RDRC S9 Round 1 - Rally Monte Carlo (1st February - 7th February 2021)

[AlleyViper]

Oh well, I had the worst start. Right on the first stage - second sector, I slid on winter tyres hitting the low safety wall with the whole left side of the car exiting a corner at speed, but what resulted was one of those situations where the collider gets stuck and you are immediately brought to a complete stop with huge damage instead of just bouncing back + pray for no flats. Both left tyres were gone with rims exposed, later confirmed critical damage on the exhaust, med to high damage on body, rad, turbo.
Had to limp the car to avoid a 2m penalty for changing 2 tyres and ended the stage (currently) 1m:24s behind the leader, all after another couple of hit and spuns on an undriveable and re-shaped Renault 5T. Adding to injury, some spectators thought it was a Clio by then.

From that point on, fortunately everything went normally without drama on the remaining 11 stages. Just had to do a couple of quick reverses after spun hairpins, and coped with a bad turbo that I never had time to repair after slowly recovering from the damage done on the first stage. 3rd gear already had power loss going up on the last stages.
Apart 1st stage disaster, ended probably about 11s in avg. behind the very few current best stage times in 3-13s gaps, and was lucky to get an unexpected (temporary) best on the 4th stage. Admittedly, a much needed boost in morale by then.

GL all!

 

[MevilKusi]

Finished my second attempt at Monte Bit of disaster leading up to it as i was practicing in the wrong car

But rally went really well! I know I ain't going to get a top 10 but didn't expect to be 3 mins 30 secs off but had a fantastic battle with Mevilkusi as I only finished 0.4 ahead of him

Anyone who does decent paints get in touch with me please, my Peugeot is a bit bland

Also thanks to RDRC admins for setting this up, we ( SimTech ) really enjoyed Monte

View attachment 441615

This was really a pleasure to battle along these 12 stages against you! Because of you, i really wanted to push my Polo a bit harder, leading up to hit some spectators behind a wooden fence.

Also i wanted to thank the RDRC admins too, for such a well-done setup.

 

[Aidan Keranen]

Man that was intense
More than anything wanted to keep the car straight and clean, job done in that respect. I've probably lost 2-3 minutes to the class leaders but I really can't complain about that, put in some serious practice in the first four stages, sort of showed as I was a little hesitant from Stage 5 onwards, lost many seconds for just not paying attention or braking into flat corners etc.
But, finishing at the Monte was goal #1 and that's been achieved

 

[LuMue]

You've got some pace man, I wonder if you'll beat most of the R5 cars

Don't think so, but thanks for watching

Totally out of power - just have to sleep now! Will write a report at work

 

[Fleskebacon]

yes!!! fastest delivery ever, did stage01 within minutes of being accepted, thx for putting two warmup stages at the beginning, managed a time just under 3.00 even though i had to pause for some minutes due to a call, slowest of the chaps who got through in one piece atm, good start, thx ole for setting this up. bit of a norway vs. germany battle in rdrc2 atm, first six positions taken by either country!

It's kind of Norway vs Germany in the bottom as well!

I've been driving too safe so far, planning to speed up for the rest of the stages and probably taking a dive off a cliff in the night stages. Get ready for fried bacon!!!

 

[LuMue]

Here's a little review of what Müller Motorsport did around the Col de Turini last night:

Before we started there was a discussion regarding the tyre choice. Paul did some test runs on both compounds and decided to take the winter tyres for the first stint. He was slower on the first three stages but felt much safer on the 4th stage when using winter tyres.

So he took his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI to the start. The car looks like the Skoda Octavia, driven by Armin Schwarz. The original livery, which we edited a bit, can be found here: Skoda Livery

He had a solid start without mistakes and made it to the first service without heavy damages on the car. The first two stage safter the service weren't that good but when night came he was in a flow...

He managed to keep the car on the raod while keeping the speed up without destroying the car.

The whole run can be reviewed here:

Then it was me in my Lancia Delta HF Integrale. I've also edited an existing livery, but don't know which one of the many Martini liveries it was...sorry!

When I did my run, @Magnar Haarstadsveen had already done his first stages, so I had a pace to look at. The first two stages went fine and I stayed in touch with Magnar. I took the lead on the third stage, leading by 2s after the third and fourth stage.

The fifth stage was a bit complicated as I had the winter tyres on the car then and I had to get used to them. So I lost a bit on this one... Then it got dark at the Turini...

Had a nice drive around the hairpins without any mistakes. On stage 11 I had a spin but was lucky to get the car turned in the right direction quite fast again...

On the Power Stage I was lucky to be 0.465s faster than Paul in the end. I was 21.4s faster than Paul on the first 4 stages - in the end the gap is 30.1s.

Mycomplete run can be seen here:

Müller Motorsport is quite satisfied with their performance at the Monte this time...

 

[bogani]

Well, I've just been doing some testing in my Fiesta R5 for the first 4 stages. Soft tyres are a big win for me on the first 3 of them, and a definite problem in SS4. The time loss on SS4 is mixed - some sections are quick and some are just horrendous, but my overall time on softs is a handful of seconds worse than on snow tyres.
So... if I'm feeling brave/foolish enough, I think my quickest option is clearly to take the softs for the first 4 stages Pretty high risk of something very bad happening though!

During PET I was 10-12 seconds quicker on softs for the first loop, but SS4 gets really hairy.

Softs will pay off if you can keep your head cool on SS4, but the overall risk will be much higher of having a meeting with a stone wall soon enough. Especially with all the ice/snow in the braking zones leading to hairpins.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

that armin müller skoda was the first mod i ever downloaded in m life. the game was colin mcrae2 where to my great surprise some wizzards from poland managed to actually change one of the in-game cars into the skoda, fresh skin and all. a new world opened up, games were no longer static.

 

[Azabadaza]

That was epic!

First RDRC rally done and dusted (after a false start in RDRC S8, when I got terminal damage on stage 1 of Monte). Initiated "granny driver" strategy, keep it straight and narrow and on the road, and managed to finish with very little damage! Very happy to currently be in midfield, within 5 minutes of the current J-RDRC leader!
Huge thanks to @Aidan Keranen for his coaching and otherwise solid banter. WE DID IT!!!

 

[Roy Magnes]

I have just finished the first loop of stages before I head out for work. Took it fairly safe, but I had 2 spins on the snow on ss4 that did cost me around 15-20 seconds. Looking forward to do more stages later on

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

you should put some more pressure on those tires, though, roy, they look fairly flat to me

 

[Lynx2000]

And we're done, had a crash on ss9 but still managed to be only 13 seconds off the pace, think I could have been really close if it weren't for that little mistake. Took it easier on the last 3 stages to not damage the car further and end the rally in a DNF + By that time I was so far down that I had no results to push for. Struggled a lot on the uphill stages with getting traction think I lost most of my time there, tried to do some setup tweaks to improve it but nothing helped really.

I'm not in RDRC-3 for getting results anyways and overall I really enjoyed the rally.

Now on to see what Sweden will bring in about 2 weeks time!

 

[Mathieu Labbé]

I'm amazed at the pace of the front runners in the J-RDRC! I only just started playing dirt rally 2.0 and am by no means a Rally driver but I was still amazed to lose 5s per split. Well done and thanks for encouraging me to push more and test the limits!

Seeing no Opel R2 towards the front though, is the car somehow slowest in class?

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Seeing no Opel R2 towards the front though, is the car somehow slowest in class?

Yes, no, maybe? The Fiesta does have the advantage of a turbo-engine, which means you don't have to chase the RPM at all time.
However, looking at the time trial leaderboards at a random long Monte-Stage, it is 3 Adam's, 4 Peugeot's and 5 Fiesta in the top 12.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

And we're done, had a crash on ss9 but still managed to be only 13 seconds off the pace, think I could have been really close if it weren't for that little mistake. Took it easier on the last 3 stages to not damage the car further and end the rally in a DNF + By that time I was so far down that I had no results to push for. Struggled a lot on the uphill stages with getting traction think I lost most of my time there, tried to do some setup tweaks to improve it but nothing helped really.

I'm not in RDRC-3 for getting results anyways and overall I really enjoyed the rally.

Now on to see what Sweden will bring in about 2 weeks time!

That Sierra with it's... interesting delivery of power cannot be easy to handle at Monte?

 

[Paul McCluskey]

Ha, I took it easy from stage 3 or maybe even stage 2 onwards as had no choice as my Escort RS Cossies engine was well n truly damaged, averaging 30mph after that , hit the wall dead on I always tend too hit , Its a right n a left but going too quick i understeered and smashed the wall dead on, least i got the Cautiion Don't Cut trophy for getting no damage in a stage, well couldnt go very fast and not sure if i picked the right car anyway, shoulda picked better steering car ,but made it too the end somehow as the engine was really struggling so was just a scenic tour rally lol. must try harder or should that be not so hard so I don't smash me car up lol. roll on round 2

 

[BeliacosGR]

Good luck to all. I am firing up DR 2.0 only for RDRC because the game its out of my interest after 300 hours..compared to DR 1 with 1000+... Anyway Enjoy the Rally!

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

... I am firing up DR 2.0 only for RDRC ...!

same here, too little time. so right now, with rdrc, my wrc8 campaign is on hold just as i got my first works contract for wrc. ah well, i can always pick that up again over summer

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

same here, too little time. so right now, with rdrc, my wrc8 campaign is on hold just as i got my first works contract for wrc. ah well, i can always pick that up again over summer

I probably shouldn't say it due to my role in RDRC. But if it hadn't been for RDRC, I'd probably never touch DR2.0 again

 

[Manuel De Samaniego]

I probably shouldn't say it due to my role in RDRC. But if it hadn't been for RDRC, I'd probably never touch DR2.0 again

I probably shouldn't say it either but if it wasn't for RDRC I'd definitely never touch DR2.0 again, it feels exactly like F1 would feel like if it were a rally game, simcade disguised as a sim.