There are only a few days left before the grand opening of Season 7. If we want to have an incident free round 1 there is still a lot of work ahead of us, the Practice race proved that.
I want to underline that I am not trying to pick on anybody, but discussing this openly and in a constructive way is the best we can do to improve.
I have looked at the three practice starts and also the start of the race. Neither one of these went well, which underlines the need for drastic improvement!
First of all I will shortly address the main mistakes (with consequences) that were made in the 4 starts:
Practice starts:
-Reik and David T both bottomed out in Eau Rouge. This underlines the importance of practicing race starts with race trim. But I am not worried they will make the same mistake in the real race. However, everybody needs to learn from this so NOBODY will repeat this mistake in the real race.
-Our new guy Dave I think also did the same mistake as Reik and David T.
-Vincenzo was about to do a "suicide track re-entry", changed his mind just too late, and was not able to get out of the way. Not worried that he'll do the same in the race. And hopefully nobody else will try a "blind track re-entry".
-Gaetano played with way too small safety margins and didn't get away with it. I am worried for the race because this was more due to attitude (safety vs. competitivenes) than a mistake.
Race:
-Fabian braked way too late going into les combes (close to hotlap braking point). Being 16th he was not pressured from behind (no safety reason to brake late), and he had plenty of cars ahead of him. He showed no attempt to wait for those he rear ended off track. Around the next corner he loses control and oversteers into one of the cars he had hit moments earlier and sends him off the track again. I have seen no post from Fabian where this is addressed, nor do I believe anybody have received an appolegy for race ended after 30 seconds (I believe Peter got up early in the morning to participate in this race). All this is pritty much the opposite of what is expected from (and comes natural to) everybody in our league.
Changing subjects slightly, I noticed in particular Christian R. (race) and Gaetano (practice start) ran on very narrow safety margins. In Christian's case he was VERY close to to the car ahead. It was controlled, but there was no room for error (or lag/sync issue). I noticed that Reik and Dave "made contact" with more air between their cars than you had to the car in front.
We all need to apply safety margins, especially in the start of the race when it is so crowded. There are 25 individuals who all must make it without mistakes. If all 25 would drive with Christian's safety margins, the start would almost certainly be a disaster.
I want to underline that I am not trying to pick on anybody, but discussing this openly and in a constructive way is the best we can do to improve.
I have looked at the three practice starts and also the start of the race. Neither one of these went well, which underlines the need for drastic improvement!
First of all I will shortly address the main mistakes (with consequences) that were made in the 4 starts:
Practice starts:
-Reik and David T both bottomed out in Eau Rouge. This underlines the importance of practicing race starts with race trim. But I am not worried they will make the same mistake in the real race. However, everybody needs to learn from this so NOBODY will repeat this mistake in the real race.
-Our new guy Dave I think also did the same mistake as Reik and David T.
-Vincenzo was about to do a "suicide track re-entry", changed his mind just too late, and was not able to get out of the way. Not worried that he'll do the same in the race. And hopefully nobody else will try a "blind track re-entry".
-Gaetano played with way too small safety margins and didn't get away with it. I am worried for the race because this was more due to attitude (safety vs. competitivenes) than a mistake.
Race:
-Fabian braked way too late going into les combes (close to hotlap braking point). Being 16th he was not pressured from behind (no safety reason to brake late), and he had plenty of cars ahead of him. He showed no attempt to wait for those he rear ended off track. Around the next corner he loses control and oversteers into one of the cars he had hit moments earlier and sends him off the track again. I have seen no post from Fabian where this is addressed, nor do I believe anybody have received an appolegy for race ended after 30 seconds (I believe Peter got up early in the morning to participate in this race). All this is pritty much the opposite of what is expected from (and comes natural to) everybody in our league.
Changing subjects slightly, I noticed in particular Christian R. (race) and Gaetano (practice start) ran on very narrow safety margins. In Christian's case he was VERY close to to the car ahead. It was controlled, but there was no room for error (or lag/sync issue). I noticed that Reik and Dave "made contact" with more air between their cars than you had to the car in front.
We all need to apply safety margins, especially in the start of the race when it is so crowded. There are 25 individuals who all must make it without mistakes. If all 25 would drive with Christian's safety margins, the start would almost certainly be a disaster.