Season 7 Race 7 Abu Dhabi - Race Report

[Reik Major]

Gongrats to Tim (2nd) and Sean (3rd) for completing the podium and to all other finishers. Every finishing driver is a winner!
I feel with Anthony who lost 3rd position in a brave fight in the last lap but Sean seemed to be quicker at this moment. I had time to enjoy your last lap fight after I had finished.

Driver Best lap Race time Points
1. Reik Major 1:37.718 1:12:08.622 50
2. Tim McIver 1:37.792 1:12:25.507 43
3. sean greenlaw 1:38.396 1:13:43.728 38
4. anthony ishak 1:39.620 1:13:48.844 34
5. David Turnbull 1:37.895 1:12:23.451 31
6. Cristian Di Filippo 1:39.482 1:12:28.039 28
7. Nicolai Nicholson 1:39.941 1:12:32.124 25
8. Vincenzo Cavaliere 1:40.071 1:12:39.402 22
9. David McCradic 1:38.678 1:13:07.991 20
10. kurt kjellin 1:40.126 1:13:09.808 18
11. Nicolas Rouge 1:40.001 1:13:30.154 16
12. gaetano zizzo 1:39.795 1:13:49.065 14
13. Peter Marshall 1:42.419 1:12:27.165 13
14. valerio vinassa 1:41.995 1:13:13.516 12
15. Bob Laube 1:41.727 1:13:50.729 11
Dave Russell 1:39.586 DNF
Eliezer Bartik 1:39.919 DNF

Qualify (1st):

The atmosphere felt a little bit more tough because of the delay due to the late game update and all the problems it caused. (Simbin should announce when a game update is launched so everybody could prepare better, especially the host!) I was very, very nervous. My arms were shaking and I clearly felt my pulse. I think the more difficult and unforgiving a track is the higher is my nervousness. But nevertheless I was able to manage a solid lap to get on pole.

Race (1st):

1st stint: 16 laps - 68 liters - medium compound
2nd stint: 16 laps - 68 liters - medium compound
3rd stint: 11 laps - 47 liters - soft compound

The start was ok for me. T1 comes so early, so I reached it first and took the ideal line. I had a little gap to David T. then but he closed it very soon and was chasing me very close for 7 laps or so. Due to having canceled the warm up, I had no time to calm down a little, so I still was very nervous and couldn't drive away from David. Then he seemed to make some small mistakes so my gap grew a little bit to aprox. 10 seconds or so.

I was pitting late after 16 laps to take softs in the last shortend stint. I came out of the pits in 3rd but soon was back in 1st because the latest guys were pitting too. The second stint was uneventful. In the end of it I had a 15 seconds lead to Tim who was in 2nd since a while. He pitted few laps earlier then me and I pitted at the end of lap 32.

When I was going to leave the pits, I noticed that Nicolai was going to enter T1 on the track at the same time as I would do from the pit exit. To avoid any problems I slowed down very much to let him take T1 as usual. Maybe Nicolai was afraid I could enter T1 without being aware of other cars outside the pits, so he also slowed down much. We both were close to standstill when Nicolai went on and some corners later I lapped him again. Of course we both lost time but a crash would have meant a bigger loss of time.

I like to thank everyone who showed great awareness at the pit exit. This is a good example for the spirit of this league!

After some laps in the 3rd stint I was going to reach the second last corner (qick right hander) when David M. was on the left side next to the track at the braking zone. I was so much focused on observing him if he would enter the track again (which he didn't - thx David!), so I completely forgot to brake! :tongue: When I noticed I entered the corner flat out(!) I got frightend very much and jumped into the brakes. But then I released them a little bit not to go straight on into the wall with locked tyres. I still hit the wall but not too hard so I could go on with just a small suspension damage, at least my pit crew noticed some damage. After my Hockenheim crash it was the second time I had big luck to continue after a big mistake.

So I brought the lead home in 1st and was very happy with it.

thx to Nicolai, who did a great job, having much stress because of the late game update! And of course thx to RD, MMG and all PrestoGP drivers!

Enjoy the race at Interlagos and see you all at Hungaroring...

 

[Anthony Ishak]

Thanks Reik for this nice race report & congratulations for winning this tough race , congrats to Tim for a solid 2nd and for Super Sean who was last at the 1st turn on lap one to come and finish 3rd, well done M8 ..

I have to say that i missed my old friend Valter in this race and of course Mr B who i had an amazing race with him at A1 , and hopefully Andy can make it to Brazil ..

Q: 5...
R:4

I did not expect much coming to Abu Dhabi as i did not have much time to practice and prepare my own setup for this race , Reik set up was very good but with the few practice laps i did the car felt a bit nervous on race fuel with the stiffer dampers setting and required more concentration on the 3rd more complex part of the track and i did not have time to play with it to suit my driving so to be on the safe side i used my A1 setup . ( big thanks to Reik for always sharing his artwork with us ) .

- i was on 5/28 wings, 15 softs 78 liters , 14 softs 48 liters , 14 softs 48 liters .

1st stint : I inherited P4 right after T1 when Sean had a poor start , after that the 1st stint was all about hot lapping to keep the faster Renault of David M behind me , we were within 1 second the whole stint until i pitted on lap 15.

2nd stint : i came out in P8 and slowly i got back my P4 on lap 20, i was ahead of Sean who was closing the gap on me very fast, it was really tough to keep him behind me and and i used all possible ways to close the door on him , all went good up to lap 27 when my softs were almost gone and run wide at the end of the long strait and both Sean and Macradic passed :tongue: .

3rd stint: me and Marcradic pitted same time on lap 29, he came out ahead of me but we both passed Sean who pitted 2 laps later , so the fight was on again, with David M , me & Sean right behind each other. 2 laps later Marcradic does a mistake unfortunately and spins his car, me and Sean carried the fight , he tried hard to pass and i used all available " legal " tricks to block him to maintain my 3rd ,it was a superb fight and i really enjoyed it , i was so exhausted and i could barely feel my arms, then on laps 43 Sean took his last chance and made another attack at the end of the long strait and i knew if i survived that turn i would have a great chance to finish the race in 3rd --- then right there we collided--- i felt i was wrong and waited for him to come back and right when i let him pass i had in mind to comeback on him to give it another go for the final turns but the few seconds i was waiting for him my tires were cold and on worn tires the grip was gone , so i spend the final turns trying to keep the car on track after couple of visits on the grass :tongue:....

well done everyone , this was a tough race to survive ..

Thanks to Nicolai for trying all he could to fix the issue of the server to get the race going on time at the same time trying to focus on his race.

cu at interlagos...

 

[David Turnbull]

qualifying - 2nd

pulled out a decent lap to take 2nd on the grid, was very happy with this, still .5 away from my pb time but still pleased.

race - 5th

started well, was right behind reik for 7 laps, it got so close a few times id considered making a move at a few points, then i made a small error that dropped me back slightly, i felt i had the pace to catch him again and i was on softs and he was on mediums, but then my keyboard started disconnecting and reconnecting, i could see the lights flashing on it and hear the windows sound for usb devices, this started happening on the straight with tim about 4 secs behind me, my screen froze 3 times on the straight alone and tim had caught me by the end, i was gutted and thought id have to abandon my race, but no sooner had the problems started they fixed themselves so i set about catching tim again which i managed then got past him at the chicane, i started pulling another gap until the very same crap happens again, this time i was annoyed and it caused me to make mistakes id otherwise not have, from here on i pushed as hard as i could to try make time up so that if anymore freezeups at least id have a chance to keep my position but coming to the chicane i braked and touched the kerb it sent me deep into the corner, i turned back to take the apex again BANG freezeup, when my screen came back i was pointing towards the wall with no front wing, so into the pits to repair, anthony sean and david went past putting me back to 6th, david mc seemed to be struggling with tyres so got past him relatively easily and cruised to the end in 5th.

soon as race finished i binned the keyboard.

great race all

cya at interlagos

 

[Reik Major]

thx for your nice report, too!

...big thanks to Reik for always sharing his artwork with us...

That's never a problem mate! I always feel a little bit ashamed when I get praised for "my" setups, because the real job was done by others before. I mean things like developing the setup from scratch, researching the small flaws of the mod to get all out of the car and so on. All "my" setups are based on setups from Jere Heikkinen and you . Especially when I was new here, I got very fine setups from you as a base to adjust them for my likings. So since we oficially share setups, I just give the input back to the community.

I hope that some others out there, who like the mod, find the posted setups here to enjoy this mod as much as possible. Maybe it encourages them to join our league. That's why I'll show the link to the setup threads if I post quick laps on youtube.

 

[Reik Major]

David you should get the medal of honor!

I don't mind I could finish a race if such annoying things would happen several times in the race... Well doen mate!

 

[Dave Russell]

Great to read guys, also big thanks also to Reik again for the setup!

Unfortunately, this was a disappointing one again for me, as much as I thought I might'd achieved a good result, this time, I just simply didn't put enough fuel in to cover my first stint (yes laugh at me! lol). My plan was to do 2 stints on mediums with a preset for a full 22 laps worth according to the conversion shown in the cars setup page anyway! I was on Lap 20, was having good fun being pushed by Tim whom I guessed was on new tyres but might'd been a little heavier? Distracted by this and keeping an eye on the laps too, I soon realised I was probably not going to make the end of this lap with the amount of fuel remaining and I was like wtf!? Tried to crawl but knew it was pointless as was simply too far away and eventually the engine went silent as expected, doh! But, in my defence before anyone starts laughing too much, even though it is quite funny! I don't have very much experience with selection of tyres, number of stints, working in litres etc, but I do have a rough idea most the time, I just haven't been able to allocate quite enough time for understanding in my brain all the nitty gritty bits since it's taken and taking long enough to fully understand what parts of the setup are doing and the relationship between the screen and the wheel and finding the points for modulating the pedals properly lol

This was one of the things I was worried about when I was invited to the league lol I have so much other technical stuff and stress in my life to with cope 95% of the time when i'm not racing, for me, two things help me let go of most of this, they are spontanious creativity and of course, racing!! Which is probably the main reason I've spent quite a bit in here to get a good racing experience, even for any friends! (was planning on doing a video of it which also demonstrates the trackir at some point )

Anyway, was still good for me while it lasted though, I'm determined to finish at least 1 race this season!! Had a good few laps with V. Cavaliere, so thanks mate, it wasn't easy and I almost thought I was going to come off when I got past, Gaetano and Sean did a much better job there - poor guy lol

Thanks Nico and grats to all finishers! Hope I can do better at the next race, looking forward to it anyway!

 

[Dave Russell]

Just read the new posts during the time it took me to write that lol Reik, I don't think you should feel ashamed mate, you still deserve credit for posting the setups! You've still tweaked it and hold a few of the fastest times on prestogp and I don't see any of the guys you may of inherited them from posting tweaked setups for pretty much every track!

I thought it was great watching your recent vid with the link to download the setup, and have to admit, I thought it's a fantastic way to get more people to enjoy the mod! I know if I stumbled across it and seen you get at least 3 seconds or more off most the available ones to download in game on a track I liked, I would be eternally greatful (which I am anyway!) and would be drawn to the site! One thing I would add though, I think it might be hard for people to find it because there's no tags for Race 07 GTR Evolution MMG F1 included, unless I missed them in the description, in which case, I'll shut the heck up! lol

 

[Bob Laube]

Congratulations Reik, Tim and Sean!


it seems, gamebooster helps really
THX, Peter Marshall !

greez Bob

 

[Valerio Vinassa]

not good time in Q but great great first 10 laps a continuos battles with Peter and Nicolas but in T13 T14 always a bit of frame prob not so hard just annoying:tongue: after this pitting lap 16 when gone out saw Peter front me but far and i thought that he go for 1 stop so i tried push a bit for gain a bit of time and every lap some tenths 2 or 3 come back I was on fresh tires him no but in lap 27 I was front Peter think 5 or 6sec. but many "Blue Flag Man" behind me so lost a bit of time ( must left feet ) .and in last curve David McC hit my rear( NP mate) lost totally the car and little advantage on Peter pit in lap 30 return on track but lost all mine concentration manage race until finish.Two thing gone well in this race first laps and low mistake many mistake in my test session at home.

Congrats Reik Tim Sean

Thanks Race Director for event

 

[Peter Marshall]

Congratulations Reik, Tim and Sean!

Well done all!

I had a rather forgetable race. I tried a one stop strategy but was never really in the race.

Thank you all!

 

[Sean Greenlaw]

Grats to Reik and Tim and all finishers !!! thanks nico !
Q 4th
R 3rd, 70 51 51 softs

I had a poor start and had wheel spin had to take avoiding action and ended up going off track so i just waited for rest to get back on track safely. I then start to make my way back with some great racing with nearly everyone. Great racing guys
I managed to be in 4th near end of 2nd stint and when i exited pits for last stint i seen Reik on straight so i was really slow out of pits and i seen anthony and david fly by. It looked like was going to be a good 3 way fight in last stint unfortunitly david lost rear and it was just me and anthony from about lap 30 right till end racing for 3rd now to, this was amazing racing we both on edge at times and anthony was always just spot on in breaking zones and making a good exit making it really difficult to pass, i also thought if i could just keep pressure on maybe a mistake was only way id get by also making anthony push his tires i knew i had stopped later but anthony never made any mistakes. Down to last lap i managed to get good slipstream upto chicane and late as i could brake, i just outbroke anthony on outside into chicane and was trying to leave enough room we touched i spin Anthony waited for me Great racing dude .
I was really gutted it ended like this because we had such a good battle and the chase was amazing fun especially being at the end of the race i was sweating like mad

thanks guys and anthony for best racing :good: cyas in interlagos !!

 

[David McCradic]

Anyone having trouble with this racedepartment forums still? If I try to click on prestogp or presto gp - european series I just get redirected to facebook, so I had to look for a link in my history to one of these threads and then navigate around with the "previous thread | next thread" links at the bottom of the page. This has been going on for days! someone please let me know if its the site or if i need to investigate things on my end, I cannot use this forum in this condition.

 

[Helder Filipe]

Anyone having trouble with this racedepartment forums still? If I try to click on prestogp or presto gp - european series I just get redirected to facebook, so I had to look for a link in my history to one of these threads and then navigate around with the "previous thread | next thread" links at the bottom of the page. This has been going on for days! someone please let me know if its the site or if i need to investigate things on my end, I cannot use this forum in this condition.

me too...i download the mozila firefox and it works well, but with internet explorer something is wrong :s

 

[David McCradic]

Strange because I only use firefox.

 

[Helder Filipe]

hummmm...try the reverse try with INTERNET EXPLORER

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

delete your browser history, you will find it under "tools"... your browser have learned to redirect you to Facebook...

 

[Valerio Vinassa]

delete your browser history, you will find it under "tools"... your browser have learned to redirect you to Facebook...

I use firefox and had same prob, right what say Nico and erase the "cache".

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

My report starts this time a little earlier, so I can include the problems we had, from my perspective

At 7:50pm (local time, 10 min before practice) I logged onto the server to open the race server. What I found there was that explorer was not responding (the task bar is dead) and trying to run the dedicated server icon on the desktop was also non-responding. I realised I needed to restart explorer, or the whole server, to make it work like normal again.

Restarting the server was not easy when I was on 2x remote desktop and explorer didn't work. I could not press start -> restart and I could not right click the task bar to use the task manager. All hotkey combinations such as ctrl-alt-delete, ctrl-alt-end or windows-r did not work, because they would end up on my work-computer (I can only access the race server from work, therefore I have to remote control my work machine, and from there further remote control the race server. Therefore all hotkey combos would end up on the work computer and not the race server.)

At this point I called Rune to get some fresh input on how to restart the machine. He suggested that I remote controlled the work PC with a different program as to avoid 2x remote desktop. This worked and I was finally able to get the task manager and restart the explorer.

Now I was able to open the dedicated server. Once this was done I started my own game, only to realise that it was the old update problem where you need to start race07 in order to get the other titels to start work (GTREvo etc). I knew there was a good chance that some of our members would not figure this out in time.

When I entred the server I read through the name to see who were missing. We were only 17, and I noticed that Kurt was not there. I alt-tabed back to windows, found Kurt in Steam chat, and as I suspected he was having problems starting the game. Once he managed to solve the problem it was getting close to 9pm (local time, qual time) I alt-tabed back into the game, only to see a black screen...

So now I knew I had to restart my own machine, and then start up the game again. i figured I have enough time to rejoin during qualify, that I would probably miss the chance to do a qual lap, but that was not the end of the world.

When I had restarted my computer and rejoined the game, there were 4 people missing, 4 people that had left/LC in the process of waiting for me. 3 came back online within a few minutes while Tom had mysteriously disappeared. We waited for a few minutes, + the 5 minutes of qualify, but he never returned.

Naturally I had no chance to practice a pit stop, but luckily that didn't create any problems for me in the race.

The rest of the report I will do later today.

 

[David McCradic]

delete your browser history, you will find it under "tools"... your browser have learned to redirect you to Facebook...

I use firefox and had same prob, right what say Nico and erase the "cache".

Thank you! everything seems to be back to normal after this.

 

[Reik Major]

Ouch!!! Nico, that sounds like immense trouble you have had. :frown:

When you disappeared in the begining of the first Q session, we agreed to wait for you. You didn't return during Q so we voted back to practice. Don't know why some drivers left in this process...