Spa Report

[Kat]

Firstly, great fun Frank, well done.

Secondly, Sorry Pedro - not sure what you thought of Eau Rouge but wasn't sure if you'd cut or even hit the wall as I lost sight of you - I tried to give you room but ran out of room myself but as you dropped back figured you were damaged and you never seemed to be close enough to challenge after until - ironically - you spun... I then promptly binned it in Radillion which was hugely disapointing

Overall - race to forget .

[Pedro Neto]

Hey Kat,

All good, it was fun and I didn't pick up any damage whatsoever, just decided to layback as the heat was on and it was too early in the race, then spun when I was preparing for an attack and then didn't see what happened to you.

I actually lost it in two other occasions later in the race but somehow managed to finish !

[Dmitriy Terekhov]

Use my last year Arrows mk2 set with little tune up, feel it ok. But without practice that was tough... While practice try hards with 95L and go for non stop.
Results - made it to finish. Not impressive results, hope it would be better next time.

Firstly, great fun Frank, well done.

Secondly, Sorry Pedro - not sure what you thought of Eau Rouge but wasn't sure if you'd cut or even hit the wall as I lost sight of you - I tried to give you room but ran out of room myself but as you dropped back figured you were damaged and you never seemed to be close enough to challenge after until - ironically - you spun... I then promptly binned it in Radillion which was hugely disapointing

Overall - race to forget .

Kat, you are always say that you have problems with that Radillion, every race at Spa... Looks like you are programming your self about it. Just forget the name of this turn, because it is terrifying.
Wish u luck for next race

P.S: Spend a lot of time in garage with my cars.
2 month ago bought green Moskvich 2140 1987 release (my age) , it have problem with gearbox but can ride. Price was 183 eur.! Mileage 76000 km. So i take it without any questions. Now fixing it.

[Eric Fulghum]

Sorry I missed it guys.
I had family stuff to do.

[Martin Cooper]

Firstly, great fun Frank, well done.

Secondly, Sorry Pedro - not sure what you thought of Eau Rouge but wasn't sure if you'd cut or even hit the wall as I lost sight of you - I tried to give you room but ran out of room myself but as you dropped back.....

Kat, is this L7? I just flicked through my teamies race & watched this. I'd say this was very fair on both sides into Eau Rouge but not sure what happened after was quite right? Errr General Rules#13 & Pedro didn't seem to be out of your mirrors the rest of the lap

[Martin Cooper]

Thankfully found a bit more speed before qual . Even better I got off the line in a straight line & even picked up a place round the outside in T1 , so that's the highlights out of the way.

L1 got bit of oversteer into Pouhon & had to run wide & join at the back of the field. L2 still getting sum oversteer until coming out of the left-hander at Fagnes the car started to go round coming off the kerb, I either gave it too much correction or just too quick & the car flipped right slamming the wall & losing a wheel.

2nd race in a row the car feels completely different from one session to the next, up until that point I've been fighting under-steer all week.

Btw Race Control the server is still set so you can't quit out of the race straight away

[Martin Cooper]

Btw Pedro, well done m8, least one of finished this time. Will try harder for the next one

[Kat]

Firstly, great fun Frank, well done.

Secondly, Sorry Pedro - not sure what you thought of Eau Rouge but wasn't sure if you'd cut or even hit the wall as I lost sight of you - I tried to give you room but ran out of room myself but as you dropped back.....

Kat, is this L7? I just flicked through my teamies race & watched this. I'd say this was very fair on both sides into Eau Rouge but not sure what happened after was quite right? Errr General Rules#13 & Pedro didn't seem to be out of your mirrors the rest of the lap

Possible, I knew I'd cut Radillion as a consequence of deliberately running wide in Eau Rouge (giving Pedro room) and was expecting him to draft up to me and go through into Les Combes - instead he dropped back to almost 2s - so decided while I had cut I probably hadn't 'gained' from it as the gap had increased by well almost 2s. I even lifted on the straight up the hill slightly and he still didn't close the gap so figured no need to let him past.

[Rouke]

Crappy turnout, only 11 peeps in race3.....but had great fun nonetheless!

I relied on past experiences on Spa so only practised on Sat club to get a feel for it and see where I was pacewise.
Not that good as it turned out but practise on sunday got me in the mood and I remembered a few sweetspots and qualified in 2nd place only 00.096 behind Rikamaru-san. That was a pleasant surprise for me tbh. Even more pleasant because of the kikkostart.

Which worked well, 1st place into T1 and I never saw them again......if only
Both Rik and Ray started to pressure me from the getgo, I had not expected Ray to be this fast with almost a second of out pace in quali, but he must just had a bad one because now he was all over us!
So much so that when he started to race Rik I thought I could escape both and I was already congratulating myself with such an easy win. How good was I!

Unfortunately they also had plans for themselves and they rudely gained back on me, shifting position between themselves and soon enough we where together again and attacking me. With my low d/f setup I was able to fence them off and I must say I realy enjoyed racing so close but with great comfort knowing they would not do anything silly. (which helped my defence)

Pitstop at 50%, Bret was in my spot (ffs!) I knew Rik's stop would be fast so I could not afford any holdup and start pushing Bret until my crew picked me up. hope it didn't cause problems Bret, didn't look like it.
Back in 4th, Ray pitted and entered in front of me, my tires where good, his where cold, and I had a slight concern he was actually faster then me so I needed to pass him asap and then fence him off again. That worked well and I was again in front of him which made me feel good because Grant didn't show so Ray was taking a beating for it

We raced together for the rest of the event, always close, always trying to get the edge on me. constant pressure meant I (we) could not get up to normal speed and Frank was in 2nd place and there was a good possibility we could get him.
But Ray spoiled that hehe, I just could not focus on clean lines, had to use defensive lines and that slowed us down considerably.
It was a great scrap though, some irratic behaviour from me a few times, you might have noticed Ray, somehow I was over-shifting and going into wrong gears and that caused some issues for me a couple of times, no idea why I did that, probably just the stress

Well done to Frank for a non-stopper, I would like to point to Dmitriy's post on Kat, same thing really, great worries on forehand but gaining a massive leap just by delivering anyways. keep that in mind!

And congrats to Rik, awesome win man, somebody gotta do something about that. I might start practising again!

On the ISI forums there is a thread about pitting. someone tested and timed different sequences and its suprising how much time one can gain or lose by doing it right or wrong.
Rik, you always had much faster pitstops, what's your secret? did you also analyse the pitstops in the past?
Because in that thread (for rf2 but the same I think) even stopping in the correct sweet-spot gains time because a few inches too early or far but still correct, can make it a few secs longer. same for getting the crew ready in time, wait too long and it can take 10 to 20 secs longer all together.

http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/1 ... me-answers

Anyways, great event despite the numbers, thx for the fun all

[Bret Metcalf]

Nice qually and nice start, picked up one place straight away when i got past Paul before T1. Settled into a decent race pace until I got distracted and crashed heavilly at Eau Rouge, struggled around the whole lap to the pits, big apology to Rouke as well, I stopped at my pit box then decided to light a smoke only later did I notice that Rouke was queing behind me as we unfortunatley had the same bloody pit box This probably cost Rouke the race win to be honest...really sorry man.


A couple of laps later I lost the car at the exit of the last chicane, wheel off and that was that...race over.

Congrats again to Rik on taking the win.

Regards,
Bret

[Pedro Neto]

Regarding lap 7, I can't remember exactly the full sequence that lap but I think I did eau rouge quite slowly in order to give kat space and ended up getting out of it quite slowly, but wasn't worried about it as I planned to back of a bit anyway.

Regarding cutting in general I'll post I've just had a check of the general rules and I didn't remember the kerb is okay exiting a corner rule. Is that the same for gravel ? i.e. other than tarmac run off ?

[Rouke]

...decided to light a smoke only later did I notice that Rouke was queing behind me as we unfortunatley had the same bloody pit box This probably cost Rouke the race win to be honest...really sorry man.

It wasn't that bad Bret, I think it cost me about 4 or 6 seconds extra, no way that would have made the difference on Rik or Frank.

But for future practise: get lighter ready on a straight, cigarette in mouth before you enter the pits, light it when crew starts working, and of you go, no time loss

[Rik Walker]

Shame about the low attendance, it's really got to pick up or else it might be necessary to call it quits

Rouke had the better start but not quite as good as he implies as we went round T1 together, but he had the better exit so I opted to tuck in behind rather than risk Eau Rouge side by side. It turns out that whilst my setup works well when running in clean air, it's not good for following someone close and a few small mistakes followed. Ray got past after a few laps and I decided to just settle down, look after the tyres and see what happened at the pit stops as I was never more than a couple of seconds behind Rouke (& less to Ray). Luckily for me, Ray ran a little wide just before Stavelot on lap 11 which allowed me to retake 2nd. This proved essential as it meant I could push on the in lap and attack the pit lane entry, but I didn't expect to have such a lead exiting the pits - only a couple of seconds over Frank but a full 10 back to Rouke & Ray. I was able to build the lead over Frank to a more comfortable 7s and then concentrated on controlling the pace & not taking risks.

Rik, you always had much faster pitstops, what's your secret?

I don't think there is any secret and I'm not sure that I agree that hitting the pit box exactly makes much, if any, difference. But here's what I do:

- remember to request the pit stop! Failing to do so can cost as much as 4.5s in GP79. With GP79 you need to request the stop between 40 & 100 seconds before pitting. If rF happens to acurately estimate fuel usage it will automatically request the stop as you finish the first sector but most times you will need to do it yourself
- know where the pit lane speed limit applies, it might not be where the lights are. eg at Kyalami it was quite some way after the lights. There was probably two seconds to be saved if you braked for where the limit starts rather than the lights
- practice the pit entry so you know how late you can brake whilst still keeping a safety margin
- keep as close as you can to the pit lane speed limit, 80kph may be safe but it will cost you 2 or 3 seconds compared to just under 100kph. rF does allow you to briefly exceed the limit by a kph or two so you don't need to be quite so safe. Practice the limit when exiting the pits in practice rather than just blasting out as fast as you can...
- brake accurately for your pit box; as above I don't think you need to be inch perfect but it wouldnt surprise me if there was a bit of a delay if you are at the extremes of what is allowed
- be lucky Random delays can add up to 5s to the stop but it's mostly going to be just 1 or 2s. Nothing you can do about this

All in all, there are definitely 5+s to be lost when pitting if you aren't sure where the limit applies and be too safe.

[Rouke]

Rouke had the better start but not quite as good as he implies as we went round T1 together

Its called selective memory Rik, try it sometimes, makes the world a much better place

As for pitting, I do or try most of those things, but as far as my (crappy) memory go's you've always had much faster stops then anyone else. maybe its just pitch perfect execution indeed, I remember seeing you do those stops years ago and then trying to figure out how you did it, watching replays etc. but never could pinpoint it.

One more item on your list, pit exit. can usually be done earlier then we assume. requires testing of course but I found most track allow for a same-ish brief increase in speed as you cross the exit line. all those little items do help indeed.

[Rik Walker]

As for pitting, I do or try most of those things, but as far as my (crappy) memory go's you've always had much faster stops then anyone else. maybe its just pitch perfect execution indeed, I remember seeing you do those stops years ago and then trying to figure out how you did it, watching replays etc. but never could pinpoint it.

I think it's just down to being closer to perfection - there's still room for improvement

Looking at the server replay from last night it's clear that I did brake later for the pits than either you or Ray, didn't slow down quite as much below 100 for the entry and maintained a higher speed in the pits. It all adds up.

nb: if people aren't clear how to tell exactly where the pit limits apply then the easiest way is:
- deliberately speed in the pits. The msg telling you that you sped comes up when you cross the end of the pit limit zone
- enter the pits WITHOUT requesting a stop. At the pit limit start your HUD will automatically switch to the pits menu