RD Le Mans Series Season 6 (rFactor 2)

[Jonas Steffens]

Congrats to Ajira Racing for overall victory in GTE class. You guys are the deserving winning team without doubt in my opinion, fantastic pace each race.
Looks like due to our good consistency we finished 2nd overall which is a great result for us and more than we had hoped for at the beginning of the championship.
Congratulations to Radicals Online aswell for 3rd overall, fantastic pace in the races you guys attended to and very unfortunate that you missed one race.

For a while today it looked like we might finally have a race without incident, but unfortunately we were involved in the aftermath of the pit-out incident between two other cars and as shown by onboard videos in this thread without any driver at fault really. We were just starting to talk about the next driver swap when it happened, but wouldn't have made it in time for the necessary immediate repairs. So Daniel stayed in the car for a double stint and Robert and I would drive our 2nd stints at a later time.
Despite the slow inlap and long stop for repairs, we accomlished our goal of finishing 4th today to make sure we'd finish 2nd overall in the GTE category (even if the two results will be combined and not handled as a safetycar situation that is) so we were all really happy after the race.

We would like to thank all organizers and broadcasters for all their work behind the scenes and all drivers for making the racing what it was. We really appreciate it.
We'll definately join again next season if time permits.

Also thanks to my teammates Daniel, Mike and Robert for a great time preparing and racing. I had a really good time teaming up with you guys.

 

[Tero Dahlberg]

We will decide how we handle the red flag situation on Tuesday. If you have any remarks, please let us know in the event thread or file a protest via PM.

Nothing to handle imo. What's done is done. Often in racing the situation gets "reset" to lesser or larger extent. Due to an accident maybe, SC comes out, gaps disappear, strategies change. Stuff like that. It's racing.

Any manual "fixing" of the results is not needed and would not be honest, fair and completely arbitrary. Why is this even a discussion? Am I missing something?

 

[Jonas Steffens]

Not sure about the neon green hair and pink jacket... but other than that: yes, indeed, thanks a lot!

 

[Pär Öqvist]

The difference is that in real racing you don´t get server crashes or fast lap tracker crashes and other artificial stuff. And in real racing it´s more about making the series attractive for an audience then the drivers themselves. It´s not really fair to have a team that built a gap loose all the process nor is it to over penalize a team for not finishing the finish line when the live tracker faulters and loose an entire lap instead of say 15 seconds. Plague or Kolera? Fuel strategies etc can always go south so don´t really count that factor as high.

So the best would be if the last known gaps would count but then every team should be awhare of it.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Pink jacket fits me..!

I would also like to mention @Roy Magnes who actually hosted the whole stream today, and the first 4hrs of Sebring! And who also stayed with me and @Tapio Rinneaho for the whole race (bar the red-flag, and 2 potty-breaks!).

In addition to that, I would really like to thank @Ricardo Edelmann @Frank van Oeveren @Dennis Coufal @David O'Reilly and @Daiman Patel for actually allowing me to do 12 hrs of commentary here with my semi-broken English. On a personal level, this is another milestone in something that have been a long fightback for me, and a recovery that's far from finished, it's much more important for me than anyone can imagine!

And of course all the drivers, teambosses and behind the scenes people who have made the series possible, and I'm really hoping for another season, which, if it goes on the right weekends, maybe can be hosted by the Norwegian duo yet again!

- Pinky

 

[Tero Dahlberg]

The software crash was not artificial. It's part of our racing. How is it any more fair in real life racing that a team loses the gap they've built because someone crashes and SC comes out and gaps disappear compared to what happened with the software freeze and gaps disappearing?

We're one of those teams that probably lost more than others during all of that. So in terms of possible gain, I have no issues with any post race fixing. But I just think it's absolutely and utterly unfair if that happens.

 

[Yuri]

Thanks everyone in the LMP1 class for making it such good fun! Especially thanks to:
@Dino Paolini @Mark Aalberts @Frederic Schornstein @Simon Christmann @Christian Michel
you guys showed amazing pace, pace I can only dream off at this time. I did my best to put @Aleksi Kivelä in a spot where we could get a podium, or even more. Such a close fight and I don't know what the result will be, in race time it would come down to seconds on who would win the overall, after 24 hours of racing!
Great first league for me and I hope I can improve my pace for the next endurance league that I'll see you guys!

 

[David O'Reilly]

Very tired now and a couple of glasses of shiraz but....
We had a great time. Thankyou to the RD staff who worked so hard to give us this experience. Especially Frank Coufal (edit the artist formerly known as @Dennis Coufal )and Daiman Patel who have put in many many hours.
edit #2 Now having slept I want to than @Ricardo Edelmann whose skill with the broadcasts makes us all famous and feel like racers.
My team mates @Stefan Woudenberg (Adrian Newy) who designed the car, @Gijs van Elderen who drove it fast and me who painted it.
We talked a lot, tested a lot and some of it worked.

Looking at the depth of talent in the top 3 LMP1 teams 4th place was really our aspiration. It looked a bit grim after Monza but at Sebring with Gijs on form and Stefan at a track he counts as a favourite we clawed back some points.

Today after a bad first stint* we had a hard close fight on track with TXL car #14 for P4 in the race and P4 in the championship and there wasn't much in it. Stefan kept a lot of pressure on Matt Horst in the period after the restart and never allowed Matt to break free. The gap was 7 sec at its greatest. Stefan managed to get ahead and then Matt had a problem and we had a big buffer. So Stefan handed me the car with a 3 lap advantage.

Thanks all who raced.

*We started on inters just in case and they were great for the first 3 laps until the slick shod cars got the temps up and the track dried even more then they were off!
Pushing then hard on the drying track made for some interesting mishaps including a 720 at the top of Radillon luckily missing the fences. Finally we admitted defeat and pitted for slicks and by then the leaders were upon us and we were +1 lap.
I think at the end we were +2 laps which isnt bad going over 130 laps and 6 hours.
The teams that beat us are strong teams and we are happy with our result.

Oh and I liked the track, damp astroturf isn't supposed to be grippy.

 

[Yuri]

Very tired now and a couple of glasses of shiraz but....
We had a great time. Thankyou to the RD staff who worked so hard to give us this experience. Especially Frank Coufal and Daiman Patel who have put in many many hours.
My team mates @Stefan Woudenberg (Adrian Newy) who designed the car, @Gijs van Elderen who drove it fast and me who painted it.
We talked a lot, tested a lot and some of it worked.

Looking at the depth of talent in the top 3 LMP1 teams 4th place was really our aspiration. It looked a bit grim after Monza but at Sebring with Gijs on form and Stefan at a track he counts as a favourite we clawed back some points.

Today after a bad first stint* we had a hard close fight on track with TXL car #14 for P4 in the race and P4 in the championship and there wasn't much in it. Stefan kept a lot of pressure on Matt Horst in the period after the restart and never allowed Matt to break free. The gap was 7 sec at its greatest. Stefan managed to get ahead and then Matt had a problem and we had a big buffer. So Stefan handed me the car with a 3 lap advantage.

Thanks all who raced.

*We started on inters just in case and they were great for the first 3 laps until the slick shod cars got the temps up and the track dried even more then they were off!
Pushing then hard on the drying track made for some interesting mishaps including a 720 at the top of Radillon luckily missing the fences. Finally we admitted defeat and pitted for slicks and by then the leaders were upon us and we were +1 lap.
I think at the end we were +2 laps which isnt bad going over 130 laps and 6 hours.
The teams that beat us are strong teams and we are happy with our result.

Oh and I liked the track, damp astroturf isn't supposed to be grippy.

Who is this Frank Coufal guy?

 

[Jonas Steffens]

I think the main problem is that it was not laid out in detail how a situation like that would be handled prior to the race (I think). There are arguments for combining both results aswell as handling it like a safetycar or red flag situation in real life with a neutralised restart. It's an unfortunate situation for the admins really.
I am glad it doesn't make a difference to our own team's result either way so we don't have to wait for a final decision from race control.

 

[Pär Öqvist]

The software crash was not artificial. It's part of our racing. How is it any more fair in real life racing that a team loses the gap they've built because someone crashes and SC comes out and gaps disappear compared to what happened with the software freeze and gaps disappearing?

We're one of those teams that probably lost more than others during all of that. So in terms of possible gain, I have no issues with any post race fixing. But I just think it's absolutely and utterly unfair if that happens.

It's artificial don't happen in real racing. That is exactly my point. Real life isn't fair because the paying audience like to see a battle to the finish line it's for them not the teams. We shouldn't use real life as a role model in every situation.

 

[Sebastian Roehn]

But why is it artificial when the timing (Rejoin plugin) crashed and therefor the race needs to be stopped? It is the same in real racing, maybe cause of a big crash the race is neutralised with a full course yellow. Here is it a server or timing crash or other technical issue which makes it impossible to proceed with the race.

The only difference is, that we don't have to drive behind a savety car until the full course yellow is over. We wait for the server restart, rejoining and drive to your starting position. Thereby the race standing includes only completed laps but no gaps, depending on which backup file was used. If you were in this lap in pits and lost thereby 1 lap, that is bad luck. But there is nothing artificial or completly different to real racing in those situations.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

I think the main problem is that it was not laid out in detail how a situation like that would be handled prior to the race (I think).

It wasn't, however my understanding was that at the time we restarted, they were forced to start over again, without any gaps between the cars, and with some losing a lap.
When I asked if it was possible to combine the results, with the gaps, that didn't seem likely at all.
So in my mind it is pretty simple. At the time of decision, the gaps was removed, and "replaced" with the lap-number, so to speak. That's what the guys was racing towards, changing that now would be wrong in my opinion.

Important Note: I am a staff-member, I have commentated on the last two races. But I am not a part of the organisational team in this series, and my post is my opinion only, and does not represent any official statement regarding this series!

 

[Tero Dahlberg]

We shouldn't use real life as a role model in every situation.

I agree 100%. However, my point isn't that we should do it like in real racing because "real racing is über awesome and da best evör and we should copy everything they do". My point is that there's no fair way to compensate for the gains and losses.

The racing we did after restart played out the way it did because we started in the order we did, with the gaps we did and with the strategies reset. It was essentially a whole new race with the stopped race serving as qualifying only. How do you turn into seconds and laps the fact that while our team suffered a disconnect, it also made sure we don't have to save fuel and likely we gained a pitstop over many others in our class who couldn't have saved enough fuel over the whole 6 hours. We were also slightly out of sync regarding pitstops due to the disco. How are we compensated for these? How many seconds is that to our advantage or disadvantage?

The main point is that the software freeze and restart wasn't fair, some lost, some gained. Adding just the gaps at the time of the freeze to the finishing result doesn't add up to a fair result. The only meaningful result is how the race ended. Pending penalties of course. Ideally of course you'd serve those during the race as then you can still have some power to affect how things play out.

 

[Andrew Ford]

I was told to give feedback here on what I think what should happen with the Live Timing crash.
I was told (or at least I think I was told, correct me if I'm wrong) that if there would be a situation like a server crash or live timing crash there would be a SC like there would be in real life. That means picking the 1st car up and everyone has to slow down behind them (I think )
That would mean there's no reason to put us a lap back what happened, and I think we should stick to the real life situation as it's a simulator and it is what we were told

There is one problem I have with this . I went to race control. I asked about five times in different ways about whether a time penalty would be added at the end to redshift. I was given assurances by one of them who happened to be a redshift affiliate that a minimum of one minute would be added. I then relayed the info to mark and Dino to say that position wasn't crucial. Even on you tube. .you commented that you were a lap down and race over. So we were mostly of this view and strategy changed according to steward advice. If txl don't win then this amazing series will end as a farce and unfair in my opinion ...which is sad because the spirit of fairness and respect has been the winner until now .

 

[Andrew Ford]

We said we would look into it after the race and we would look into a way of correcting / solving things . I kept the answer completely open when you entered our channel.

This is incorrect . One of you said you would look into it . so I asked repeatedly in different ways to pin down a decisive answer. I was told that you knew the gap was at least one minute thirteen or their abouts. Finally a nameless member (he knows and I know for reference ) of the stewards confirmed that a minimum of one minute was sure to be added. I relayed this to my team . If this was wrong from the stewards then why should txl pay? We praised and respected organisation during brake gate (monza) and hump gate (sebring) because you guys did so much effort and did a great job . Issues were unforeseen. However today our drivers did everything in to get the job done based on race control info . I really think it would be decent to give us the championship and focus on the overall success of the series . Otherwise it ends in a farce. Two race wins out of four. .overcome a brake affected race ...do what is needed according to race control and. ..lose championship? How could that be fair ?

 

[Davy Lauwereys]

Hi Guys, first i´ve to apologise to these guys i´ve involved in a accident on the straight to eau roge.
After someone does a move which was not very nice.
I´ve tryed to spin arround but it doesn´t work, caused by the broken suspension and suddently i was in the middle of the racingline....
i´m very sad that i ´ve involved other Teams and i hope you accept my apologise.

These things do have a reverse you know, for when you are facing the racingline with a broken car...

Taking off the rear bodywork after initial impact, was.... thourough...

What an eventfull homerace that was then
We had a good start, running p5 at one point before our first sheduled pitstop, but after the first stint, it became apperent i would not be able to take over the car in a normal fashion...so Nicky stayed out for a second stint before pressing escape...
I had been warming up offline before getting into the car on the server and waiting for the escape penalty to run out.. it did, i hit race, stomped on the throttle... nothing... *panic*... somehow between warming up and getting in the car my cable to my pedals had worked itself slightly loose (fanatec PS2 connector), so i pushed it in fully, stomped on the gas and my mighty BMW roared to life and out i went...
Until i got upto my first braking point at the end of the Kemmel straight, 260+ KM/H, i hit the brakes and... nothing... aaaaaw nuts... off into the wall i go then :s car completely mangled and had to hit escape again..
rebooted game and my wheel and got back into the server, waited for the 2nd penalty to run out, and off i went again, found my groove and was motoring along happily until 21 minutes in, coming out of La source (vid above) :s ...escape again...

Got out again, and 30 or 40 minutes later my stint was again cut short due to the live timing crash, and we decided to do another driverswap.

Thanks to RD staff for organising another one of these series for us to indulge in ! Next time we should hopefully be back again for a full season

 

[Christian Michel]

This is incorrect . One of you said you would look into it . so I asked repeatedly in different ways to pin down a decisive answer. I was told that you knew the gap was at least one minute thirteen or their abouts. Finally a nameless member (he knows and I know for reference ) of the stewards confirmed that a minimum of one minute was sure to be added. I relayed this to my team . If this was wrong from the stewards then why should txl pay? We praised and respected organisation during brake gate (monza) and hump gate (sebring) because you guys did so much effort and did a great job . Issues were unforeseen. However today our drivers did everything in to get the job done based on race control info . I really think it would be decent to give us the championship and focus on the overall success of the series . Otherwise it ends in a farce. Two race wins out of four. .overcome a brake affected race ...do what is needed according to race control and. ..lose championship? How could that be fair ?

Andrew, if you start to argument like this we can stat it as well. We won at Sebring very fair. Had a one minute lose at the first Lap cause of a rf2 Bug. The Admins said us at Lap 2 or 3 that there wouldn't be a penalty. So we finished the race and won it. One week later we get informed that we get a 5 Minute Penalty for that. Wow. Awesome.

So we can argue the same way, won 2 of 4. How could that be fair?

Otherwise would it be a joke to put Redshift now one Lap up cause i cruised more than the whole last Stint cause i knew it wouldn't help if i lap the 2nd car. If the Redshift guys would have been 2nd i would have pushed like hell cause we needed to get one Lap on them....

And looking at the incredible pace of MC in their final stint I am pretty sure they did some alterations to the car. 2.04.1xx on full fuel,.......

Hehe thanks, but there would have been a bit more possible but not necessary as said above.

Beside from all of that a Crash like that should be taken as a normal SC in real.

 

[Sebastian Roehn]

Race report: Round 4 @ Spa Francorchamps - unofficial result

 

[David O'Reilly]

Who is this Frank Coufal guy?

Lucky I said I was tired then
Dennis of course and I'll mention @Ricardo Edelmann for his great work on the broadcasts.