Preparations for this race were extremely tough. The 2 drivers that I drove the previous races with told me they wouldn't be able to make this race. So in order to defend the 2nd position in the GT2 championship and to take part in this race I had to find replacements, and damn quick.
After testing various drivers I found two who had very good motivation. I decided to recruit them for the Brigata Orso team and drive the 24h with the 3 of us. That turned out to be a monumental challenge, but more on that later on.
Now that I finally had a set line-up for this race, we had to find a setup for everyone to be comfortable with. Complicating that, we had 1 guy who had not raced rFactor 1 prior to this, it was his first time trying rFactor 1.
We were miles apart in the setup department. And for the guy new to rFactor 1, it was quite a while (felt like ages) for him to find the right wheel settings.
I think we had two weeks to prepare. Thankfully, in the last days before the event, we managed to find a setup we were all comfortable with and quick as well. Qualifying came too soon, lap certainly wasn't great and the setup wasn't there yet either. But we managed a starting position of 4th.
So came the race. It felt like a huge achievement to be even starting in it. Start (and restart after server crash) went quite well. Was inhaling exhaust fumes of P3 all the way. Lost a position after the restart because I couldn't judge my braking zone well being closely behind another car at Mulsanne. I overshot the corner but slotted right back in behind the car that advanced to P4 because of this. Again, closely behind him all the time, managed to pass him as well, but oversteer coming onto the straight immediately after allowed him to pick up the slipstream and get back past me.
I continued to be within a second of him for lap after lap until the P1 of Manwill-Rayner was parked shortly after Indianapolis and decided to back in to me when I was making my move to avoid him. This brought significant damage onto the car and cost me 2-3 seconds a lap.
So the art of endurance (getting the car to the finish) began. After my 1st stint my teammate took over to get a fresh car again. After some slight damage, all the previous damage returned so I took over again after that stint. Somehow, we were quickly back onto the podium (P2) because of other cars running into problems as well.
This stint went well, apart from a catastrophic mistake on my part. I was on to lap a GT2 car that didnt let me pass easily. He seemed to be letting a bit of a gap right before the first Porsche curve, I decided to go for it, noting the storming P1 in my rearview mirror. I came in a bit too hot, slid onto the gravel and that was it, didnt have the grip to return to the track and slid sideways into the tyre barrier. Thankfully this was at the end of this stint, so strategy wise it was OK.
This was another stint where my teammate had to take over immediately afterwards. I took over again after his. That turned out to not be a double stint either. I overshot indianapolis, decided not to go on the asphalt run-off, but misjudged it. I slid onto the gravel, kissed the wall every so softly, but it still resulted in some slight damage, meaning all the previous damage was back as well. Again at the end of the stint, so strategy wise still OK.
After another slight mistake resulting in damage returning by one of my teammates we decided to make repairs to counter this problem. Unfortunately, we had to do this a couple of times, because one of my teammates' FFB was reversed 2 times upon taking over. This resulted both times in significant damage and significant time lost.
At this time, nighttime was already in effect, we were P3 in class and I prepared for my scheduled sleepy time (which was already delayed by the rescheduling needed after all the damage suffered). However, when I was finally almost slipping into my temporary coma, the server crashed and my teammates woke me up because they didn't know start procedures (1st time for both l0l).
After the race had resumed, I managed to grab about 2.5 hours of sleep, before I had to wake up again and practice to drive in the pitch black. I woke up feeling very tired. When I took over for my triple stint in the early morning, the adrenaline coarsing through my veins thankfully made me able to complete the triple stint succesfully. With no mistakes, finally. The whole triple stint duration I pushed to get closer to the car in P2. the server crash at the start of my triple stint cost us more than 2 minutes unfortunately.
One of my teammates took over after my triple stint and completed his stint succesfully as well. I took over after that. No big drama anymore, everything seemed quite set. We were now a lap behind P2, but multiple laps ahead of P4. P3 seemed set in stone.
But I blew my engine. Then after I joined, I timed out. My teammate took over and still managed to complete the race in P3, thank god!
Exhausting preparations followed by an exhausting race, where the part on saturday didnt go well for me as I made some mistakes, the part on sunday went well though, apart from the blown engine.
P3 in race and finished P2 in the championship! Very happy! Was a good first season of endurance racing! The GT2 pole position in Silverstone is ofcourse my highlight of the season.
Now started practicing rFactor 2. Hoping to take part in the rF2 Endurance league coming soon here on RD!
Although I wouldn't mind another RDLMS during fall/winter! To cover ground untill Enduracers release their rF2 gem!
After testing various drivers I found two who had very good motivation. I decided to recruit them for the Brigata Orso team and drive the 24h with the 3 of us. That turned out to be a monumental challenge, but more on that later on.
Now that I finally had a set line-up for this race, we had to find a setup for everyone to be comfortable with. Complicating that, we had 1 guy who had not raced rFactor 1 prior to this, it was his first time trying rFactor 1.
We were miles apart in the setup department. And for the guy new to rFactor 1, it was quite a while (felt like ages) for him to find the right wheel settings.
I think we had two weeks to prepare. Thankfully, in the last days before the event, we managed to find a setup we were all comfortable with and quick as well. Qualifying came too soon, lap certainly wasn't great and the setup wasn't there yet either. But we managed a starting position of 4th.
So came the race. It felt like a huge achievement to be even starting in it. Start (and restart after server crash) went quite well. Was inhaling exhaust fumes of P3 all the way. Lost a position after the restart because I couldn't judge my braking zone well being closely behind another car at Mulsanne. I overshot the corner but slotted right back in behind the car that advanced to P4 because of this. Again, closely behind him all the time, managed to pass him as well, but oversteer coming onto the straight immediately after allowed him to pick up the slipstream and get back past me.
I continued to be within a second of him for lap after lap until the P1 of Manwill-Rayner was parked shortly after Indianapolis and decided to back in to me when I was making my move to avoid him. This brought significant damage onto the car and cost me 2-3 seconds a lap.
So the art of endurance (getting the car to the finish) began. After my 1st stint my teammate took over to get a fresh car again. After some slight damage, all the previous damage returned so I took over again after that stint. Somehow, we were quickly back onto the podium (P2) because of other cars running into problems as well.
This stint went well, apart from a catastrophic mistake on my part. I was on to lap a GT2 car that didnt let me pass easily. He seemed to be letting a bit of a gap right before the first Porsche curve, I decided to go for it, noting the storming P1 in my rearview mirror. I came in a bit too hot, slid onto the gravel and that was it, didnt have the grip to return to the track and slid sideways into the tyre barrier. Thankfully this was at the end of this stint, so strategy wise it was OK.
This was another stint where my teammate had to take over immediately afterwards. I took over again after his. That turned out to not be a double stint either. I overshot indianapolis, decided not to go on the asphalt run-off, but misjudged it. I slid onto the gravel, kissed the wall every so softly, but it still resulted in some slight damage, meaning all the previous damage was back as well. Again at the end of the stint, so strategy wise still OK.
After another slight mistake resulting in damage returning by one of my teammates we decided to make repairs to counter this problem. Unfortunately, we had to do this a couple of times, because one of my teammates' FFB was reversed 2 times upon taking over. This resulted both times in significant damage and significant time lost.
At this time, nighttime was already in effect, we were P3 in class and I prepared for my scheduled sleepy time (which was already delayed by the rescheduling needed after all the damage suffered). However, when I was finally almost slipping into my temporary coma, the server crashed and my teammates woke me up because they didn't know start procedures (1st time for both l0l).
After the race had resumed, I managed to grab about 2.5 hours of sleep, before I had to wake up again and practice to drive in the pitch black. I woke up feeling very tired. When I took over for my triple stint in the early morning, the adrenaline coarsing through my veins thankfully made me able to complete the triple stint succesfully. With no mistakes, finally. The whole triple stint duration I pushed to get closer to the car in P2. the server crash at the start of my triple stint cost us more than 2 minutes unfortunately.
One of my teammates took over after my triple stint and completed his stint succesfully as well. I took over after that. No big drama anymore, everything seemed quite set. We were now a lap behind P2, but multiple laps ahead of P4. P3 seemed set in stone.
But I blew my engine. Then after I joined, I timed out. My teammate took over and still managed to complete the race in P3, thank god!
Exhausting preparations followed by an exhausting race, where the part on saturday didnt go well for me as I made some mistakes, the part on sunday went well though, apart from the blown engine.
P3 in race and finished P2 in the championship! Very happy! Was a good first season of endurance racing! The GT2 pole position in Silverstone is ofcourse my highlight of the season.
Now started practicing rFactor 2. Hoping to take part in the rF2 Endurance league coming soon here on RD!
Although I wouldn't mind another RDLMS during fall/winter! To cover ground untill Enduracers release their rF2 gem!