Season 8 Race 7 SHANGHAI RACE Report

Andy Paries · Apr 18, 2012

Q: 8 ( i think)
R : 15

Most of my races are ruined because of my slow pitstops, lost over 20 sec today.
So that sucks.
Had some nice fights with lots of people tho.
I was P 7 i think before the pitstops, so a pretty dissapointing race for me.

How about we just fill our cars to the max and all on hard tyres, no pitstops ;-)
Probably no fans for this plan, but hey, cant blame me for trying

cya next race
And offcourse grats to Marko (well done mate) , Reik and Sean.

David Turnbull · Apr 18, 2012

qualifying - 4th pretty happy with my lap.

race - 6th

started very well and was upto 3rd by turn 2, set about trying to pressure marko in 2nd, made an attempt to pass him but he held me off and started pulling away, id used softs for the first stint and they started falling away about lap 7-8 so i fell into seans clutches it didnt take long until he was past and then it was time for the first pits, i went in earlier than most for mediums but this stint was made up of just gaining back places id lost during the pits, in the last stint i pressured anthony only to make a mistake at t1 each time i had got close again this allowed vincenzo to catch up and pressure me right until the line at the end, he so nearly passed me at the end of the straight on the last lap but i managed to hold him off to kept 6th, decent result, couldve been higher placed if i hadnt spun 3 times at t1 but thats racing.

grats to podium.

cya at bahrain.

Peter Marshall · Apr 18, 2012

Congratulations Marko, Reik, Sean! and to all

Q 15th - clean but a bit slow....

R 9th. Off the line, everything went well and all appeared to survive.

My first stint was dominated by a battle with Jonas and Nicolas. I made an early pass on Nicolas on the straight under brakes, but I feel Nicolas wasn't gonna fight me too hard too early.

After that it was one long run chasing Jonas. Not really wheel to wheel but quite close and immensely satisfying. A late pass on my in lap on lap 14, a wry smile was on my face when I left the pit lane still behind Jonas. It was on again but a ltitle shorter this time. I passed Jonas when a little lock up caused him to take avoiding action. Thank you for the run!

The rest of the race was holding station and watching Eliezer drive away from me.

I was very aware of Jim, Nico, Nico, Valter and others all chasing me down in the final stint. Fortunately the traffic was very kind to me, thank you gentlemen, and I finished but a second or two ahead of Nicolai [I think]. It was the lead lap which again is very encouraging.

Well done Marko on the first of many victories I am sure.

Thank you all. See you at yet another Tilke circuit; he gets around.

Kennett Ylitalo · Apr 18, 2012

Very nice race. I practiced very little to this race and that did help on some issues, mostly on frustrations and boredom. Fresher track kept the concentration on check, mentally it was pretty easy race, apart from the start+3laps.. Didn't have great expectations so 16th was a good result.

Qualy: Awfully untidy lap, not relaxed. Got oversteer on T2 exit, lost time and tried to get some back with more effort. Didn't work. 18th like in the last practice start so i knew what to do in the start.

Race: Good start, made some positions by keeping the T1 extra tight hugging the inside curb all the way, then short burst of throttle, relaxed T2 entry, early on power, 3 places gained. Very happy about that part, Luneski bogged down or missed the lights, that helped a lot

. Brakes were of an issue all thru the free practices and tried to dial it back and forth. By lap 3 i was down from 14th to 17th. I got the balance better by then and could do more decent pace. At lap 7 the car was stable, the full tank proved to be a little bit more difficult. I didn't really thought of tactics since i didn't do any real race stints in practices. I did around 10 laps at max and only one with mediums in official practice session.. Took a small gamble, setup was safe so i knew i can handle it. So tactics.. 1st stint with softs, 13 laps, then long middle stint with mediums until lap 31 then a short blast with softs.. Sort of worked, i lost some time on the end of 1st stint and in the beginning of 2nd, cold mediums and 58l aboard

Overall a good race, 2 spins and apart from those first 3 laps, pretty solid run. I just need to keep the practice time fairly low, now i did approx 3h, next i'll do more but under 6h for sure... Also performance on old tires was surprisingly easy, i didn't notice anything on middle stint until 75% mark. Rear was lively but the car turned pretty automatically again. Used Sepang setup which was a modified from Nicolais setup. Gonna use similar approach in the future, the stiffer setup is faster but mine is safer.

PS: The Shanghai sky looked awesome... I really suggest to install my skypack... Really menacing clouds..

Valerio Vinassa · Apr 18, 2012

Q 20
R 19

First stint is the race for me I was between Bob and Bob (Luneski - Laube) with one eye catch Bob Lu. front me at 1.5 / 2sec. other eye B. Laube in mirrors all first 12laps in this mode very nice ,than is started the waltz of pit so lost the company

.Started for do 16laps Med Med 1st pit 2nd pit soft tires about 10 laps ( tested yesterday evening with Marko

) the intention was recover time in last stint but I dont know in 1st pit I had a fews sec of advantage but when jump out of 2nd pit Bob Laube was front me about 8 / 9sec. lost think 20 /25 sec. Im so slow? YES

but I have an excuse "Blue Flag"

Congratulations Marko Reik Sean and sure well done all guys

Thanks PrestoGP for event

Jonas Lex · Apr 18, 2012

Q: P13
R: P15

I think more was possible but Im glad I was able to finish the race so thats okay

I have to say though that it was so much fun today and defenitely an improvement over the last races
because I found this very useful thing called FFB

Thanks again to Reik for the help to set it up that made it so much easier.

So my race, I had a good start but made a mistake in T1 so I was lucky to stay in P13 after the first couple of turns.
The first stint was defenitely the best one for me since I was chased by Peter the entire time and was quite surprised
that I was able to keep him behind me. Thx to you too, was great fun.

So even though he was able to pass me on the last turn before we both pitted I was quite happy with my performance so far
coming in the pits on P10.
The first half of Stint 2 was ok too, made some mistakes but had a good run again until right before my second pitstop when I had a little surprise at the turn before the long straight
I braked at the usual braking point but the car didnt really want to stop and I went off the track.
The problem must have been created by overheating brakes since I tried to create my own race setup this time but didnt test it for more then one stint.
However I was still able to come into pits i P10 but from this point on I was just hoping to get the car over the line, the problem with the brakes happened another 2 or 3 times which was quite scary every single time and due to that I wasnt very confident in terms of driving style too anymore so I became slower and slower.
However P15 was my goal before the race so thats okay and I was able to see that probably more is possible so we'll see how it goes in Bahrain

P.S.: I will upload my whole race and then post it here again
Should be done until tommorow (thursday) afternoon

Kennett Ylitalo · Apr 18, 2012

That explains why i could catch you on the last leg until i spun and the chase was over.. Good to know you finally found FFB

Jim Hawley · Apr 19, 2012

Q, P6... so that's all good then

R, P11

After 3 great practice starts I made a total arse of the real one, half the field went past me

I then had a spin at the begining of lap 2, dropped to P18 (see incident thread), the rest of the race was great fun

trying to make my way back up the order as best I could, I was racing Nicolai for the most part of it, had a good dual with Jonas at one point, everyone was pretty fast today

I faded a bit towards the end as I'd cooked the rear tyres and my neck had gone

Grats to Marko and all

See you at Bahrain, all being well

Jim

Marko Vuori · Apr 19, 2012

Q: 3rd (1:30.169) Ok lap with one small mistake. Using Sean´s setup.

R: 1st (awesome!) Almost perfect race in a circuit, which by far is my favorite! Using Reik´s latest setup as it had proved superior to mine, and I felt that Sean´s setup was too risky for me for race distance.

I had a good start from P3 and managed to overtake Sean before first corner. David attacked me in the first lap after the longest straight, but I was able to defend my position by taking the inside line for the braking. From lap 8 onwards Tim was putting pressure on me. Reik was running in P1, but our gap was never more than 3 seconds during the first stint. On lap 11 Tim went to pits and I could concentrate on catching Reik, which I managed to do by lap 13. We both pitted on lap 14 and I was guessing I might have an edge in terms of tactics there. I managed to overtake Reik during pit stop, and came out on P2 right behind Nicolas Rouge. At the end of next lap Nicolas made a slight mistake, and I got a good slipstream for the start/finish straight and managed to overtake Nicolas during T1. Reik got past Nicolas in the next hairpin, so our "cat and mouse" game continued. On lap 26 Reik had a second pit stop. Our gap then was 5 seconds. On lap 28, when I was leading by 44 seconds, I made my second pit stop. Came out of pits in a comfortable 5 seconds lead to Reik. Our gap stabilized to 4-5 seconds until on lap 38 (when I was thinking what to write on my race report, funny that Reik mentioned this after the race

) I shifted gear to neutral and went a bit off, allowing Reik to drop the gap to 2 seconds. However, probably due to later pit stop my tyres were in better shape and I was able to finish 2.5 seconds ahead of Reik.

Conclusion: I prepared for this race better than before (perhaps excluding my first race at Montreal) calculating fuel consumption and tyre wear exactly. Finally everything came together, and all the crusial moments of the race went fine (start, pit stops, strategy). Apart from the sleeping on lap 38 the race was perfect from my point of view. Great to win at Shanghai as this track has its special meaning for me. Even my avatar photo is taken at Shanghai International Circuit next to Kimi Räikkönen´s 2007 championship winning Ferrari F2007, the car, which took me to my first Presto GP win!

Thanks to Presto GP, Nicolai, RaceDepartment, SimBin, and everybody who raced today.

Kennett Ylitalo · Apr 19, 2012

Didn't notice any lag yesterday, that's a good sign.

Peter Marshall · Apr 19, 2012

Kennett Ylitalo said:
Didn't notice any lag yesterday, that's a good sign.

I had several very short micro pauses during the practice session.

I suspect it was audio file(s) loading for the thunder rolls. I did have or do have the "rain fix" installed that shortened those file sizes, but I suspect that when I recently added Race Injection to my Steam install that many audio files were added/ updated. The Thunder Rolls are very long in duration now and I heard them well before the clouds and rain appeared.

True to form, I stopped worrying about it, turned up the radio music and kept on driving. Yes, until we actually start the race the music plays on...sometimes it "fires me up" a bit.

Jonas Lex · Apr 19, 2012

Sean Greenlaw · Apr 19, 2012

Grats Marko great win Reik and everyone who finished !

Q 2nd
R 3rd mediums
I got some wheel spin off the line cost me couple places, also lost 1 to Tim later in 1st stint. I got passed David who looked to be struggling with grip and then race was about trying to put laptimes in with Tim close in front and gaining towards ends of stints. I got by 2nd stop i think Tim had troubles i came out 2nd pit with 5 or so second lead and just tried to manage gap towards end of race unable to catch Reik and Marko.

thanks Nico and Rd
Good race guys cyas Bahrain

Andy Paries · Apr 19, 2012

Jonas Lex said:
Q: P13
R: P15

I have to say though that it was so much fun today and defenitely an improvement over the last races
because I found this very useful thing called FFB
Thanks again to Reik for the help to set it up that made it so much easier.

What have you done to your FFB setup? You made me curious now

Nicolai Nicholson · Apr 19, 2012

Andy Paries said:
What have you done to your FFB setup? You made me curious now

I think the main thing is that he started using it

Anthony Ishak · Apr 19, 2012

Q 11th... slow super pole as usual

..
R 5th .. i tried to stay out of trouble and to be consistent in the race ..

strategy..12 /12 softs... 17meds ..fuel 55/55/55..... setup : i had adjust my setup from sepang and was ready for race, then 3 days before the race i tried Reik Q setup with wings 3/24 in a stint and was a superb setup.. perfect car handling, Chapeau bas Mr Reik

, your Q setup is excellent and i did not have to change anything for race , just one click down on the rear wing from 24 to 23 as with the fuel load the car gains more rear downforce so i had to remove a bit of rear down force to reduce the understeering and get the car more pointy ..i even could manage 140.2 with it on inters when it was raining during the practice session.....i have to mention how good this setup was to give credit to the person who worked hard to create it and posted for us in the forum, thx a lot maestro and thanks for all who post their setups here as well, they are very helpful ...smörgåsbordet of setups

..

A bit of action at the start , i had a better start than Nico who was next to me on the grid, then i was side by side with Jim the first 2 turns , i ended ahead of him , then i passed Andy on the long strait with the DRS activated

, after that i was chasing Elizer who kept attacking Vince fom behind until on lap 2 at the back strait both run wide and i was able to pass both of them, Elizer came back and we had an unusual nice fight for the whole first stint

, after that i was behind David T but he span on lap 15 or so around T1 and i could pass him there to P5 , then after that it was all about keeping the car on track while working my way through the traffic and pushing to stay ahead of DT to the end of the race ..thanks guys for making it easy and safe when lapping you .

...

Well done Marko for the win, to Reik and Sean and to all who finished !

Thanks Nico and RD ..
Hope it is safe to race at Bahrain

...

Bob Luneski · Apr 19, 2012

Mega grats to Marko and to Reik and Sean. To Nico and all who participated.

Q:16
R: DNF

I have always struggled at this track and today was no exception. Did not have any pace during practice or qual. so I had this bright idea: Since you're slow today anyway, and you've had all kinds of pit stop issues, do a 1 stop on Mediums.

Bzzzzzzzzz. Wrong answer. Go directly to jail, do not pass go do not collect $200.

Big mistake making a race strategy change during warmup and it went downhill from there. Had I practiced with mediums running a 20 lap stint?? It was like ice skating around lap 18. Laps 18-20 were very slow. The good news is I had no pit stop issues!! Yippie!!!

So I'm struggling with the track and the tires and at lap 31 just at the braking zone to the last hairpin one of my cats jumps up over the race seat sinking her claws into my shoulder and then down into my lap. Scared the

out of me. Well, the searing pain from the cat claws in my shoulder caused me to forget to brake and I went straight off the hairpin and into the wall, lost wheel, race over........

Since this has happened before I do "cat sweep" of the downstairs before races. It was evidently ineffective yesterday. So Nico - no you were not in any way responsible for my retirement......unless of course you e-mailed my wife and instructed her to let a cat downstairs mid race......

Onward.....

Jonas Lex · Apr 19, 2012

Andy Paries said:
What have you done to your FFB setup? You made me curious now

Yes as Nico said Ive started using it, I wasnt really aware that its such a difference

So Im using Reiks settings at the moment

Valter Ostman · Apr 19, 2012

Congrats to Marko, Reik and Sean, and to alla kompisar som deltog.

Q: 17th

R: 13th
The first lap went pretty well. Thanks Kurt for having attention of your sloppy team mate on the side of you.

On lap 4 I managed to pass Kennett. Nice fight, my first win over a 'Flying Finn' I guess

Thx for the nice close racing.

On lap 10, I caught up with Nicolas, Peter and Jonas. Can a race be more entertaining?

Lap 11, an early pitstop. Can I earn something by going in early and have warm tires when the guys comes out of their pitstop? I tried to keep good momentum after stopping. When they came out on the track again, I'm right behind Peter. A little too overambitious in T2, and I spin 90 degrees left. I must go back a bit and turn over the grass. Nicolai, Jim and Andy passes by with big smiles. Sorry for ruining the duel )-:

Lap 19, I catch up with Bob Luneski who has a technical problem and I get past him without effort. Sorry Bob.

Lap 20. I have Nicolas in front of me and the chase begins. On lap 25 I managed to sneak past in T1. I take my second pitstop in this lap. Kurt and Reik are in at the same time.

L 32 Nicolas is coming out from pits behind me. The fun starts again.
L 33 Under braking to T14 Nicolas happens to bump into my left rear wheel and he goes off on the gravel. I can go on as if nothing happened. A very light touch on the suspension, made off thin crap components, and I get the suspension error message. I could not feel it in the road handling anyway.
L 34 Nicolas overtakes me in T14. Nice racing mate.

L 38 Reik is lapping me. I screw up and slide off the right side of turn two. I lost a few seconds, stupid me. Valerio then unlaps by overtaking me. He let me by really nice and easy a couple of turns later, thanks mate.

L 39 Andy is right behind. I love this race. Last lap(40) in T 14 I have a small problem with grip and Andy comes up to my gearbox. He almost took my position and we pass the finish line in the same tenth i guess. A great last lap Andy, very exciting.

Thanks Nicolai, this league is the best a man can get. It's the real thing