FSR World Championships Bahrain Race Review

[David O'Reilly]

Race leaders lap 1 back straight.

Close battles in the Desert sees seven drivers separated by six seconds
after 49 of 57 laps.
​

Bahrain saw some of the closest racing over an extended period that we ever get to see in Formula Sim Racing. Third to ninth placed drivers separated by only 6 sec after 49 race laps, it doesn't get much tighter. Strategies varied from a 4 stop to an almost unbelievable 2 stop by David Greco.

But lets start at the beginning.

Qualifying​

Pole was secured by Croatian racer Petar Brljak. (Twister 2Fast4You) with 1m29.879 -
Accompanying him on the front row from Poland Kuba Brzezinski (Origin Front Row Racing) +0.081
In Third the Slovenian racer Jernej Simoncic (GhostSpeed Racing) +0.165
Accompanying his team mate on row two and in his highest qualifying achievement in this his first FSR World Championship season was Australian racer and pro commentator Jonny Simon (GhostSpeed Racing) Team +0.180
Fifth place was taken by Greek racer Jim Parisis (Twister Racing Team) +0.222

The Race ​

The braking zone into turn one became chaos when Blair Disley with full fuel and cold brakes and tyres took a conservative approach to his braking marker catching Merelli by surprise who spun while attempting an evasive manouvre. Several drivers were caught up in the melee and such is the fragile nature of open-wheel race cars that it spoiled several racer plans for the afternoon.


Brljak wasted no time in asserting his grip on the race and by sector three on lap one had built a small but visible lead on the chase pack( see photo above).
That was how it stayed other than for short periods amongst the pit stops when Kuba Brzezinski enjoyed the lead. Brljak was in charge here at Bahrain and at no point looked beatable, a superb drive. He also took the trifecta with pole, the win and the fastest lap and his fourth podium in four rounds.


Behind him however it got very interesting when Muhammed Patel pitted from a strong second place for his final stop at about lap 44 and was issued with a drive through for an apparent pit lane speeding infringement. It gifted second position to Parisis who has possibly now had his bad luck from Melbourne fully credited back after a little good luck in both China where Patels engine failure gifted him the win and now here where third became second.

What's he doing back here? Patel exits pit after drive thru lap 45 seen from Brzezinski's car.

What it did for race fans was drop Patel back into a fight with Kuba Brzezinski who was cruising around in a safe fourth place. Kuba seized on the chance and we were treated to a sustained battle that continued for fully 8 laps. It saw both drivers side by side for what seemed like entire sectors but certainly included sequences such as Turns 4 to 8 where its not easy getting one car on your chosen line let alone on the only line left to you. The lead in this battle was exchanged several times with dramatic attack and defence not only in DRS zones but also in for example Turn four. The fight was so close and lasted for so long we had to show you a selection of shots taken from lap 45 to lap 53.

The fight for Turn 1 lap 45.

If you haven't yet watched the race take my advice and at a minimum watch lap one then watch laps 45 to 53. If you have ever seen such a hard clean fight between two talented drivers, please tell me where it was.

Side by side turn 6 circa lap 46

Turn two circa lap 47

Lap 51 Turn 1
The first attack occurred after Patels pit lane exit on lap 45 and the battle was not over until Brzezinski sealed the narrowest of margins into turn one on lap 53 and managed to build upon it. In all of the previous 8 laps they had been side by side into Turn one and often for the majority of sector one.

Cost of failure. Furthermore, unlike the Hamilton Rosberg battle of Bahrain in 2014 there was no clear air behind Patel and Brzezinski. What both these guys knew was that only 6-7 seconds back from them was ninth place! Yes that's right positions three to nine were in a 7 second section of track after 49 laps of this 57 lap race.

The gap at lap 53 Turn 1, as big as it got over 8 laps

The gap at the finish line, twelve laps after the battle commenced .540 sec.
I dont know about them but the crowd were exhausted.

Yep thats most of em! Lap 49. Patel in third leads Kuba as P3-9 contained in the one back straight!

Grecos 2 stop. The endurance ace knows how to manage tyres. To put it into perspective it helps to know that most drivers 2 stopped in the Pro race distance of 34 laps. The Championship distance was 57 laps. Greco ran Prime/Prime/Option and put in about 20 laps on each set of primes. To manage that on full fuel of 218 litres is very impressive. Did it work? He gained tweleve spots from the very back of the grid and finished eigth in a very tightly contested race, so yes is probably the answer.

The results (Top 10).​

1. Petar Brljak Twister 2Fast4You 1h29m46.049 (also fastest lap 1m31.097)

2. Jim Parisis Twister Racing Team +24.586

3. Kuba Brzezinski Origin Front Row Racing+32.253

4. Muhammed Patel Twister 2Fast4You +32.791. Patel gained five positions and without the drive through was in line to gain seven.

5. Marco Conti BBR Life4Racing +35.898

6. John-Eric Saxén Avid Chronic Racing Team +36.291 Second biggest improver of the race with a six place gain over his qualifying position.

7 Francesco Bigazzi Eventa Simracing +37.451A solid race from a qualifying of sixth.

8. David Greco Twister Racing Team +38.733 Cunning two stop gains him twelve places from Back of the Grid! into eighth place.

9 Enrico Di Loreto BBR Life4Racing +49.514. A great drive after a faultless lap one turn one contact spun him off the track.

10. Jonny Simon GhostSpeed Racing Team. +51.298 Jonny threatened a top five early on from his second row qualifying but an error cost him dearly and it was a strong fight back to get into the points.

Minor Honors
Fastest Lap Petar Brljak Twister 2Fast4You 1m31.097

Biggest improver David Greco Twister Racing Team .Twelve places from Back of the Grid! into eighth place.

World Championship Standings​

Full standings HERE


Brief standings discussion

Leader Petar Brjak 76 points: Results P3,P2,P2,P1, After 4 rounds this driver has incredibly not finished off the podium. He has also beaten both Parisis and Patel on pace and now looks more of a danger man for the Championship title hunt.

Second Jim Parisis 68 points Results DNF, P1,P1,P2. When your worst result is a second place you are in the frame!

Third Kuba Brzezinski 51 points Results P2, P4, P7 (pen), P3.

Worst result on track of fourth. Great race craft. Polish racer should stay in the mix.

Fourth Muhammed Patel 39 points. Results P4, P2, DNF (from lead), P4. Patel has the pace to win races and cut the defecit. He needs to beat his team mates to catch them up.

Fifth Marco Conti 25 points. Having scored in only two races still fifth and been on the podium. Will we see more?

Equal 5th Daniel Kiss.

Seventh John-Eric Saxén. 19 points

Eighth Francesco Bigazzi 18 points

Ninth David Greco 16 points

Tenth Morgan Morand 10 points


Youtube replay is HERE

 

[Vladimer Mereli]

Good read, but u guys need to be more precise with the "spun" thing... I spun not because of attempting a manouvre, but because of contact with a car on my right lets get that part right finally. Both cars physically touched and it can be seen from their physicality, but visually there was still space between the cars rF2 fail like always.

 

[David O'Reilly]

@Vladimer Mereli
Thanks for the compliment. But I do think it is right.
You will have noticed that I gave a very balanced view of the incident but sorry my friend, I dont agree, I think your car was out of control from the moment you tried to brake and turn simultaneously. The contact was IMO a by product of that evasive move .

Its not my practice to publicly analyse incidents but since you have asked for us to "get this right" I will show the server replay photos shortly of the sequence that support my view.

Front left lock up yellow car veers left.

Yellow car contact with car in "left lane"

Spin

 

[Ben Eastman]

Good read, but u guys need to be more precise with the "spun" thing... I spun not because of attempting a manouvre, but because of contact with a car on my right lets get that part right finally. Both cars physically touched and it can be seen from their physicality, but visually there was still space between the cars rF2 fail like always.

While I'm not going to pass my judgement on whether your right or not, this comment should be in Post Race Discussion not as a comment on David's write up. Journalists have the right to "call it as they see it" without criticism!

 

[David O'Reilly]

While I'm not going to pass my judgement on whether your right or not, this comment should be in Post Race Discussion not as a comment on David's write up. Journalists have the right to "call it as they see it" without criticism!

Actually Ben I'm totally cool with it.
This way if I get something wrong I hear about it, and if a view needs to be discussed / justified it can happen.
I suppose by comparison in real life an F1 driver could text Martin Brundle and give him some alternative viewpoints too.

 

[Vladimer Mereli]

Actually Ben I'm totally cool with it.
This way if I get something wrong I hear about it, and if a view needs to be discussed / justified it can happen.
I suppose by comparison in real life an F1 driver could text Martin Brundle and give him some alternative viewpoints too.

Ok now go check the video posted by Cobb in post race discussion and tell me if it was a touch or not Driver always knows better what happened, believe me next time. I was cool about the mistake made during the broadcast, but after u had time to view it well, it's no longer cool to make a wrong conclusion when the fact was 100% evident.

 

[Carlos Martín]

Quite frustrating just to read about top 5. Others also exists... You basically just talked about Patel and Kuba, the race offered way more than that. Hope highlights shows more than just the Top 5...

 

[David O'Reilly]

Quite frustrating just to read about top 5. Others also exists... You basically just talked about Patel and Kuba, the race offered way more than that. Hope highlights shows more than just the Top 5...

Carlos,
In fact I gave a run down of the top 10 with comments. (BTW You got a mention due to your broken arm in China.)
Then I featured heavily the battle with Kuba and Muhammed.
In each race there is one or two events that make up from a journalistic perspective "The main story" of the race. The most exciting thing. Thats an editorial decision.
I'm afraid an incredible battle for a podium trumps for example a good strategy for 9th.

I dont feel that the readers want a 4000 word blow by blow account of every drivers race.
This article is an attempt to write something punchy and newsy to grow awareness of FSR and its drivers.
If readers or drivers want the minutae of every drivers story then thats what the wonderful GPCOS results data is for.
I spend hours on this and there is always someone whining about how it is done.
I have explained before that the learned editors of RD already refuse to post my reviews as they are too long and too detailed.

They want it shorter, you want it longer. What is one to do?
But I tell you what I will do this time to alleviate your frustration.
@Carlos Martín
You have won the gig of guest journalist for the Canada round of FSR. Congratulations.
Try to get it done by Monday and keep everyone happy.
I look forwards to your piece.

 

[Dmitry Zaharov]

Well, I have a great idea - Make GPCOS comments mandatory for all drivers and all divisions and post them in addition to race articles here.

 

[Carlos Martín]

You have won the gig of guest journalist for the Canada round of FSR. Congratulations.
Try to get it done by Monday and keep everyone happy.
I look forwards to your piece.

Why did you take this as a personal attack? I just mentioned that as a driver perspective it's a bit frustrating to not see your name on the report because I was running a different strategy, so after my last pitstop I was 8th with newer tires than anybody and able to attack.

Last year I was Race Director and COA Member so I perfectly know what it is to work for free, spending tons of hours, unfortunately this year I spend all day out (At university from at to 22, from Monday to Friday) and I don't even have time for practice.

At any moment I said your reviews are wrong or anything similar, I just said that as a driver point of view it's frustrating, getting a top 5 in WC isn't an easy task, imagine with all Twister domination, it makes it even harder...

 

[David O'Reilly]

Quite frustrating just to read about top 5. Others also exists... You basically just talked about Patel and Kuba, the race offered way more than that. Hope highlights shows more than just the Top 5...

Why did you take this as a personal attack? I just mentioned that as a driver perspective it's a bit frustrating to not see your name on the report because I was running a different strategy, so after my last pitstop I was 8th with newer tires than anybody and able to attack.

Last year I was Race Director and COA Member so I perfectly know what it is to work for free, spending tons of hours, unfortunately this year I spend all day out (At university from at to 22, from Monday to Friday) and I don't even have time for practice.

At any moment I said your reviews are wrong or anything similar, I just said that as a driver point of view it's frustrating, getting a top 5 in WC isn't an easy task, imagine with all Twister domination, it makes it even harder...

Carlos its a mystery where I got that impression isnt it

The invitation stands. I will not write about Canada, Ill leave it to you.
A judge did not sentence me to work as a writer in FSR. If I cease to enjoy it I will simply stop doing it.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Well, I have a great idea - Make GPCOS comments mandatory for all drivers and all divisions and post them in addition to race articles here.

and that is a great idea Dimitry.
We could run a "second page" with all driver comments and reports.
Nice to see solutions not problems.

 

[Carlos Martín]

If now I can't say what I think I just believe we are done, if you don't want comments, good ones or just pointing what I miss, then close the thread...

Now I ask, is that really offensive what I said? Maybe you prefer to discuss it in private and I show you my point of view, after that if you want you can hear the drivers who shares my opinion or not, thats just up to you

 

[David O'Reilly]

I would prefer that you just accept my invitation and do Canada.

 

[Eduard Mallorquí]

I believe rF2 can look a lot better than those pictures.

 

[Carlos Martín]

I would prefer that you just accept my invitation and do Canada.

Thats the difference between me and you.

When last year I was doing Post-Race Checks I was open to discussions, public or private, trying to explain further my points, maybe I was wrong or right, but at least I tried to be open to improve.

Instead of that you just say "do it by yourself". I'm sorry for me that's just not right.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Thanks Eduard I will work hard to achieve your standards.
BTW can you link me some of your work.
and DD, thank you too, I wondered if you were away or something.

 

[Xavier de Carvalho]

I have explained before that the learned editors of RD already refuse to post my reviews as they are too long and too detailed.

No, there was a format which you simply refused to use time and time again. Had you used the correct format, perhaps you wouldn't have had such a tough time getting your articles featured.

You have won the gig of guest journalist for the Canada round of FSR. Congratulations.
Try to get it done by Monday and keep everyone happy.
I look forwards to your piece.

Carlos its a mystery where I got that impression isnt it

The invitation stands. I will not write about Canada, Ill leave it to you.
A judge did not sentence me to work as a writer in FSR. If I cease to enjoy it I will simply stop doing it.

I would prefer that you just accept my invitation and do Canada.

Thanks Eduard I will work hard to achieve your standards.
BTW can you link me some of your work.
and DD, thank you too, I wondered if you were away or something.

Wow, what a great attitude to have. If you can't take some constructive criticism then what on earth are you doing writing these articles? Your responses are childish and are not conducive to the discussion. You sound like a child who can't get his own way. As Carlos mentioned, that simply is not okay.

As you say, you're not forced to do the articles. But this doesn't give you the right to just go off and do things your own way though.

Accept the criticism and improve. Or reject it and carry on writing sub-par articles.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Xavier,
You are factually incorrect regarding the editorial guidance from RD editorial team.

Do you really want to have the debate aired in public that occurred in private about RD news articles?
You might find it embarrassing.
In fact rather than providing a format (other than for photo size)
It includes direction that
-the author has free rein over content style and length.
-Articles need to have enough information
-articles should not be too long or detailed as people are in the twitter generation and they will watch the broadcast if they want more.
-Editorial team will source photos
-Photos actually need to be supplied and in certain sizes.
-Articles should only take 30 minutes to write.
-Featuring the article within RD beforehand consitutes it not being exclusive to RD and excludes it from publication.
-That FSR articles should not be written to entertain FSR members but a new audience.

I'm also very surprised that as a moderator you would weigh into a public debate on one side or another and call paying premium members childish in public. When I was a moderator I practiced "praise in public-criticism in private".

 

[Xavier de Carvalho]

I'm having a very hard time believing you're as old as you say you are. Your actions above are laughable for a man with as many years behind him as you.

That debate would be empty, it has absolutely nothing to do with me. Don't take your frustrations out on me because you can't follow basic protocol.