Round 1 - Buenos Aires (Jan 10th)

Points are up. Screenies to follow after some DRM housekeeping 

Jason White wrote:

Jukka Maattanen wrote:

I'd like to ask Jason, how can the Brabham be so slow

Simple. I'm driving it. 

Seriously, I think it will be better suited for circuits like Paul Ricard, Monza and the Hock.

And presumably Anderstorp

Jukka Maattanen wrote:

And presumably Anderstorp

Yes. Gordon Murray is working on a cooling unit of some kind...

That was a very difficult race, fun first half, very hairy second half...


Practice and Qualifying:

Did what I could to get a quick car underneath me but it dawned on me very early that the car lacks a lot of top speed and fast corner speed compared to most of the other cars so I decided to get a good consistent race car together instead.

This it feels like I managed, I did a 48.2 which is a PB for me in Qualifying so very happy with that, not ending up last was also a nice bonus for that PB


Race:

The lights was a tad bit difficult to see as they were off on the side, fortunately I noticed when I came onto the grid after the recon-lap and prepared for it and therefore had a resonable start, climbed to 15th a couple of laps in.

Soon I came under fire from quicker drivers and I let most of them go by as I were set on the car being better later into the race. Settled into my grove keeping a nice gap to Jason, Jukka and Steve (I think it was Steve, might have been someone else...).

Dropped a few tenths every lap but felt at home and then Jason started to suffer from tirewear.

I still had good tires so pushed a bit and after many laps of loosing out in Sector 1 with the long straights and fast corners while gaining in the 2nd and 3rd sectors where I had the car set up to be quite good on the squiggly bits, I was close enough to get the tow.

About at the same time Phillipe finally caught up to us after having had trouble after Lap1 and he, I assume, didn't take the dirty air and difference in cars into enough consideration going into T1 as, when I turned in, he came careering onto the same piece of tarmac resulting in contact, seeing Phillipe out of the race and me with both suspension damage and a punctured tire.
Sorry if it was my fault, haven't checked the replay, but I didn't think there were any kind of chance at a pass in that part of the track for anyone so didn't anticipate anyone to be up the inside at that turn. But shit happens, sorry to see you out of the race but I hope we get to have a good battle in the coming rounds

Sadly it also saw the end of a, prospectively speaking, fantastic battle with Jason. What wings were you using by the way?

Limped back into the pits and changed the tires and went out and changed from racing to just surviving until the end of the race. Took a few laps to understand the way the car was behaving. The damaged suspension caused the car to only want to turn left, prefferably spinning left, and then understeer more than a charging hippo, quite the interesting combination.

In the end finished 14th or 15th which I'll happily take, the car really didn't like the circuit and I didn't quite gell with it either...

But I had a lot of fun, thank you to all I had a battle with and sorry for a few dodgy let by's for lappers, had a bit of trouble at times.

Also, congrats Petr, I take part-pride in that victory as I helped set up the car and congrats to everyone, that was a very difficult race

Jonatan, you aren't just a part of my success. Your setup won the race for me. It was just amazing. The car didn't degrade at all. All that fighting at the beginning didn't do any harm, I could literally do whatever I wanted, it was so nice and easy to drive! Actually, I decided to push a little at the end and improved the fastest time by 0.4s in the last lap. Incredible. If you don't mind, I would share that set with everyone.

Also, I watched the TV coverage. The only objection is perhaps too much jumping frpm car to car at the beginning, but otherwise it was fantastic! Huge thanks for speaking English, your commentary is enjoyable, knowledgable, you always picked the best action on track, simply a very, very good job! My family and a few of my fellow Simracer friends from CZ watched it too ;-)

I wouldn't mind that at all mate

I'm happy to hear that you feel that it had such a massive impact on/for your race, that proves that it wasn't the cars fault when it comes to the M23, it was me not being able to extract the pace out of it the same way you could extract the pace out of the Williams on a similar setup.

I'm simply happy to be able to help any and everyone so go ahead mate

Well that was....interesting?

I had a decent start, got bogged down behind some traffic until the hairpin.....Braking for the turn in a wad of "slower" cars and I got a little twitchy, it wasn't bad but it high sided on the curb, had to wait for everyone to go by so I could back off of it, I then spent the rest of the race trying to catch back up. Made a couple of bone head moves whilst around other cars, somewhere around Lap 26 or so I finally lost it completely out of the last hairpin and lost the rear wing. While pitting for repairs I opted to put new tires on and went with the Softs. When I came out of the pits the car was a rocket and it went to my head, whilst running up on a slower higher placed car I went wide out of the top end of the track and clouted the wall and lost both wings and a rear tire.

It's amazing to me, how little speed differential there is down the straights, it's probably only a couple of MPH, but man in the turns. I would be chasing guys from out of the last hairpin and not be catching them, until we went into the big sweeper at the top of the track and I would drive right up on them there.

Oh well, I had 2 goals for the weekend, Q with a .46 lap and I did that, the other was to just finish the race, didn't do that. Thanks to Gerard for the Q and Race setups, I would've been a lot further back without them. See ya'll at Kyalami, I won't be able to make Brazil, taking my girls to Disney on Ice that day.

Screenies up

http://historicsimracing.org/en/resultatscourse/1132

Jason White wrote:

Screenies up

http://historicsimracing.org/en/resultatscourse/1132

Lovely

It was ironic with Gerard: He was faster on the straights, but I seemed quicker in the turns(at least in the slow ones, not the long right hander), even though he drives a ground-effect car

David Jundt wrote:

It was ironic with Gerard: He was faster on the straights, but I seemed quicker in the turns(at least in the slow ones, not the long right hander), even though he drives a ground-effect car

That's the way my Lotus was as well, in the fast corners it was blazing fast but in the slow corners it was almost painfully slow.

Yea the 78 does have Ground Effects, but the 78 had a lot of problems with it's Ground Effects.

Richard Coxon wrote:

Had a fun race especially at the beginning, until i cam to lap Dylan 
No offence Dylan but you had plenty of time to let me by, you could have gone wide on corners, lifted off on the straight and moved off the racing line. Just remember don't panic. It does look as though you were trying to hard when i was near you, slow things down slightly and the car will behave better for you 

Ye sorry... Not being anoyed with myself, i realised my mistake, sorry if i ruined a good race for you

Quote :

That's the way my Lotus was as well, in the fast corners it was blazing fast but in the slow corners it was almost painfully slow.

Both the 78 and the 79 had problems with low speed grip. The underbody only started working well at some speed.

Lovely screens, the cars are truly spectacular !

Thanks for the coverage!

Yup, I'm pretty bummed that I wasn't able to race yesterday. Terrific screenshots! Congrats Petr, well deserved!

Jukka Maattanen wrote:

I'd like to ask Jason, how can the Brabham be so slow

They aren't slow, they'r too fast, so we had to drive them carefully....
We had a plan to win when all of you in front crash... but, somthing went wrong!!

Raul Jereb wrote:

Jukka Maattanen wrote:

I'd like to ask Jason, how can the Brabham be so slow

They aren't slow, they'r too fast, so we had to drive them carefully....
We had a plan to win when all of you in front crash... but, somthing went wrong!!

I think the Brabham doesn't like the combination of slow twisty bits and high speed straights. My spidey senses tell me it is best when setup for one or the other.

Jason Fitch wrote:

See ya'll at Kyalami, I won't be able to make Brazil, taking my girls to Disney on Ice that day.

Thank you for letting us know; we'll have the Rebaque Lotus available in Round 2 as an open full time drive.

Jason White wrote:

Jason Fitch wrote:

See ya'll at Kyalami, I won't be able to make Brazil, taking my girls to Disney on Ice that day.

Thank you for letting us know; we'll have the Rebaque Lotus available in Round 2 as an open full time drive.

Perhaps you could reserve that seat for me if possible. Was great fun yesterday with the Merzario, but i need a little more practise before a race weekend.

Jan Kowalski wrote:

Jason White wrote:

Jason Fitch wrote:

See ya'll at Kyalami, I won't be able to make Brazil, taking my girls to Disney on Ice that day.

Thank you for letting us know; we'll have the Rebaque Lotus available in Round 2 as a one-off drive.

Perhaps you could reserve that seat for me if possible. Was great fun yesterday with the Merzario, but i need a little more practise before a race weekend.

You will have to request it in the Brazil race thread, which will be posted on January 17th, and only after all the regular one-off drives are taken.

Race broadcast

I just uploaded my race setup to the Setup section on the HSO web page. You might feel a little understeer in those super fast corners with full tank and cold tyres, but soon the car becomes amazing to drive and remains like that during the whole run, reaching nearly a qualifying condition in the closing stages. Again, credit goes to Jonatan Acerclinth

Wow that is a good setup. I will try to translate to my Ferrari. I was faster in yours than mine!

Mike Becnel wrote:

Wow that is a good setup. I will try to translate to my Ferrari. I was faster in yours than mine!

Now everybody will be winners!!!!!!!!!