Ok so a new chapter I want to add to this, tonight I had the best Pcars race ever.
I was up to Donington GP in Formula A, which is a massive 76 laps! I spent plenty of time in practice, trying things out, and I found the camber was very beneficial on this track. I ended up with no rear camber, but my fastest times were set with 3.0 front camber.
I set the car up with 0 camber all round, and once I was getting comfortable with the setup, I tried stock camber, and was faster, though the back end grip felt less, and I was struggling with traction a bit. I tried 0 rear camber and 2.4 (stock) front camber, and was faster again. So I tried to really nail a good lap, and then went back to 0 front camber, and really tried to nail a good lap with that, and found my best lap was 0.25 slower. I thought I may as well see how far I can go since the front camber seems to be working well here, so I set it to 3.0 and went another half a second faster, all up about 8 tenths faster on 3.0 front camber than with no front camber. So perhaps I was a little hasty with my conclusion earlier. Although the rear camber at 0 still seems to be fastest for me, it may just be that it only needs small tweaks, as clearly large front camber levels was affecting my front end grip in a big way at donington.
Anyway, I took pole in quali, and went into the race. Got an average getaway, losing first off the line, and then losing second in the first corner, due to me trying to keep out of trouble, and the AI dude "doing a Senna" and throwing his car up the inside as if to say "yield or we crash". I reeled second place back in and quickly disposed of him before the end of lap one, but the dude in first was bloody quick on a full tank, and my car felt quite cumbersome on the full tank, so I had to drive very carefully, and just let the car come to me.
5 or 6 laps later I was on the back of first, but it was very hard to pass here, as I lost so much downforce in the dirty air that I just couldn't get a run to get alongside him. Most of the corners at Donington require good downforce, so running in dirty air was forcing me to alter my lines through the corners to combat the added understeer, as well as be careful of oversteer on the exit of fast corners. I eventually got him on the run into the hairpin, but he pitted at the end of that lap anyway. So I set out to forge a lead.
I was instantly 8 tenths quicker in free air, showing myself just how much I was being held back in the AI dude's dirty air. I ran a 15 lap stint and came in for tyres well before the first set were finished, due to a lapped car divebombing into me right after I lapped him, and breaking my front suspension (I was lucky not to lose a wheel really). I came out with a 5 second lead, and went about building on it.
I built my lead up pretty quickly to 13 seconds, but from there on, progress was slow, due to having to lap cars. The lapped cars as usual paying no attention to blue flags, were slowing me down dramatically, as even they were hard to get by due to the huge dirty air effect at this track. Once in free air again I was a full 1.6 seconds per lap faster than I had been when fighting through that small pack.
I ran a decent 21 lap stint for my second stint, planning to make it an even 40 laps to the finish so I could do two 20 lap stints to the end. My car developed a timely mechanical fault on the 36th lap of the race, which didn't bother me too much, as I was coming in that lap anyway. I just short shifted and babied the car for that lap, as my engineer was silent, perhaps sleeping, and didn't bother to inform me of exactly what this fault was lol.
My next stint, which was supposed to be 20 laps, was cut short to only 10 laps, when yet another stupid move by an AI driver left me with damage, this time rear end damage which forced me to slowly crab my car back to the pits for repairs and another set of boots. This out of sequence stop had me leave the pit lane in third, 10 seconds behind second place.
I reeled in second very quickly, as I had no cars between me and him to lap. I got by him pretty easily, and set about reeling in first, who was a massive 18 seconds ahead, due to me losing most of my lead when I was crabbing to the pits with busted rear suspension. I considered doing the 30 laps it would have taken to get to the end on this set of tyres, but in the end I pitted with 16 laps to go, as I had noticed the guy in first hadn't pitted since before my last stop, so clearly he was going more than 30 laps to the end! All the other AI cars were doing 13 - 16 laps on a set of tyres, so this surprised me to see this guy going for such a gamble.
I pitted when I was only 4 seconds behind him, and came out again in third, but the very next lap second place pitted too, obviously deciding against the gamble that first was taking. At this point I had 15 laps to go, and was 31 seconds off the lead. Hammer time.
In the next nine laps, I had reduced the lead to ten seconds, despite having to lap a couple of cars on the way. When I was in clear air I was more than 3 seconds per lap faster than first, so I knew I had the pace, if I could keep it consistent, and clear any traffic quickly, I could win!
I got to 4 laps to go, and was getting close to first, but a few cars had pitted and came out between us, which slowed me down. Thankfully, they, being on brand new tyres, absolutely flew past the guy in first, as his tyres must have been completely ruined by this point, and with 3 laps to go I took the lead!
I was so happy, what a race, I was basically in cruise control thinking about all the ups and downs of that great race, and then BAM! As I was passing a lapped car up the inside, into the hairpin, he turned in on me and spun me around! ****!!! I planted it and spun the car back around, but second place had already caught back up, and was passing me as I was getting going again. I thought I could catch him again, with one lap to go, but on the very next corner I locked up, and another lapped car went up the inside of me, forcing me to yield or crash. I had to yield, and it took most of the lap to get back past him.
I lost by 1 second in the end

all due to my stupid mistake of passing the AI car a bit late into the hairpin, and not being careful enough. I could have easily avoided the incident had I not have let my guard down thinking I had it in the bag. I blew it, but that's racing. I took my second place, and at the next race at Zolder, I'll get my revenge.
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