SEASON 10 Race 9 MONACO RACE REPORT

[Valerio Vinassa]

will be nice

 

[Dino Paolini]

what a shame
I had no force feedback from the start on suddenly; that never happened before

When i did the pitstop, I did reset my wheel, but after that, all the buttons on the wheel weren't working anymore including shifters, so i had to quit...

What a shame, could have been fun otherwise

 

[David Turnbull]

qualifying - 4th

decent lap, happy with the result

race - 2nd

started very well and saw marko get swarmed into turn 1 so i took my chance and got the run on him up the hill, from there i tried to stay with helder and sean which was hard as both were very fast, around lap 7-8 sean had an incident and helder and myself managed to pass him and settled into a rythum, marko and reik dropped back to around 10 secsonds when i went for my pit on lap 25, i made a mistake going in then stopped before realiseing nothing was happening, so jumped forward slightly and the pit crew done their work with fuel and tyres and out i went, after the rest of the stops i was back in 2nd with an 8 second gap to marko, he closed on me for the last 10 laps with fresher tyres and with 1 more lap may have got past, thankfully there wasnt 1 more lap and i crossed the line in 2nd with marko breathing right down my neck.

great race as usual guys

cyas at hockenheim

 

[Valerio Vinassa]

Q near to my pb only 2 tenths
R huge battle with Kurt along all the race really fun.Monaco is not the place for overtake and until pits we have change our positions a fews of time then Kurt gone in pit 2laps before me and when I did my pits i put (think) less fuel than him, leaving pits I was about 1,5-2sec.ahead so I managed this time until end.
Congratulations All

Greats Helder, David, Marko

Thanks PrestoGp,Daniel,and Rd

 

[Jim Hawley]

Q, P7 a slow lap

R, P6

Started carefully as did all around me and followed Dino up the hill, he was obviously struggling, we now know he had lost his ffb so that explains why

As we came around casino square a had a good run on him down the hill and decided to go for it into Mirabeau Haute (might not get another chance), Dino held the line on the outside and we went side by side down to Lowes, I then stayed on the outside and with a good squirt of throttle nipped past into Mirabeau Bas, I think we touched wheels a bit but nothing serious, overall I was happy with the outcome

I inevitably lost ground over the leading group so started to focus on the gap to Tim behind which was shrinking slowly, as Tim got close I just clipped the Armco with my rear at the last corner and spun, Tim shot past and I got going again 6 or 7 seconds behind him in 6th at this point as Sean had already had his brush with the barriers

I then had a big gap to the car behind and couldn't bring down the gap to Tim so I decided to stop trying and cruise safely to the finish

Good race overall

Grats to Helder, David and Marko and all that took part

See you soon, Jim

 

[Marko Vuori]

Congratulations to Helder for another win, David for podium finish, and to all those who were able to finish!

I was confident with my pace at Monaco, based on practice races before official race. My goal for this race was to extend my lead in the points standings.

Qualifying: 1:21.668 (1st, PB)
Very close to perfect lap with no cutting. After the lap I was aware it was a good lap, but I was surprised to see that it was my PB. Even better was that Monaco is the track where pole position really matters.

Race: 3rd
I chose to start with heavy car with 115L of fuel onboard.

First stint: My start was pretty bad, and I dropped to 3rd before T1. At T1 we had a touch with Helder, which slowed down my speed so that David got past as well, and Reik was also close to get by. So, I was driving 4th, behind Sean, Helder, and David after the first lap. With the heavy car I could not keep up with the first three cars, but neither could Reik behind me come close enough to try overtaking, so I just tried to keep good pace, and wait others to pit. Finally after 24 laps or so, everybody around me had pitted, and I was leading the race. Still having plenty of fuel left I decided to pit on lap 30.

Second stint: My pit stop was pretty fast, but I still wasn't able to overtake anyone and got back on track in P3 around 9 seconds behind David, and some 2 seconds in front of Reik. I knew I had advantage in fresher tyres, so I tried to make good lap times to check, if there was any chance of catching David. It seemed I was able to catch him rapidly, so I just kept on lapping faster and faster, but I catched him a bit too late. At the finish line I was only 0.1 seconds behind.



Conclusion: There were lots of good aspects in this race from my perspective: excellent qualifying, fast and consistent driving in race, and extending lead in championship standings. Still it's easy to see that my tactics was not the best to maximize the result. All in all, good race for me though.

Thanks to Nicolai, RaceDepartment, SimBin and all PrestoGP members!

See you all in the past (Hockenheim 1999)!

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Heavy car in front is a gamble...

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

A bit different race report this time, as I have failed to write one for the last 3 rounds or so L

The first half of the season was good, but I scored less points than I had hoped to, and decided to turn things in my favour for the second half. I practiced a lot for round 6 at Shanghai, and my race was going very well until it started raining. I was following Eliezer into the pits, but suddenly he braked heavily and I could not avoid him. He later told me that he had forgotten we don’t use pit speed limit!

This was devastating to my race, I was on a different strategy than Jim & Co and was without their knowledge fighting a battle of tenths each lap. Now I had suddenly lost several seconds and was facing the wrong way in the pits. When I finally got my car facing the right way and into the pit bay, I forgot to swap to wet tyres (put on another set with dry). That effectively killed my race as I had to pit again in the following lap.

In my head I blamed the stressful situation (caused by Eliezer) for making me chose the wrong tyres. This was a big mistake, because next race when it started raining (Barcelona) I managed to do the exact same mistake as at Shanghai. The lesson to learn is that it is always more constructive to look in the mirror rather than blaming others

Anyhoo, the two other races (Bahrain and Monaco) was not very good either for my part. Monaco could have been good, but I was in no-mans-land the whole race (in 7th). To top it off I had to do one more lap than calculated, didn’t have enough fuel, had to pit the last lap and would have made it if it had not been for it taking ages to change fuel from 60 liters to 5 So I dropped to 10th.

I write this to partly explain my slightly lower motivation the latest rounds, but also to say that I will aim to finish the season in style and put in a bit extra practice for Hockenheim

EDIT: I also failed to report the incident with Eliezer and also an incident with Bob Miley which was my fault.

 

[Valerio Vinassa]

.........but also to say that I will aim to finish the season in style and put in a bit extra practice for Hockenheim

well done Nico I want you so liveliness/spirit be always with us

 

[Nicolas Rouge]

Sorry for late report, not much time for that until now.

Q 9th
Very far from my PB, because of too late turning in the fast left/right corner at the Piscine
Hopefully, I was not the only one to fail approaching his PB then

R 13th (last!)
Thanks to Sean legendary setup, with a few tweaks, I had a perfect setup and was confident in my strategy for the race. I started with a full tank, and did a good start. After T1 Tim in front of me seemed to have a glitch, and his car jumped in the barrier. That slowed him and me, and Nicolai was able to pass me then. I passed Nicolai right after the Grand Hotel hairpin, but at the Piscine braking I tapped Tim in the rear and had to let pass Nicolai and Anthony, so my first lap resulted in a 2 positions loss.
I was able to follow Anthony easily, and began to think where I could pass him. In lap 4 just after the tunnel chicane I was too much on the left and hit the barrier before the straight. I don't remember making this stupid mistake before, that may explain why my safety margin was very low there. I bounced in the opposite barrier, lost my front wing and suffered suspension damage, so I had to go back to the pits immediately. Hurrying for the pits, I had a small contact with Valter that was just behind at the piscine. Between my incident and the pitlane, my pit menu was opened and I tried to configure it to just repair damage while driving, and that's a very hard exercise. Anyway, when I entered the pits, almost nothing was correctly configured, and I made the mistake to confirm my setting, pushing the wrong button. My suspension damage was fixed, but I also had a new set of tires (useless) and a completed tank (useless). That cost me a lot of time, but the worst part was that my front wing wasn't fixed, so I made another lap without it (very scary !) and pitted a second time to fix it (and just that).
After that, I was last and almost everyone had lapped me. I didn't want to stop my race there, since I needed some points to stay in the top ten of the season, and because I really love driving there, but the rest of my race wasn't very fun. I stayed behind Valter for 11 laps until he made a mistake in T1, allowing me to unlap. Then it was Anthony for 10 laps until I made my first expected pit stop for 18l (it should have been more like 35 if I hadn't crashed) and a fresh set of tires.
I had then a clear track, and with fresh tires it was really enjoying to make some fast laps. After Helder lapped me I was close to Nicolai and just before David lapped us, I was able to unlap at La Rascasse. 2 laps before the end of the race, I finally joined Kurt who was the second to last but I couldn't pass him (well defended mate).

I would not be able to join the last race, so have fun and see you next season.
Thanks again to Nicolai, PrestoGP and all the pilots for this wonderful season.