By luck I had some spare time on race day, so I jumped into this car on the race server for the first time. I felt very comfortable immediately, so I decided to sign up.
The car felt great out of the box without big changes to the default setup (see attached setup). I used ABS but no TC. Didn't know the event was meant to use no assists.
I was having great fun in putting the laps in and drove on pole to my surprise.
Due to the lag of experience I was in doubt if a tyre change was needed, so I filled up for the whole race and wanted to see what others would do. Start went well and I kept P1 infront of
@Axel Moebius, who chased me very closly through the opening laps. Later he made a mistake and my gap to P2 increased to aprox 6 seconds or so.
From the middle of the race I was really worrying if tyres would really last the whole race but no one seemed to pit at this stage so I tought I should just keep it on the track even if tyres got worse and worse.
In lap 13 or so I saw
@Paulo Braga spinning into the sharp right hander after the long backstraight. He came to a standstill in the middle of the road, so it wasn't a problem to take a wider line around him on the outside. To my surprise I got kind of hooked up, when nearly having passed Paulo, so I made a spin. In the replay I saw, that
@Paulo Braga started driving backwards right into me, when I was driving around him.
Well mate, I don't put a blame on you and don't have harsh feelings. I also made similar mistakes in my "career". But I would've been greatful, if there was a little "sorry" from you here or in TS.
That's the nature of the community here - saying sorry and being forgiven.
I drove on in P3, 6 seconds behind P2. Now I pushed hard to close the gap. It worked for a few laps but tyres got stressed too much and I started to make mistakes and spins. For the last 2 laps my tyres where down to zero, so I could only crawl around the circuit anymore. It was like driving on ice, so I didn't let you pass
@Raresch but I had to let you pass.
I finished 6th or 7th I think. I'm very curious how the race would've gone for me, if I had taken half fuel for two stints including a tyre change. I think it could have been like two stints in qualy speed, opening a bigger gap to P2 in the opening stint, not getting in trouble with Paulo later on (sorry mate
) and finally a much lower risk of doing mistakes because of the fresh tyres...
Well a nice lesson to learn from.
thx to
@Craig Dunkley for hosting this one! You're the man.