SEASON 12 Race 1 ISTANBUL RACE REPORT

[Valerio Vinassa]

GOOD SEASON 12 at ALL

 

[Guus]

Just as I feared, my wheel lost connection Luckily there was no one around because that would have been nasty. There are some dark forces at work preventing me from finishing any presto race. Luckily I could go on long enough to have some nice racing with Peter and Tim. I was lacking pace compared to my practice runs earlier today, I had no hope keeping up with King David and his two loyal followers. I was in 4th when my wheel gave up, I think that I did the best I could.
Grats David Sean and Reik (I think, race hasnt finished yet ) And ill be seeing you all in another attempt to finish in 2 weeks

I hope its dramatic enough

 

[Bob Miley]

Happy that my times were not far off the leaders, so my winter practice paid off.
Disappointed that I made mistakes at both pitstops costing around 12 seconds and my average times were slower than practice.

Good to be back.

Congratulation to David and the podium.

 

[Alberto Casado]

I was not feeling very inspired on this one, and it went down pretty much as I expected.

Q better than I though about 3/4 of the pack.

R I gambled on a bit too long 6th to hold on (or jump) in the back straight, since I was starting well in the group. Unfortunately, a touch with Nelson and the another with Mert set me almost last, and disconnected from any draft, so it turned out to be a terrible decision.

Still, I had quite some nice fight with Jan, pretty tight moments abut I think all very safe (but I would like to hear your version Jan, sometimes I am not sure if I am squeezing people in the apexes).

Finally, I was rolling dead last on the second half of the race, until Jan made a pit stop with only a couple of laps left, so I salvaged one point more than I hoped. 20th.

Important thing though, another race finished in my list.

 

[Nelson Ullinskey]

Correct me if I am wrong here, but this track is supposed to be brutal on tyres and this caused most people to do two and some three stop strategies? Well... I did this on a one stop! I qualified seventeenth out of twenty three entrants.

My steering lock was a little too low for comfort, so I had trouble on the corners. I had originally wanted to do a two stop strategy, but after I fell back to dead last I decided to go for broke and do a one stop. It worked and I finished fifteenth! Wonderful way to start the season and I look forward to Melbourne.

 

[Sean Greenlaw]

nooo Gus! we have to try everything to get your wheel working consistently must be something to fix it have you tried connected to a different pc just to confirm its wheels problem ? If it is wheel how new is it have u tried contacting Logitech ?
EDIT: lol at vid music priceless

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

Here are the results:
http://prestogp.com/index.php?view=leagueraceresult&season=12&league=1&racenumber=1

Congrats David

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Guus: try different usb port, that might help. Or not.

Qualy: Total fail. Tried to do one attempt only, just to decrease the amount of hotlaps for one night. Didn't work. I just couldn't get on rhythm after letting everyone pass.. Went out about 30 sec too late. Overshoot first corner then veered on curbs later, no hope for getting any decent laptime. Also first race in the season, don't exactly need a midpack starting position stress

Race: Not total fail but too many slip-ups. Three times on T8 running wide, couple of poor brakings. Nothing major but just couldn't keep up to the right pace. Of course i got something new since season starts, that's like a tradition.. New brake pedal setup, at 85% silicone bumber starts to excert real pressure, feels really good (don't worry, it was in earlier tests too..) It's very much like loadcell feel and i've also packed quite a small amount of travel to quite high range, ie at 85 pedal movement, brakes are at ~60-70%. Honestly felt really good, there is a certain amount of certainty now. I know exactly when i'm pressing 100%. Braking distances are shorter than i can cope, yet.

Had good battles at the back, 2 stop strategy worked allright. I just needed to be 1s faster on average than i could do tonight. Tire wear was good for pushing almost all laps in the race, that' really sweet. I did make slight changes to setup just to save front tires. Going with high wings and short gears demands good grip all the time and i had it. Just too bad i lost massive amounts of time in those slow corners. Holla at April and Bob L, and who else was at that cue at the back. Nice fights, didn't have to drive alone much. only after my perfectly timed and executed pitstops. First was one lap early, i know i'm gonna drive one lap shorter race than the lead. Second stop was even better, i only had to let David thru in the back straight and went to pits. Worked very well, only had to let Reik pass after that.

Sorry Peter. I couldn't let you thru in the end, i noticed that Bob was suffering with tire wear and i was attacking the last three laps. You were not near enough on your rivals that one could say that you were racing them and i had a race full on... The gap with Bob went 0.4s to 2.1s depending which of us slipped more. Did banzai last lap, managed to get all the way to Bobs backbumber in the downhill chicane, four wheel drift but i just knew that my rear end will not hold the needed torque and rotation with the car so unbalanced. Tried anyway, i had nothing to loose, except my rear end. Which happened. At least i tried

 

[Sean Greenlaw]

Finishers !

 

[Valerio Vinassa]

Q16th
R14th
great 1st race of season at start some good fight here and there also remember well the pressure from April in long speedy turn(4 bends) on left than front me Anthony I pushed for catch him and until pit a long and nice battle on weared tires big amusement Tony.
After pit a bit alone along track remember some battles with guys in out of pit and nice/hard battle for position with Bob Luneski wheel to wheel.

Congratulations David Sean Reik and all participants

 

[Guus]

nooo Gus! we have to try everything to get your wheel working consistently must be something to fix it have you tried connected to a different pc just to confirm its wheels problem ? If it is wheel how new is it have u tried contacting Logitech ?
EDIT: lol at vid music priceless

My earlier ffb problem had nothing to do with this, it was some piece of **** software (Raptr) causing that and that is fixed. My current problem is that my wheel sometimes disconnects and reconnects, doesnt happen very often and this is the first time it happens in a race It happens with every USB slot I try, so it might be the cable? Its an almost 2 year old G27 and it works perfectly fine apart from the disconnects. I think I will send logitech support a message about it to see what they come up with

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

This was really good season opener. Only two DNFs and 23 strong grid. Happy with newcomers in general, didn't feel unsafe. We even did the basic 3 starts and only the first one was really unaccetable. You could see the difference in start 2 and 3, ... is that a good system of what?

Looking at David straightline speed, i was 10km/h slower.. had too much wings after all

 

[David Turnbull]

Qualifying - 1st

Managed to get a great lap in first try, the second was a 1.37.7 so both wouldve been good enough, practise paid off

Race - 1st

Started well enough, stayed ahead of Sean into turn 1, the whole first stint was within a second between me and Sean with Reik not far behind. Reik took what i thought was a really early pit, my 2 stop strategy was 62l x 3 and stopping on lap 13 then 26 and going to the end. After first pits id managed to stay ahead of Sean and the gap had increased to a few seconds, this stint i just tried to stay in the rythum and keep concentration, it was quite lonely this part. At the last pits i had a gap of some 10 seconds to Reik and 6 seconds to Sean, the last stint was just driving to a set pace, not pushing enough that i could make a mistake but always being fast enough that the gap to Sean at the end was 9.5 seconds.

Thoroughly enjoyed the first race, hope every race is as populated as this one, makes it really exciting knowing everyone has someone to fight against, Grats to Sean for second and Reik for 3rd, Thanks Nico, RD and everyone else who make Presto what it is.

Cya at Melbourne

 

[Bob Luneski]

Q12 R10 Bitten twice by my nemesis the pitstop it was still an epic race with good clean tight racing the entire race. My previous co-nemisis - the start - was resolved with some coaching by David earlier in the week. Instead of loosing my typical 2-3 places at the start, I gained 2 places (the check is in the mail David )

Spent laps 2-9 chewing on Jim H's tail and finally passed him at the end of L9 into 8th and built up a 2-3 second lead on Jim when I pitted at Lap 13 for bad pitstop #1. First my pit limiter button wouldn't respond, when it finally turned off I over accelerated and over shot my box, backed up too far and finally got in the stall and out of the pits with a blistering pit time of 65 seconds. Down to 16th argh.....

Spent the middle laps with some great dueling with Bob M, Julius, and Nico and others and was very happy regaining most of my lost positions finishing the segment in 9th pulling into the pits 3 seconds behind Nico for bad pitstop #2. I realized OMG I'm going to finish on the lead lap. My fuel consumption was a little more than I thought so I would probably come in on fumes in the last lap. I fumbled around the pit menu and added another 5L to the fill amount adding an extra 25+ seconds to my pit stop......so much for finishing on the lead lap.

Came back out in 16th again..arghh... but the last stint was a lot of fun with some great battles with Bob M, Valerio, and Julius finally passing Julius for 10th in lap 35 when he made a small error on the last turn. Opened a 2 sec gap on Julius and cruised in for 10th. Since I did finally get lapped on lap 37 I had plenty of fuel at the end plus the extra 5L I added.

What a great season opener 23 on the grid and 21 finishers. Hard close racing start to finish, what a blast. Mega grats to all and a special thinks to Nico!!!!

 

[Valter Ostman]

Congratulations to everyone who finished the race!

I'm sorry I could not attend. My sneezing would have been too much of a security problem.

CU all next race

 

[Dux]

Congratulations to everyone who showed up since that was hell of a task for me i had WTCC event at local store in Skopje - Race Center with CarClub Macedonian Forum members, over 20 participants on spot, and i got an invitation so i couldn't show up here.

However, @David Turnbull congratulations! I would love to come and i surely would if this event i was on didn't showed up. Tonight i need to go again to test F1 2014 and next Wednesday the same CarClub forum has again a race, they have whole Championship going that day, i will show you some video later of the atmosphere i would like to share it with you guys

I am sorry that i missed the race but i had two chose between both
I hope so i can come one next time

 

[Julius Fahlbusch]

what a great race!!!!

i have to watch it again and reflect what went good and what went wrong.

quali:
kind of disappointed. trained really much for it and had some reasonable pace for one lap. i couldnt pull it off. ended up with a 1:39,5 which is 1,3 seconds slower then my pb. really hoped and thought i could drive a 1:38,x when it matters. Kind of a bummer but starting from 10th is still way better then anything i managed in any of the 4 races i attended since joining you guys. so still an achievement for me.

race:
really great. i have to see this evening what happened in this long lasting 65 minutes.
but in short. no huge mistakes, 2 or 3 half spins and ran wide 2 times in t8 i think. missed my breaking points an a few occasions but nothing dramatic. i bumped someone (dont know who it was tbh) but not that hard. no damage done i think.

but that wheel to wheel racing was some crazy stuff so much fun. really really nice. fair all the time and so rewarding even if you come out of it with loosing the place. the satisfaction you get by going wheel to wheel through the last three corners on to the main straight is so awesome.
i will check this evening who was involved in wheel to wheel with me. and the come back. maybe i can do a short highlight video with some battles. there were many of them.

pitstops:
that was a huge problem for me in the last races. but just as everything else i trained those and now feel comfortable with them. i lost 2 or 3 places in battles before my first stop. and then decided to pit one lap early to try the undercut with fresh tires. worked really great. got 2 places back.

the only thing that is a little unsettling for me is the fact that i obviously totally abuse those tires. my strategy was to pit in lap 13 and then again in lap 26.
at the end of my first stint i struggled a lot. so as i said i pitted on lap 12 instead of 13. and then got tyrewarning on lap 23. that was really unsettling at that moment. so i pitted on lap 24. and hoped i can do it to the end. glad it worked. although i struggled really in the end and bob got me a few laps before the end. i was scared that i might loose some more places but could hold on to it. 2 or 3 more laps and i would have been in huge trouble.
still dont know how the 1 stop guys managed to do that.


overall:
man i am more pumped for this season than before. that was some start for me.
i trained a lot for this race. and it showed.
i had 2 dnfs in my first two races. one last place in my third race. and one 12th place in the last race of season 11.
i ended up at place 11 yesterday only 1 place better then the last race. but compared to my final performance of last season i was on another level in this race. i am really seeing progress in every aspect of my racing, thats some good motivation.
my new pedals do their work and i only have them for one week. i hope its only going to get better from now on.

guys, so much fun to drive with you. from now on i am going to train for melbourne although due to my work i am not at home from monday till sunday in the upcoming week. so i guess i have to use this weekend and monday and tuesday before raceday as much as i can.

i will be back this evening with some more infos from my race yesterday.

later guys

 

[Jim Hawley]

Good race

Q, P5 a new PB

R, P6

I decided to try a one stop race on the basis that with so little practice I wouldn't be able to make the most of the lighter faster car, I had run a few laps with a 2 stop set up and I just wasn't fast enough

Got off to a reasonable start but quickly lost places to the quicker/lighter guys around me and settled into 8th chasing Vinny and Bob, as everyone pitted I held P1 for a while

I pitted on lap 20 and rejoined in a lowly 16th, carried on circulating at my own pace until the rest pitted again and bumped me up to P5, Peter came up to pass me, I tried to hold on but he had more grip/speed

Finished P6, which I'm pretty happy with

I had some good battles along the way with Tim, Bob L, Vinny, Peter and Julius

Grats to all, and thanks to all, c u next time

Jim

 

[Jan Sramek]

Awesome experience.

Start ok, shortly after i jumped on Nelsons back as he colided with Alberto, sry for that.
After just two turns Mert, who from my view took down Kennett, was coming back to track, spinned right in front of me, and i coudlnt do much. BANG! While i was reaching for my start button (my engine stalled at that crash, idk who else have clutch off ) i spilled my cup of water all over my legs . Fired it up and since lap 2, after i managed to pass Mert i started to work on that 6 to 7 seconds gap on Alberto. Lap 8 - finally got him, then the fun started, as we had some great racing throughout the race, a bit tight but clear all the times. Thak you Alberto.

While quite fast, i did a few mistakes that held me at the back.
Pitstop - now that was something i didnt train (stupid me), i must improve there.

Finally at lap 35/37, after i overtook Kennett, mistake came and like 20 meters before pits i hit the wall and front wing said goodbye. I said "*censored*" and headed to pit knowing how it will end.

So things to do:
-improve pits
-improve pace. while i was happy for no fatal crash, it wasnt optimal
-cupholder!!!!!

The end.

Im looking forward to next race.

Johny (english for Jan)

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

Qualify: 9th
1:39,1, about 0,5 behind my pb. I fueled for two timed laps and my lat attempt was the best.

Race: 7th
With 60 liters in the tank I got nicely off the line, but got the short end of the stick through the traffic in the first turns and dropped to 11th I think. Shortly after I made a dubious pass on Anthony, but due to traffic etc I didn't give him his place back as I would have at a different stage of the race.

Karma kicked in and a yellow car (Nicolas?) took the inside into t8 (4 apex turn) and I went wide (nothing wrong from yellow car). This dropped me to 18th, but finally I was settled.

I cannot remember all the details as I was in a lot of battles throughout the race. In the first stint I remember fighting Vale and Richard, the latter fighting back and re-passing me after a few turns. I'm guessing I was up to 11th when I pitted after 13 laps.

The two pitstop went well, I added 56 liters both after 13 and 26 laps. In the middle stint I remember fighting Julius for a few laps, being side by side on several occation before I made a move that succeeded (great fight).

I remember being only 1 sec behind Nicolas before the last pit, but also after. Unfortunatly Nicolas made a mistake shortly after the last pit which allowed me to pass without a battle.

Next one ahead was Vince who I caught with about a second per lap. We hade a great fight that lasted a couple of laps before I made it properly past. I was now on 7th with Jim 10-13 seconds ahead and only 3 laps or so to go.

It was a great race with many good battles and a very good finishing rate (21/23). I will review the race so I can remember all the once forgotten, and also study my dubious pass on Anthony early in the race.

Grats to David and all the finishers!