Round 12 - Nazareth Grand Prix [Nov 5th]

Apologies to whoever it was I took out by accident after I hit the wall on lap 1.

Got caught out by some cars checking up in front of me and and nudged the wall and got damage which caused me to get sideways and hit the wall as already mentioned so my race was over.

Fun mod to race and will be back for sure at the next round (if there is a car available)

My apologies for a poor race on my part.  I was pushing early on and made a pit stop to add front wing; this turned out to be a bad choice because the car was then loose at the end of the stint, which caused me to crash more than once.     Very grateful that I didn't take anyone out; I decided to quit so I won't get in anyone's way from here to the race finish.

Richard Wilks wrote:

To the lapped people:


DON'T SLOW DOWN SUDDENLY SPECIALLY  IN THE MIDDLE OF A CORNER!!!

My apologies for that "thing" that happened on the back straightway. I was so concentrated to keep my car on the line that i didn't saw someone's car slowly at the top of the track, which caused the wreck and that "mayhem", really really sorry

Had an awesome car to race with, would've been 2nd if it wasn't for me deciding to trade it with the best finish move of the season, thus finishing 6th.

Oh well...

When I started the formation lap, I didn't get going too quickly and Yves overtook me. That unfortunately meant I was too far behind, as I couldn't overtake him in the pit exit and I was sent back to the end of the field before the race even started.

I gained lots of spots though and had overtaken about half the field at some point early in the race. The many cautions lead me to lay back and just wait for people to eliminate themselves. While I tried to stay on the lead lap I was involved in a crash. Unfortunately, John crashed and all I saw was the smoke, I think the car lagged out. Nobody slowed down, so I figured the car wasn't on the track anymore. But just in that moment, someone crashed into John and came across the track. There was no way for me to avoid him and I damaged my car; 420 seconds of repairing at the pits.    As there was no further caution while I was in the pits, I came back into the race with 18 laps down. My car still handled well though, but there was just nothing I could do. I gained a couple spots by just staying in the race but not as much as I had expected.

In the end, I tried to set the fastest lap of the race, but in the second to last lap I missed that by I think 0.057 seconds.

Nice race, but a shame about being caught in the crash, I think I had the car to get a good position in the later stages of the race.

Let's see how I will do on a road course next time around.

Cláudio Augusto wrote:

My apologies for that "thing" that happened on the back straightway. I was so concentrated to keep my car on the line that i didn't saw someone's car slowly at the top of the track, which caused the wreck and that "mayhem", really really sorry

No problem Augusto, i'am your enemy now

Sorry Jari if I touched you passing on the outside contributing to the spin.  
Was maybe a tad to aggressive or is it lag making it look strange?

Did we touch in your perspective?

As for contact with Jason, that was indeed totally my miss judgement.
Unnecessary.

Results and points are up

Ryan Walker wrote:

Apologies to whoever it was I took out by accident after I hit the wall on lap 1.

Got caught out by some cars checking up in front of me and and nudged the wall and got damage which caused me to get sideways and hit the wall as already mentioned so my race was over.

Fun mod to race and will be back for sure at the next round (if there is a car available)

Things happen, no worries partner. I got to make it to lap three this time, one better than Pocono. Raise the roof!!! Really stacked up at the start of the race, especially approaching the start finish straight. Too slow penalty set me back a bit. Was just getting up to speed when I found you parked in front of me.

Not sure what to say.  On lap eight I'm sitting in the pits serving a likely undeserved 10 second stop and go penalty when someone plows into me from behind taking my wing, left rear and engine in the process. It's not that he couldn't get stopped as his pit stall was two or three in front of me.  He just drove straight through the pit stalls to get to his. Sad really.

David Jundt wrote:

Had an awesome car to race with, would've been 2nd if it wasn't for me deciding to trade it with the best finish move of the season, thus finishing 6th.

Oh well...

If you're not first, you're last! At least that was my motto for the last half of the race. I took a huge gamble with fuel strategy, and got lucky over and over with cautions to score this win. It wasn't until the final caution that I felt comfortable that I could make it.

A lot of great racing in this one. With overtaking being much more difficult than I imagined, I had to do something different from the opposition to get the track position I wanted. I really had to be aggressive when Jaques and the lot attacked me near the end of the race, so I'm very glad that I managed to hang on during all that pressure.

Thank you all for racing.

I really didn't feel such a chance to win as yeasterday. Nice third position in qualification gave me the chance to take the lead a couple laps after the start. Good signal for me i'm fast enought was that after each restart i could built a gap a bit ahead of Jacob and David so i was satisfied with my pace. During my first pitstop i spent in the pit 17s without changing of the tires, only refueling and David with Jacob could beat me even when he came to the pit behind me. Really dont undestand how they did it and how many time did they spend in the pits. In my second pitstop i was 17s with refueling and changing of the tires so i don't know how rf calculate the pitstops. Unfortunatelly my chance for good result ruined Phillipe who hitted me from the back during the yellow and damage my rear suspension. I had to repaire the damage so i spent 200s in the pit during the green and i losted 8 laps. Must to say this track has terrible sf car. That what he did on the backtretch caused many problems for everybody. What a shame that we didn't reveal that issue earlier.

This was probably the most bizarre race I've experienced here at HSO  I'm glad I got the chance to race, even if my car was two years old. It's always a pleasure to drive a champ car. I messed up quali, as I waited for the checkered flag which never came. Sorry Jason for additional work, I'll read the rules next time...  And then the race. Well, the first crash happened when someone slammed the door at me entering T3. The car was badly beaten, but drivable after 270s in pit lane. Normally I'd give up, but I still felt a chance to earn points, as this was going to be a massacre. Shortly after, there was an incident at the backstretch and... Boom, I couldn't avoid it and spent another 370s in pits  Since then it was a more or less a decent drive. I was the slowest at the track, I got passed left and right, but I hope I didn't cause much trouble. And then the others begun to drop off. Earning that one final championship point is truly bizarre  Can't wait for another CART race!

Petr Hlavac wrote:

Well, the first crash happened when someone slammed the door at me entering T3.

Yeah, it was me, sorry.. I had no choice really, and tbh, I thought youd back off that turn, since you were faster on straight... Im really sorry for that, even more, becose id made me retire

Just reading some of these race reports, some of the accidents are inexcusable. Hitting people under yellow, crashing into people when in the pits and slowing down directly in front of leaders when they are being lapped.

Some people, whoever they are need a long look at them selves.

Raul Jereb wrote:

Petr Hlavac wrote:

Well, the first crash happened when someone slammed the door at me entering T3.

Yeah, it was me, sorry.. I had no choice really, and tbh, I thought youd back off that turn, since you were faster on straight... Im really sorry for that, even more, becose id made me retire

No big deal for me, as I wouldn't finish better than 11th anyway. But I'm sorry for you. I wasn't really pushing, it wasn't a last second attack. My spotter notified me that that there's a "car high", so I thought you got the message, too. And as T3 is easily a two lanes corner, I never thought I actually put you into trouble. I'm sorry for your retirement.

Martin Lacina wrote:

I really didn't feel such a chance to win as yeasterday. Nice third position in qualification gave me the chance to take the lead a couple laps after the start. Good signal for me i'm fast enought was that after each restart i could built a gap a bit ahead of Jacob and David so i was satisfied with my pace. During my first pitstop i spent in the pit 17s without changing of the tires, only refueling and David with Jacob could beat me even when he came to the pit behind me. Really dont undestand how they did it and how many time did they spend in the pits. In my second pitstop i was 17s with refueling and changing of the tires so i don't know how rf calculate the pitstops. Unfortunatelly my chance for good result ruined Phillipe who hitted me from the back during the yellow and damage my rear suspension. I had to repaire the damage so i spent 200s in the pit during the green and i losted 8 laps. Must to say this track has terrible sf car. That what he did on the backtretch caused many problems for everybody. What a shame that we didn't reveal that issue earlier.

I saw what happened to you, couldn't believe it. Very sorry you were taken out in such a stupid way.

Sad end for the last race of the season where I had a chance to score points or even victory

It started bad when I hit something invisible (or at least could not identify it) in qualy and had to start from the back. But my car was awesome, very quick and stable no matter the fuel load, and I rapidly gained positions to enter the top 5. Then on one of the yellows I missed the pit entry thinking it was closed and had to pit next lap, going backwards again - and again I drove through traffic to place me at the top later. I had some really nice battles, sometimes even three-wide, with the best drivers at HSO like Jacob and David, it is always awesome to be able to race just inches appart with confidence. A big thanks go to them Grant, Martin and others for the fun we had At some point 55 laps from the end or so a yellow was trigged and despite having still 85 litres in the tank I knew this meant I could fill it up and never stop again, even if using higher boost. Confident on that I got tires and fuel and climbed back to be behind Jacob, who I knew had not stopped and was probably going to be much tighter on fuel - though also with a much lighter car than me. I followed him on boost 2, planning to start a hard attack on the last laps when he would be out of fuel and me able to burn all I needed on boost 4 if necessary, but then we reached Bruno Chacon and disaster happened. Jacob found him at the apex going much slower than us and braked, I also braked and moved to the right to avoid contact, expecting to slide back to the inside behind Jacob once Bruno reached the exterior of the track after the corner. But he moved suddenly there, losing additional speed and I had to move quicker to the left to stay behind Jacob. Apparently, despite being in 5th gear and on boost 1, the slipstream and the extra steering input needed to come out from behind Bruno caused the rear to break traction and slide the car into the wall

I am not blaming Bruno for the crash, it was a mix of bad luck and misjudgement on the grip from my side, but I am certainly not happy with him being at the apex at just 125 MPH forcing Jacob to brake heavily, then moving abruptly left and slowing down 10 MPH more. That is not the way to let quicker cars by safely, but instead a rabbit under the headlights reaction that seems to have become a pattern, and in fact was lethal to Richard Wilks some laps earlier.

Richard Wilks wrote:

To the lapped people:


DON'T SLOW DOWN SUDDENLY SPECIALLY  IN THE MIDDLE OF A CORNER!!!

Sorry Mr. Wilks, but you made a point of going overtake like everyone else had and I went all the way to the side of the wall.
All the inside of the curve was free.
See the replay.
As for slowing down, it was for I simply did not hit the wall

Sorry guys, with the damaged rear, I could not go beyond 24 seconds around.
I tried to open as much space as possible for everyone.

It was my first race in short oval

I really enjoyed this race.
Qualified a little bit slow to start 8th behind Jason, nice to see you there.
Taking it easy at the start of the race and after about 50 laps I managed to half spin on the exit of turn 4 without causing a yellow flag. At the next yellow I made an early pitstop as I was at the back of the field. When the leaders pitted I was able to carry on and lead for 30+ laps getting a 8 second lead. After the next pitstop I was around 5th position and after the leaders pitted I was upto 2nd. Then under a yellow I was told to let cars go past me until I was at the end of the lead lap cars. I had a message about driving too slow but when I got the penalty I was in the train of cars. After another spin at turn 4 exit (which caused a yellow) thankfully everyone missed me, I was in 6th place the final car on the lead lap behind Ray. I couldn't get past Ray towards the end of the race so it looked like a 6th place finish until exiting turn 4 on the final lap and David Jundt had spun, 5th place finish. I did my fastest lap on the final lap.
Congrats to Jacob and all of the finishers.
I watched the youtube video after the race. Thanks Jonatan and the others who dropped in to chat.

I forgot to say that the cars were great around here.
Very believable behaviour and a challenge.
Thanks physics guys, Richard W & Alberto.

My view from the lap 1 incident I had and apologies for the swearing. Big apologies yet again to Greg as I still feel bad for ruining your race  

great racing all, really fun time! jacob, congratulations, amazing pace and even more amazing fuel strategy!!! every time i thought i had a chance you had enough to hold on, that moment i got along the inside of turn 2 i was just about to cheer, then you pulled back ahead down the backstraight after that i really threw everything at it, and all i did was knock down the wall exiting 4. that lost some of my momentum and took a few corners to feel out the car and regroup. even though it was through no conscious action of my own, i thought it was fitting that the championship contenders were running 1-2 fighting for the win. (at least until turn 4 of the last lap when jundt started hotdogging ;P)

Martin Lacina wrote:

During my first pitstop i spent in the pit 17s without changing of the tires, only refueling and David with Jacob could beat me even when he came to the pit behind me. Really dont undestand how they did it and how many time did they spend in the pits. In my second pitstop i was 17s with refueling and changing of the tires so i don't know how rf calculate the pitstops.

refueling and tires are done at the same time, 2 or 4 tires takes the same amount of time, about 8s (with a random value that can take longer). fueling a completely empty tank takes about 14s (also has a possible random delay). these are the times provided your pit crew is standing by, ready for your car. if the crew isn't ready, imagine they would take longer to jump over the wall and complete service.

this is where the "pit request" button comes in to play. to avoid the time delay, not only do you have to push the button to make the request before the stop, it has to be early enough that you get the message "pit crew is now ready". at nazareth, it was nearly a lap under caution between pushing the button and getting the ready message. i was requesting the pit early, even before the pits open message, to make sure my crew had time to be ready. if i wasn't sure i would pit i would make the request anyway, then cancel if i decided not to stop.

best,
dave