rF2 Skoda Octavia Cup @ Okayama - Tue October 12th 2010

[Łukasz Demolin]

Aah, first race in Skodas that felt really rewarding, despite not really spectacular results.

Manage to improve my times by over a second today, which was surprising a bit, as the 0.7s jump happened completely out of the blue; I definitively wasn't going to complain .

Q1: did predictably; posted a time that nicely resembled my race pace (I always used the exact same setup, so all quals in race trim for me ). Turns out I was the bottom leaf of bread in our TGL "Demolin sandwich" wit Tomasz and Brian .

R1: This time around I had a simple goal - don't crash out/spin stupidly in the first corners. And I did just that, leaving everybody loads of room. It did cost me a position or two initially, but I quickly caught and overtook Kamil, then started to bite Brian. Was ready for a nice dicing with my TGL mate and he didn't disappoint, we've done two extremely entertaining dogfighting laps. After that I started to slowly pull away and the gap to Carl in front of me was slowly increasing as well, so couldn't really do much more. Lonely driving to the finish line, P6.

Q2: done 2 timed laps, went for something to drink, was still 6th when I got back . Vanilla qualifying, nothing exciting.

R2: first few laps were really eventful. At T2 of L1 I tried to press Amir a bit by going shoulder-to-shoulder with him, but he closed the door on my front right quarter a bit more violently than I expected, sending me into a biiiiig slide (that's what scared you, Bri. I'm sorry that you reacted so strong. I kept it clean, it only looked bad at the beginning ). Had Tomasz glued to my rear bumper on the long straight going into the hairpin (T4). Was still seeing Amir and Carl at this point not far ahead. Tom was close behind me and I tried to mess around with faster guys in front of me. On lap 3 or 4 I managed to outbrake Carl going into the tight lefthander, only to get slapped by Amir's rear bumper a few times and quickly got overtaken back. Well, wasn't really expecting anything different, was good fun to piss the guys off a bit .

From that point both gaps were rising - I was slowly pulling away from Tomasz (clearly out of the rythm, until he got thrown out of rF) and couldn't really catch Carl, and later Amir. Got excited once or twice when I saw a Skoda going sideways on the horizon, but they are too easy to catch, so couldn't get a position "vulture style".

Lots of P6s for me, right in the middle of the pack. Considering the density of the top drivers on the track today I consider it a really nice result .

 

[Neil Tasker]

if any one has a reply of these races can i have them please would love to see the reply not very offten i get to battle in the top 3 so would like to watch again,lol

 

[Ivo Simons]

Server replays.

http://www.mediafire.com/?d9zuq2ayhots6o3

 

[Brian Clancy]

At T2 of L1 I tried to press Amir a bit by going shoulder-to-shoulder with him, but he closed the door on my front right quarter a bit more violently than I expected, sending me into a biiiiig slide (that's what scared you, Bri. I'm sorry that you reacted so strong. I kept it clean, it only looked bad at the beginning ).

No probs lol, I thought you had lost it BIG TIME, I jinked to the right and then lost it myself, knocking the wall and getting some major suspension damage :-( oh well, was fun whilst it lasted, deffo do the Skodas again next week

 

[Philip Antonia]

yeah great racing tonight guys, as always these cars proved a hoot and some real close racing again for me this week it was with philip was a plesure battling with you mate very fair and clean racing, espeacially the first couple laps in race 2

It was gr8 racing with you last night Neil. It's easy to race like that when both drivers show each other respect on the track :good:.

I really enjoyed the racing last night. I even stayed to finish Race 2 and got into work 15mins late because I was enjoying it so much. Not sure how Ivo and Neil were carrying so much speed through a couple of turns!!! I only had the chance to battle with Neil because I started infront in both races. Otherwise I would have been hanging onto his coat tails like I tried with Ivo :wink:.

Qual: Well I managed to set good enough times for 2nd for both races behind Ivo.

Race 1. Decent start, but shifted to 2nd gear a little late losing the chance to challenge Ivo into the first couple of corners. Tried to keep up in vain, but pulled a gap to 3rd. Then Neil moved into 3rd place and for next 6/7 laps was closing in on me. I had a couple of slower laps where the gap closed a little too quickly allowing him to start preasuring me earlier than I would have liked. We had a nice cat and mouse battle and on the last lap I thought I'd done enough. I hadn't factored on him making a late challenge in the lap and I got caught out going into the last left hander. Neil made a good clean dive for the gap I'd lazily left on the inside. I tried to keep my foot down to stay on the outside and claim the apex at the next right, but I ran onto the grass and the job was done. So a good 3rd place, but I should not have presented a keen racer like Neil an oportunity that good and I got punished:frown:!!!

Race 2. Again got away well and this time stayed close enough to be an irritation to Ivo. Neil this time was already behind and I was relishing the fight to hold him off. For some reason I'd been able to set good enough times in qual, but Neil had a better race pace. We went side by side a few times and both made some nice overlaps to. I certainly had a big smile on my face during that. Neil though managed to get the jump on me on the one bit of track I knew I'd have trouble recovering from. Previously I'd been trying to keep him behind b4 the back straight so that I could defend into the braking zone and generally this was working well. This time though I messed up T1 as I allowed my self to miss my braking point. I ran deep and Neil got alongside for T2. This was the corner that Neil and Ivo could do quicker than me. It didn't matter if I was infront as I could position myself to defend b4 T3. As Neil had the high ground I knew I wouldn't get back ahead b4 T3 and therefore the place was likely lost. I managed to stay close into the last 2 turns. Neil had run wide a couple of times there so I attacked the last turn in the hope of getting a slipstream down to T1. Instead I ran wide and clipped the barrier damaging my front aero. I dropped back a bit and took a lap or 2 to adjust to the understeer. Then had a gr8 battle with Carl in 4th with again some nice switch backs between us:good: Gr8 stuff Carl and again very clean and respectful. Unfortunately I just couldn't hold him off to the finish and I slipped to 4th at the end.

So 3rd and 4th were more than I thought I'd get and a lot more fun than I imagined I'd ever have in a Skoda!!!

The last 2 rFactor events have really got me excited. Thank you Ivo and RDray:.

 

[Ivo Simons]

Was good racing indeed Philip. Was a long time ago i think we race together.

Quick movie about Q.

 

[Philip Antonia]

Gr8 lap Ivo, very smooth :good:.