1stly, having raced (and seen Yuri race) Alen previously I can safely say that he wouldn't have been much, if at all, slower than Yuri in terms of pace.
In regards to the admin side, the one thing I would possibly suggest (as a fellow admin at another site), if this kind of situation happens in the future, make sure that you post what the decision is before the race so that no-one talks without knowing what is going on. It would seem that many are angry with 2 things, that Yuri raced on his own and that there didn't seem to be a penalty for doing so.
Now that we know that the admins talked with Yuri and they decided on an applied penalty, which equals to a driver swap (and the other 20 seconds or there about for the WC break) there is no need to be angry for the "no penalty" thing.
Now we also know that they would most likely have won on pace anyway so all is well
In terms of RMI and my own race:
Also a thank you to Daiman who came into the RMI channel to appologise for a Qualifying incident we had. That is not something I'm not used to have so that was a nice surprise
I ended up being the setup creator for the team. I tried to create a setup that would work for all of us but mainly be easy to drive considering it's Bathurst. I've raced in other 1000 milers at the mountain and once I created a setup that was quick and we retired after 45 laps. The other time I created a setup that was easy to drive and we climbed from the high 20's to the mid teens by the end of the race.
We also decided that I should start with no real reason apart from me having had the most practice out of us.
The Race got underway and the opening laps was a struggle. I couldn't find my momentum, mainly because of traffic being in the way of how I drive, and our setup weren't very quick down the straights. We had also decided on running 1 boost for my stints to try to save a pit-stop if we could.
Made a few misstakes early on, ended up on the marbles at the top and lost the position to Magnus in the ME Corvette and then ran wide and held up another driver out of the last turn which the end of it was caught on the broadcast so decided to let him by.
I was finally able to settle into the race in 14th position after around 12-14 laps and put my head down and started to lower my lap times into the 2.06's that I should have been running since the start of the race.
Slowly I started to close in on the guys in front as their tires started to go and my own were starting to get into the zone. I've always seemed to be decent on the tires and it seems to be the same here. At the same fuel level Roy were reporting having 65% left on the tires I had 76%
Towards the end of my 1st stint I had a nice little lap time battle with
@elkrack2 and I closed in about 8 seconds in the last 6-7 laps before I pitted.
For the 2nd stint I felt that the Mediums I had decided to fit for the opening stint hadn't worked the way I had hoped to decided to come home to where I live and fit the Hards. Came out of the pits in 12th or 13th I believe and put my head down as I had
@Bobby Pennington and (I think)
@bartolaf Bart Zweerink who were battling and I wanted in on the action.
A few laps later I had passed Eduardo who I think ran just a bit too long and I witnessed a very forceful pass by Bart on Bobby and tried to take advantage of it which was also caught on the broadcast. It was a "let's see if he leaves me the room here" but backed out when I saw he wasn't going to do so, it's not worth a crash in the 2nd hour of racing.
Worked on Bobby for a couple of laps, holding back a lot over the mountain as to not run Bobby off the road. Finally the chance appeared when he had a lackluster run out of Forest Elbow and I was able to put on one of the bravest moves I've succeeded with, thanks for leaving me room on the inside of the kink Bobby and I think I left you enough room on the outside so all good. A really nice battle there mate, yet again!
Sadly Bart had scampered away in the meantime so I settled in to my grove once again and slowly pulled away from Bobby but lost a few tenths every lap to Bart and CO ahead of me but I knew they were most likely running a higher boost setting.
Towards the end of the 2nd stint we were discussing weather I should do a 3rd stint. In the end you heard on the broadcast what the reasoning was and as I had Hards on I went for fuel only and exited the pits with the phrase "Now **** it" as I had settled in tires and a head start, entering the pits in 5th and coming out in 7th which was very nice.
Took it a bit easy in the very early laps getting to know Boost 2 with the car and then got my head down and without trying were running very comfortable 2.06.9's with full fuel and then even more comfortable putting the car into the high 2.05's as the fuel were burning away, I'm in the beliefe that I would have been close to the 2.04's on low fuel with worn Hards, I just love Hards on race cars. I started out in rF1 racing the Touring Car Legends Ford Mustang GT so that may explain why I feel home on Hards, that car can only handle Hards in Racing situations AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA....
Sadly, as I were going hell for leather and with about half my 3rd stint still in the tank, the rain came and we decided as soon as the rain went from 5 to 6% in-game that it was time to switch tires and that we may as well switch drivers as well, so in Daniel went, sadly in the trickiest conditions I've seen in rF2 so far.
Sadly Daniel had troubles with his wheels, it disconnected twice I believe and not giving him the feedback he needed for the conditions. He did a great job keeping the car alive thorugh without major damage and was able to hand the car over to RMI Big Boss Roy who did a brilliant job closing out the race for our team, climbing from 18th to 14th through consistency and a bit of good tire strategy
All in all, a very enjoyable experience and I look forward to racing you all in next years RDLMS along with my RMI mates
Big thanks to the organisers, broadcasters and massive Kudos to the lappers and lappees for behaving well, Yuri for his impressive run, in RMI we were saying it was unbelievable, and all those I had battles with, Bobby in particular