Race #14, Japan: Post-Race Discussion

[Mikko Puumalainen]

Feel free to discuss the race in this thread, as long as it is within the forum rules.

 

[Petar Brljak]

Nice drive Morgan

 

[Mark Aalberts]

"Q: No Q due to late allocation although was lacking Q pace anyway so would have started in the backfield afteral.

R: Got a good start and slowly climbed my way up the field some by driving and some by mistakes from other drivers. Some great fight with Jim for some laps with a few times changing positions and side by side action with some respect. Great racing there, now after 3 years taking part in a WC race again i didnt expected points would be possilbe but mayby im underestimating myself, although in the end i still finished a minute down on the leaders wich is a lot.

Made my debut in WC for Ash 7 years ago so great to be in this car again and scoring a few points for them."

 

[Jim Parisis]

"Once again my computer had issues so every session ruined cause of this.

Q: p14. Couldn't do more with the problems I had. Onw thing that I want to say is that Room made a really bad move on me in last shicane before the start of my 1st hotlap. No comment...

R: A really eventful 1st lap for me! In the start a car stoled infront of me and I just avoid him, losing some places there. After s1 my teammate Luka spun and I just avoided him as well. Lucky to make the right decisions in both situations. And again after 1 corner 2 cars spun infront and avoided them as well! And guess what, in last shicane 2 cars went off track and I had to avoid them! Then I had Roualt behind me untill I made a mistake in lap 3 and he passed me. Then a really ambitious Mr. Raino Room tried some really really bad moves on me in some corners and finally he reached his goal and took me off track by hitting me. No comment again..... Then I had a very good fight with Mark Aalberts with some very good moves by him and me, and after 5 laps he took the position. After this I had a quite race. I gained a place cause Roualt crashed and 5 laps before the finish Mark made a driving error that putted me 1.5 seconds infront of him. I kept thus gap till the finish and I got a decent 8th place finish.

Whole race I had again problem with my computer that didn't allow me to have my normal pace.
I am very disapointed by this as I had the chance of 2 very good results last 2 races.
I hope the problem will be fixed for the next 2 races.

Congrats to Morand for his first win!
Well deserved m8!"

 

[Dennis Hirrle]

From GPCOS:

"Not sure what to say, I guess after Bono retired in the formation lap it would have been worth to test a little more to make this an easy win, but then again I was too careless and preferred to enjoy other things.
Wasn't very nice to drive here because the Mod has too much grip and the beauty of Suzuka was destroyed, as a consequence the field was very close and qualifying was important, luckily I did a good lap in Q2 and was 4th, effectively 3rd.
To the race start and I passed Lapchin into T1 which was crucial. Then I noticed my fuel calculation sucked and I was forced to shortshift almost the whole race.
In lap 15, Morand passed me, in lap 16 I passed him back on the outside of T1, but he pushed me wide in T2, so couldn't make it stick. Went back to do some shortshift waiting for what would happen later.
Pitstops saw not much change, eventually Morand got past Mikko, I tried to stay close as good as I could for the circumstances. Mikko once lost it slightly in spoon, let him back past because I just couldn't challenge for the win if I wanted to finish.


Good result anyway, the team wanted us to get P2 in the constructors which we kinda did, so, nice."

 

[Mikko Puumalainen]

From GPCOS:

Q1: Quite difficult again, definitely not my biggest strength. P10
Q2: Solid lap again like in Monza, P2

Race:

I was surprised to not see Bono lining up for the grid, I assumed he had gone over the timelimit to get on the grid. After the race I heard he had an rFactor crash though, shame for him since he had the best pace clearly.

After that I just tried to focus on doing my own race, took a clean start and lead for the first stint with Denny & Morgan about 3s behind me.

I decided to pit 2 laps after Morgan because I was pretty sure Denny would pit 1 lap after him, so I didn't want to risk blocking him in our pitbox.

Exiting the pits I rejoined about 0.8s in front of Morgan and was pulling away slightly until I caught Rouault. Took quite long to pass him despite the tire advantage, and after this Morgan was in my slipstream and was able to pass me quite easily since I had chosen to run more downforce.

I managed to pass him once in to T1, but I made a mistake in the Spoon corner, nearly ending my race but in the end just lost one position.

I made another mistake in the Spoon some laps later which allowed Denny to pass me, but he let me back through on the main straight, thanks for that .

Had a few more close battles with Morgan afterwards in to the final chicane and in to T1, but I was not able to time the slipstream right to get past.

With about 7 laps to go I noticed my fuel was quite critical, I tried to save for a few laps and then tried to make one last push again. But for the final lap I noticed the fuel was way too low, and I had to cruise quite heavily to avoid running out. After a lap full of coasting my engine started to cough exiting the final chicane, so I barely made it thanks to my last lap efforts.

Congrats to Morgan for his first win, I'm still happy with my own result, wasn't expecting much from this race.