe behind but with a gap good enough for me to get into the track between them.
After that it was a question of holding the lines as tight as they could possibly be and pray that my very worn out tyres were still good enough to carry me for one last lap. And they did, I crossed the line with half a second to spare!
Great race Joe, both the direct battle on track we had in the 1st half and the tactical battle in the 2nd. Very very close!
EDIT - Also, it was great to see raeggee in the podium!
