rF2 2h WEC GT Racing @ Nürburgring 24h - Saturday 28th February 2015

[David O'Reilly]

I was pleased with Quali after a few fraught laps managed a PB by 3 seconds and row 2.
Normally I race better than i qualify but not tonight. I think I forgot to race it like and endurance race. One little error on lap 2 while running 3rd and I was behind some drivers. Then one of them had that nasty and well known running wide and along the grass and fence down the hill after that fast left hander in Sector 1. I was thinking "wonder where he will op back on the track" and bingo I found out. Spun and beached and had to wait a while. More places. Then an own goal a lap of so later and needing to let multiple cars through and I was P12 and giving myself a talking to.
Anyway lowered the error rate and found myself +25 sec from Dominic in P5 when I exited with 4 laps to go. "keep cool use the 4 laps " I said to myself. But I caught him in 1.5 laps and was cruising around waiting for the final straight and crashed 2 corners from it.
So then needed the next 2 laps as I was +16 sec again!
Caught him and we crossed about .25 sec apart.
So it was P6 but my lap times looked decidedly inconsistent.
Oh well there was always quali.

Thanks all and esp Freddy who had put so much into it.
I guess if I had an Apex behind and in front of me then a Corvette, then some GTRs it did mix it up.

 

[Marçal Bonet Andreu]

Congrats to everyone who finished this race.
I didnt have good qualyfing lap but enough to start in 2nd place. Aleksi really surprised me with an amazing qualy lap.

My first strategy was 3 stops but just few mins before the race I tested 1 lap changing at 6500-6700RPM on warmup and I thought I could do 5 laps per stint with less than 14L per lap so... 5 laps per stint and the last one flat out with no risks of getting out of fuel and thats what I did.

I did a bad start but I could keep my position on the first corner, after the first lap Aleksi got away with 10 sec gap and I thought I did a bad decision but more things happend and after my pitstop he got stuck on a kerb and lost more than 30sec, I could pass him and hold him behind due to my better topspeed on the back straight, but right on the next lap I did a stupid mistake trying to close the door and went off the track, didnt lost too much but he overtook me back again.

It was tricky to drive with so many shadows on the track and I did many little mistakes due to that but at the end I could take it to home and finish without problems.

Too bad many DNFs before the first hour... btw, Freddy what happend?

GTR was a rocket this time I improved my last race fastest lap more than 10 sec lol

Thanks to organizers and everyone who made it possible.
See you soon next time
Regards

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

Congrats to everyone who finished this race.
I didnt have good qualyfing lap but enough to start in 2nd place. Aleksi really surprised me with an amazing qualy lap.

My first strategy was 3 stops but just few mins before the race I tested 1 lap changing at 6500-6700RPM on warmup and I thought I could do 5 laps per stint with less than 14L per lap so... 5 laps per stint and the last one flat out with no risks of getting out of fuel and thats what I did.

I did a bad start but I could keep my position on the first corner, after the first lap Aleksi got away with 10 sec gap and I thought I did a bad decision but more things happend and after my pitstop he got stuck on a kerb and lost more than 30sec, I could pass him and hold him behind due to my better topspeed on the back straight, but right on the next lap I did a stupid mistake trying to close the door and went off the track, didnt lost too much but he overtook me back again.

It was tricky to drive with so many shadows on the track and I did many little mistakes due to that but at the end I could take it to home and finish without problems.

Too bad many DNFs before the first hour... btw, Freddy what happend?

GTR was a rocket this time I improved my last race fastest lap more than 10 sec lol

Thanks to organizers and everyone who made it possible.
See you soon next time
Regards

I messed up totally. I was checking my setup and in old UI style I wanted to hit "back" and left the server. Daiman was friendly enough and did a quick restart. Then I DQ on the grid as the "Light on" penalty came a lot faster and think hit the button twice. Then un-DQed myself, started from pits. Rechecked the lights and immediate DQ. Again to the pits and started 85 seconds behind the leader from the pits
Then it was looking good. I made up a lot of places and was on target for a Top 5 and with 40min to go rF2 just freezed completely never had that before... That was basically race over. I did a few laps to the end after a rejoin, but yeah pretty bad

I did had a few lag moments some others as well some others not, but I hope we can go to the older build for Sao Paulo

 

[Marcel Kühnel]

I will never take car from a lower class! I had the WTCC BMW and had fights with many GT3 cars! How is that possible? So many crashes around me.

But the worst thing was that many solw GTs in front of me didnt let me pass, even if i was so much faster. Sorry guys, but you have mirrors in your cars to use them! Im very pissed off.

After two laps and many crashes that i was pushed in, i have stopped the race because of my big frustration and because there were no another cars in my class...

In my eyes there were many noobs out there who want to drive a big GT car on the NOS but never did that before.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

I will never take car from a lower class! I had the WTCC BMW and had fights with many GT3 cars! How is that possible? So many crashes around me.

But the worst thing was that many solw GTs in front of me didnt let me pass, even if i was so much faster. Sorry guys, but you have mirrors in your cars to use them! Im very pissed off.

After two laps and many crashes that i was pushed in, i have stopped the race because of my big frustration and because there were no another cars in my class...

In my eyes there were many noobs out there who want to drive a big GT car on the NOS but never did that before.

I have to admit the grid was in general a lot more competetive in the last event. The gaps in general were a lot bigger than last time out

 

[Simon Christmann]

Had a nice and fun race. Was suprissed to qualify in P7

Start was good. Made gained some places from the line and got spun in the first corner. So i was nearly last. But i think in the first sector i could select half the field.
Before my first stop i could climb up to P4. After the stop i dropped back to P9 only to climb back to P4 beforve my 2nd stop. Here i decided to stay on the same set of tires to show @David O'Reilly that i works. Left the pits in P4 and had a little fight with Dominik. The last four laps i could build a save gap to the guys behind me and finish on a nice P4 with 35% tirelife left .

 

[Jean-Simon Asselin]

I was starting to go something during qualif. I was not fast but I was able to complete laps without too much problem, everything was fine.

When the race started, I began to experience a lot of mini-freeze, especially in the Gp section... I had no problem during the qualify, but the race was horrible... sorry if I hit someone during these mini-freeze.
And I was taken by surprise due to the darkness of the track in the race.
I am quite new the the green hell, so it was weird for me, lol

 

[Edgar Steffens]

I will never take car from a lower class!

This was because this time I took a GT3 Car.
Last time with Civic I had also problems with quick dangerous cars.
Crashing - overtakings without patience and again crashed !
If one doesn't practice and join only to race than it destroys the race and fun of
other racers !
I took the Apex Porsche GT3 - only after having worked out setups,fov and FFB settings.
This took more than 30 full laps.
But then I had a lot of fun and a nice race finished on 7th place.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

The sign ups for the next round at Sao Paulo are open:
http://www.racedepartment.com/threa...saturday-14th-march-2015.101710/#post-1946388

 

[Pär Öqvist]

I was starting to go something during qualif. I was not fast but I was able to complete laps without too much problem, everything was fine.

When the race started, I began to experience a lot of mini-freeze, especially in the Gp section... I had no problem during the qualify, but the race was horrible... sorry if I hit someone during these mini-freeze.
And I was taken by surprise due to the darkness of the track in the race.
I am quite new the the green hell, so it was weird for me, lol

Never ever use HDR it´s a bug. I had no darkness of the track

 

[Joao Fernandes]

As i feared it was a full grid of GTs with three touring cars. Nevertheless i went with the Civic again and this time i was much faster and was hoping to make it harder for Richard.

After a promising start everything went wrong after i couldn't avoid a series of incidents. I lost my focus and it took me a few laps to get in tune with the car. With so much time lost in the first lap there was nothing i could do but to finish the race and try to do some fast laps. After two hours, mostly alone, i managed to finish and in the last lap did my PB with this combo.

Even with the incidents on the first lap and all the time lost this was still fun and driving around this track is always a pleasure.
Congratulations to all that finished and thank you to all for another fine evening.

 

[Aleksi Kivelä]

So many mistakes in the race. Not happy with my driving tonight.
Lost control of my car three times in the same corner and once got stuck on the curb and lost my 30 second lead. This also meant that I destroyed my tires on every stint so my wheel was vibrating like crazy for most of the race. Still finished second since the GTR was so damn quick this time around .

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

So many mistakes in the race. Not happy with my driving tonight.
Lost control of my car three times in the same corner and once got stuck on the curb and lost my 30 second lead. This also meant that I destroyed my tires on every stint so my wheel was vibrating like crazy for most of the race. Still finished second since the GTR was so damn quick this time around .

Yeah, the GT-R was definetely not that fast in my hands. Maybe didnt spent enough time, but good to see, that the other cars seem to be in line, so only the GT-R has to loose a few of all the new carbon upgrades

 

[jimortality]

Never ever use HDR it´s a bug. I had no darkness of the track

Really? anybody else not use HDR? might give this a go and see how it looks

 

[April Dillon]

I use HDR (always, because it's not 2005 anymore!) and didn't have these 'black out' bugs. But I've heard of these issues before. I had this issue in very small blinks at the last Nurburgring race in the evening (in the Camaro also), and I've heard some cars are more susceptible to it than others. But I don't know any more than that unfortunately.

 

[Matt Horst]

Really? anybody else not use HDR? might give this a go and see how it looks

I had hdr on with no problems.In fact no problems at all for me other than a blown engine that put me out of the race.

 

[jimortality]

Ok thanks I'll stick to the HDR for now. It did seem very misty early morning so maybe I should practice different times of the day.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Just wanted to add
I had HDR on. I had no issues other than shadows being very realistic.
Also no feezes at all despite getting some during the week.
FPS dropped to 42 at the start but rose to 60 ish.

@Frederic Schornstein
You might find that +30 KG for the GTR is enough to redress the balance on BOP. It suffers more on tyres and its tricky to get consistent laps in. Its top speed was spot on (283) IMO so drag is probably ok.
Two VERY fast guys might have flattered it a bit. (Spoken like a true GTR factory driver)
Amazing work by @Marçal Bonet Andreu to get a 5 lap stint. I tried it in practice and couldnt do it.
I have put the Carbon rear spoiler on Ebay. Hope I dont lose too much money.

Shout out to @Edgar Steffens and Dominic Talent who drove hard and clean in the Apex GT3.
The Ferrari sounded amazing and Dominic had it hooked up nicely.
At one point in the final stint I closed on him in Sector 2 and it seemed he moved aside slightly to allow a pass. I didnt have enough speed to pass without a driver error to help me in those short straights in S2. Plus we were in a fight for position so it didnt seem right to be allowed through.
Also @Aleksi Kivelä your quali lap was stunning.
I managed 8:30.44. and was pretty damn happy and you did 8:20. Amazing.

Looking back at the race it was totally immersive and great fun.
At the end of lap 1 I was a couple of seconds behind Marcal and that was something for me. I love this game! I love this car.
I think what happened to me was simply nerves. I tightened up, was thinking too much about other cars, fuel etc and the subtlety needed to drive the GTR fast was lost. I got wooden feet Thats where all the errors came from.

 

[James Maskell]

I didn't run hdr because my gtx580 isnt quite up to the task of running nords with a lot of cars. I ran hdr last time and in some spots on the track frames would drop a lot.

A 4:30am start halfway through qualifying meant that i didn't exactly have a smooth qualy, sorry aleksi for holding you up on one of your laps not that it actually made much of a difference. got a lap in and i was happy i wasnt starting at the back,

The 3 race starts were pretty funny especially for those who were on teamspeak.

I managed to have a good start and somehow got quite high up position wise but eventually the mistakes came and i lost my seriousness for the race. From then on it was all about making the race hell for @Tal. which ended up with me in the wall more often than not and constantly chasing him down again. It was so much fun even though half the time i was struggling to keep the car in a straight line. The best thing about it was even with my lack of practice i still had heaps of fun. Until my team went to far and messed with tal's internet The antics on teamspeak definitely made this race for me.

Trying to drift the final lap was also so much fun. The power of the camaro makes it so effortless but the car is so snappy. Still managed some epic slides and a few burnouts after spinning.

Some people need to be a bit more careful when rejoining the track or getting the car facing the right way again. I ended up getting tboned from a car that was trying to spin around. I am not worried about any of my incidents but people need to make sure that it is clear before they try and turn around etc. You dont want to floor it and end up smack bang in front of a choo choo train of gt cars.

Anyway, it was a fun and entertaining race, not sure if i will make the next one but definitely looking forward to some more races with these cars.

Awesome job @Frederic Schornstein Although i am requesting a team meeting for when you ran into me

 

[Tal]

Don't worry @James Maskell , a protest has already been lodged to the FIA. Expect to be called to a hearing. #TXLGate

Speaking of graphics, I turned HDR off a long time ago since it made stuff look too dark at dusk, dawn & obviously night. I have a 570 GTX GPU, and usually I can run rf2 without problems, but this time it didn't run so well at all! I was dropping frames like crazy, even though I put *almost* everything down to low, and had only 14 cars visible at a time. Weird and annoying.