Race Report: Reik Major - Mc Laren / BRM
Guys, thank you all for your congratulations! :wink: Again a very good job by everyone in this conditions. The awereness on track was great!
Qualify (1st):
I decided to start it relaxed not to risk any cut or wide and to have a clean lap first. So the first flying lap was a 1:12:9xx and the following clean lap with a bit more pressure allready resulted in a 1:12:6xx. This remained to be the pole lap.
Race (1st):
From the practice start we all knew, that we start in damp conditions with some rain drops. Considering the forecast it could happen both, more rain or the rain ends. Experience has shown, that in the conditions we had at the start, intermediates would heat up very quick as long as it wouldn't rain more. I didn't want to bet on more rain, so I started on medium slicks with 85 L fuel.
I found a good throttle position at the start and could avoid too much wheel spin. So I could take T1 alone with a good line. In the mirror I noticed some fights behind me, which made me open a little gap to the following drivers.
A few laps and some driving mistakes later, Mark had closed up on me. It seemed to rain a little bit more and I had no chance defending long against Mark, who I asumed to be on intermediates (or he did an outstanding driving on slicks!). So he passed me around lap 4 or so.
I was worried if it would go on raining more and if I could hold it on track until rain decreases. I decided to stay out on slicks hoping that one stop would be enough, whilest others would eventually need two stopps because intermediates don't last long enough for a one stopper.
I did some more mistakes and Mark in first position increased the gap between us quickly. But after 10 laps or so, the track started to dry a little and things started to turn back. Now I was quicker and closed up on Mark. At lap 14 Mark made his pit stop which gave me back the lead and I knew it would be hard for him to finish the race without a second stop.
I tryed to push and to be smooth at the same time and not to break the white line rules, which I did allmost succesfully (I think
).
In the middle of the race I made my first and only pit stop. Again Meds and 80L fuel. I droped back behind Mark in 2nd again but was able to drive quicker because of the fresh tyres. After a while I closed up and chased him for some corners but missed the corner into the arena because of bad view in the spray and less downforce. But then Mark made is second pit stop and I brought it home safe for the rest of the race. Only some dangerouse moments here and there with nice slights but never too uncontrolled. It was a handfull but also funny to drive in this slippery conditions.
EDIT: Grats Reik, Mark and David.
It was great viewing from the garage.
Thank you mate! I tried my best to entertain you as much as possible.
I felt very sorry to see you, Jim and Anthony being out of the race at such an early stage. :frown:
Q, PB and P4 (checked it! all good)
Yeah, your performance was realy good, especially in the damp race! I saw your accident in the replay - a very hard one. :frown: I can only recommend you to enable the names over the cars. I don't like it but, I do so. Also with spray or in a pack of cars I know where the cars are in front of me. btw: you really missed your breaking point not only by some inches
and it is more wet besides the racing line... many things to deal with.
...but he was too fast and my icy cold tires (I never could heat them, but they lasted 35 laps) were starting to wear a little...
Grats for your good result Nicolas!
It's allways for sure, that the slicks, no matter if soft or hard, don't get warm in this conditions. But if it's not wet enough, the inters get too hot (not to speak about the wets!) and wear too quick. So it's a bad compromise to use cold and more slippery slicks. I wish there was a wider range given by the mod so it would make sense to use inters and also wets sometimes, so we would see more gambling and weather related stops.
Finally I want to thank everyone for making this wednesday races possible!!! Especially Nico, Daniel, MMG and RD!
C U all in sunny Valencia