Round 2 - Grand Prix of Long Beach [Apr 16th]

Richard Wilks wrote:

A month and a half to indy is too long

Track opens May 1

Bruno Chacon wrote:

I have done my best to take part in this race today.
Too bad it has members who pick up available cars and do not even show up to qualify.
I think it's a matter of responsibility to get a car and participate in the event, because there are others who would like to participate and are unable to participate

Two cars have gone free, so the entry list is moving. And for Indy there are many, many free cars available, so it should be possible to get a ride there. See you on track

I can't wait for Indy. I'm not going for another Jigger Award. One is enough. And I'll try not to break my foot this year, it could make practice a bit easier.

Results and points are up
Hope to see you all at Indy

Never expected to finish this race!

Apologies to Richard Wilks. I just saw the replay and it looks like I touched you a tiny bit in turn 1 on lap 14. Happy to see you could continue your way after the spin. I had to make a pitstop to repair my front wing after I hit the wall while trying to turn back to the track
This was my only mistake in the race, had some good battles but I also let some faster people go pass because my only aim was to finish the race.

thx for broadcasting Jonathan and thx to HSO admins for the organisation!

Short race for me, so not much to commentate. Surprised I could stay with quicker drivers like Jundt or Blom, probably just because of the Penske being superior to their rides. Pascal caught us from behind and tried to overtake. I saw him beside me and waited to turn into the corner, but he could not turn either, so I ended turning in very late and hugging the wall. Got contact in the rear wheel, which threw me off my trajectory to hit the wall. Repairs would not have been complete, so I quit instead of becoming a problem in the track for the rest. Not exactly happy, but such is life

At least I had a chance to help Jonathan out with the broadcast  but some things I saw there were not nice at all. I just hope people think about it and we don't see this kind nonesense at Indy. Really.

A tough race this one

I only qualified 14th so I thought that I would just keep out of trouble in the race and see where I end up. I let Pascal go past he he seemed to want to win the race early on and I then backed off as he, Dana and Richard battled, that turned out to be a wise move as they then crashed in front of me and I was just able to dive past. Lots of early yellows so I decided to take a early (ish) pitstop to try and be on a different strategy. Got some rear damage under a yellow in a stop start event and had to carry the damage to the end of the race which made taking risks impossible so it should have been a drive to the flag only for me to clip a wall with the rear tyre and spin with 2 laps to go. Then when trying to turn the car around I blew the engine so 6th then became a 7th place finish. I would have taken that at the start.

Now to start trying to find an Indy setup.

Bad race from me. First full distance with a Lola and still had to learn how it deal with it. The cars seems to be much wider i think, so the battles were more close than in F1 1991. Finally i found a really good race setup, the pace was there until i was having trouble in the midfield after pitting under yellow.
The fight with Austin was getting too hard , he made a move in a strange part of the track, well i didnt saw him therefore and we both spun and i lost my rear wing. We should have had a good fight until the end of the race, hope we both leave more room next time  .
I wanted to go the pits, but pit lane was closed, so i had to make antoher lap and got a repair in 100 seconds. From then on i was already a lap down.

In the last third of the race, i tried to get back to the lead lap. I made it with 10 laps to go, but unfortunately there was no yellow in the end, so i couldnt get any higher than 6th.

My appolgies to Yves. Totally my fault. First i hit the wall on the straight in sector 2 again on this particular lap which cause effectivly more pull to the left, so i called a pit stop and made changes while holding the wheel steady, but somehow pulled more to my left than excepted due to that damage before.


Thanks Bob for the car. Get well soon

First of all, my apologies to BoB for spinning him around under yellow. That pile-up developed way faster than I anticipated. Not the kind of thing that should happen...

Well, that was quite a roller coaster. Where to start...?

...qualifying, off to a somewhat frustrating start, didn't really click, but I was still experimenting. The idea I followed was wrong and I quickly shelved it, went back to my setup that was so far the fastest, but couldn't really make it work for the moment. And I shot a couple of engines again, which made me pretty angry...
...so I braced myself, and the times were starting to develop. Not yet, where I wanted it, but it improved. Each run (and I did quite some laps), I changed a bit here and there, and all of a sudden, I had something I didn't have the last two weeks of testing here: a feeling for the car. Suddenly, I could predict what the car was doing and start to explore the limit. The result: My first 1:11 on this track, nearly beating Alberto in the sister car (lost the time in the last sector ). Something to start with.

Well, I applied the new learned magic to my race setup, and in the few laps I had during warmup, it seemed to work. Somewhere during the day, I came to the conclusion to try a three stop strategy, as trying to stretch it might hurt the tires to much. There was still some uncertainty about balance shift, but I was willing to risk it. Could only get better than what I had before.

What happened next was not what I desired. The lights went green and the pack went off, and when I thought, I was braking early, Richard Wilks was braking even earlier. I had nowhere to go but the increasingly decreasing gap between the wall and Richard's car. There went my front wing... Sorry for that, but I really didn't expect you to brake that early, and I already left some leeway.

Anyways, I was able to limp back to the pits and got a 4 1/2 minute repair stop. Awesome, that's like... 4 laps down? At least, the first yellow of the day allowed me to close up to the pack. And then, I had that unfortunate incident when a pile-up before the chicane leading to the back straight developed. I waited for him to rejoin, but either I got him out of his rhythm or damaged his suspension bad enough, he spun right again entering the backstraight and got totalled by someone else. Shooot... I was seriously considering quitting for my own poor driving.

But I decided to stay and see how it develops, and it wasn't all that bad. My goal was to get rid of the last place and survive, and while my pace was not overly fast, the car was feeling good. The first half was a bit of a patience game, one yellow after another, and the chicane at the end of the front straight claimed a couple of victims upon restarts. I couldn't really get into a decent rhythm. Made my first stop at the third or fourth yellow (after the first extended period under yellow), got the timing for the second stop perfect, as I pitted in the last yellow before the finish. I probably made myself a bit unpopular by racing a couple of guys who were about to lap me, but in order to fetch them, you gotta get into the same lap as them. So after the last restart, I finally had a few guys with a lap on my right in front of me, and I knew I was a bit faster than them, so I kinda forced the issue and got ahead of Alan Forster and Jason White. As the fuel burned off, I could open a gap on them, and was really driving my rear off. In the end, it worked out, as I finally got ahead of Jason, and Alan apparently needed a splash of fuel, and that got really tight at the end. I don't know if I could have catched him in the remaining time, if it would have stayed yellow, but it would have become an exciting run to the finish line if it wasn't for the final yellow.

If you'd offered me an 11th on saturday, I'd happily taken it, but considering what I lost on the start of the race, I'm a bit dissappointed in the end. But I learned a lot, and I hadn't expected to survive the race in the end...

Thanks for the TV coverage, awesome as always. And it was a typical Indycar street race. Full of action, yellows, crashes, strategy, good driving and awesome battles in the concrete canyon. Grats to all finishers.

P. S. : I've been refreshing the page each 30s for 2,5 hours, looking for the next round thread to book a car, I'm giving up now

Well done Grant

I was expecting to struggle so was happy to keep out of trouble at the back of the pack, was going ok but I got  damage from someone running into the back of me under caution which made the car trickier to handle, awhile later I had a silly spin nose first into a wall which gave me alot more damage and needed to limp back to the pits for lengthy repairs which cost me 4 laps, In the end I was happy to finish and to pick up afew unexpected points too , now on to Indy

Screengrabs up

http://historicsimracing.org/en/resultatscourse/1370

Well that was an eventful evening!

My setup was maxed out as in terms for me to produce a time with the T87 and was happy with 2nd on the Grid.

Then the race was just a 2hr+ drama! Got away well on the first lap to take the lead and to start pacing myself but wasnt really needed with the safety cars. Throughout the race i knew it would come down to the last 30 laps so tried to strategically worked out my stops to put me in the top 3 in the last 30 laps. Which didnt really go to plan I ended up 4th having to work my way up into 2nd and with 20 laps to go i slowly but surly reeled Rob in for the lead but with 5 laps to go and the gap down to under 2 seconds my tires just faded, couldnt keep the pace up and was sure 2nd would be my position until second to last lap Rob spun round and allowed me the win. Felt bad even for Rob as it was his to take after 95 laps.

Pleased for the win however as i knew i had the pace to perform!

Great racing all round however i do have one problem i would like to bring up. Im not sure how strict the Blue Flag rule is implied here but last night was one of the worst examples of it being ignored i have ever had. I had people who were laps down racing me, diving into a corner next to me and causing incidents ahead of me. Jan im not sure if you had the Blue Flags on your screen but for around 5 laps i was right behind you struggling to overtake you due to the downforce effect, however i was a lap ahead of you and quicker... Jason was i feel brilliant however with the blue flags.

But overall a fun race!

Quote :

P. S. : I've been refreshing the page each 30s for 2,5 hours, looking for the next round thread to book a car, I'm giving up now

Indy thread will go up on 30 april after WEC82 I believe, but we will let people know beforehand, don't worry.

Fantastic race and brilliant fun. Such a challenge to drive these cars for over two hours.

I had waaaay too much downforce on the car and was simply getting mugged on the S/F straight, particularly at restarts. However my car was strong on the long runs at the end of the race as I thought it was quite kind to the tyres, particularly the rears.

I had to keep punching up the boost though to maintain my gap to Grant. I think this did me in. I nosed it into the barrier going under the hotel with 1 and half laps to go. Such a silly spin, so painful to throw away a good win that way.

Congrats to Grant, he had a quick car and deserved the win. Well done to all who finished. Thank you to Jonatan Åcerclinth for the broadcast, good to watch back after drowning my sorrows in the pub

Michael Drechsler wrote:

First of all, my apologies to BoB for spinning him around under yellow. That pile-up developed way faster than I anticipated. Not the kind of thing that should happen... ...

No Problem Michael.  From my view it was that... Somebody had to do it   and you got the short straw.


I was hoping through patience I'd have a good finish.  But I managed to spin the car without hitting anything on lap 2.  The spin combined with trying to catch up overheated the tires. The incident with Michael luckily wasn't too far from the pits.  I made it to the pits just after a yellow came out. In the pits my screen said 172 seconds to repair.  But as I'm sitting there waiting for the repair to the rear wing the ENGINE DIES.  
    My crew stops and says "WHY DID YOU DO THAT"   I reply  "WHAT the F@%K was I suppose to do?"

Was my engine damaged from the bump by Michael?  Or was it that the Cosworth can't survive idling in the Pits?   And if I was supposed to kill the engine before it exploded what is the secret button pushes to do that?    

Good race for me, quite eventful however... Well, I still liked it.
First of all, sorry to everyone I caused trouble to, sorry to Alberto for getting him to hit the wall. I thought we had enough space to go through there..
Also, Juha, I'm not blaming you for anything, if we're talking about the incident when Steve drove into my back and ripped my rear wing off.
Anyways, I'm glad I finished in 9th. Could've been better, but some things weren't meant to happen.
I hope I can get a seat at Indy, however. Hehehe..

We certainly had space, Pascal. That was not the problem.

Pascal Mikula wrote:

Good race for me

Hardly. You caused several drivers a great deal of trouble. If you were that unfamiliar with the track and how these cars behaved, you should have driven more within yourself, especially on LAP 4.

Had a good time last night.

Was running mid pack for the first half of the race and was pleased with my pace. But on lap 56 one small lapse of concentration saw me lock up into T1 and slide into Pascal. Really sorry for that. This pretty much ruined my race with the car pulling to the right and the front tyres overheating , I kept going for another 10 laps, pitted , 376 sec for repair, engine gave up race over.

Well done to all finishers, especially Grant for the win.

Raymond Riddall wrote:

I kept going for another 10 laps, pitted , 376 sec for repair, engine gave up race over.

If the engine died while in the pits, it likely overheated.  Be sure to map ignition and starter to the wheel or keyboard keys.

Jason White wrote:

Raymond Riddall wrote:

I kept going for another 10 laps, pitted , 376 sec for repair, engine gave up race over.

If the engine died while in the pits, it likely overheated.  Be sure to map ignition and starter to the wheel or keyboard keys.

That's also the solution for Bob, map them if you've got to repair for a long time. I think engine gets critical if the... oil(?) temperature gets above 110-115°C?



I apparently had the same issue as Rob: I had no speed down the straight, I only hit around 263 km/h. I also had slow exits from the hairpin(due to 1st and 2nd gear causing wheel spin, worrying me I could hit the rev limiter too hard) and was often a target into T1.

Yves for example seemed like he had rather low wings as he was fast down the straight, but started tortoising around in the middle part of the track


I didn't get to lead the field at any point, but my calculation after one of the last yellow was right and I had enough fuel to reach the point where only one further pitstop would let me reach the end of the race.

At that point, about 7-8 cars were left on the lead lap and I was basically sure of a Top 5 if I kept it on the road. I noticed how the tyres would fade away rather quickly once we are under green.

I tried following Yves, but first Rob passed me, then I half-spun and allowed Grant through a few laps later.

That's where I might have lost too much time to both Rob and Grant.

In the end though, after starting to struggle with the rears and having to reduce boost since I took too few for a higher setting at the last stop, I was cruising around and even let Michael re-pass me.

When Yves lost his FW at the hairpin, I luckily moved onto the podium  which was set when the last yellow came out with like 1 lap to go.

This race went far better than I expected it to be


Thanks to Richard Wilks for helping me out this time. I had issues with the car turning into turns. And when it did turn, I started heading into a slow spin. I did that a lot in qualifying, couldn't get a better time out of the car.

Gotta keep the momentum up for Indy though.

Pascal Mikula wrote:

Also, Juha, I'm not blaming you for anything, if we're talking about the incident when Steve drove into my back and ripped my rear wing off.

It didn't sound like it on the broadcast, "because Juha suddenly slowed down", or what was it you said?

I've had a few too many encounters with your car yesterday. You run into me under yellow, we both spin after you lunge into T1, and I was in doubt whose fault it was so I let you through a lap later when you brushed my wheels despite me moving off the racing line giving you plenty of space to drive around me.

A bit more patience and taking other people's driving into account wouldn't do any harm.

Pascal Mikula wrote:

Good race for me, quite eventful however... Well, I still liked it.
First of all, sorry to everyone I caused trouble to, sorry to Alberto for getting him to hit the wall. I thought we had enough space to go through there..
Also, Juha, I'm not blaming you for anything, if we're talking about the incident when Steve drove into my back and ripped my rear wing off.
Anyways, I'm glad I finished in 9th. Could've been better, but some things weren't meant to happen.
I hope I can get a seat at Indy, however. Hehehe..

i didnt drive into your back,you all stopped right in front of me,the reason i had no chance to avoid,watch the replay and tell me why you all stopped Grats to the podium and Grant for the excellent win

Steve Parker wrote:

Pascal Mikula wrote:

Good race for me, quite eventful however... Well, I still liked it.
First of all, sorry to everyone I caused trouble to, sorry to Alberto for getting him to hit the wall. I thought we had enough space to go through there..
Also, Juha, I'm not blaming you for anything, if we're talking about the incident when Steve drove into my back and ripped my rear wing off.
Anyways, I'm glad I finished in 9th. Could've been better, but some things weren't meant to happen.
I hope I can get a seat at Indy, however. Hehehe..

i didnt drive into your back,you all stopped right in front of me,the reason i had no chance to avoid,watch the replay and tell me why you all stopped Grats to the podium and Grant for the excellent win

Don't ask me why we all stopped. I responded to Juha braking in front of me, Juha must have responded to someone else braking in front of him, etc.
I was always asking myself why we were all slowing down so much at some points. Probably because of the Safety Car.