Season 8 Race 5 MELBOURNE Race Report

Nicolai Nicholson · Mar 22, 2012

Qualify 6th: Did a successful qual lap at 1:23:2xx I think it was.

Race 2nd (61 liters and ss/s tyres): I had a good start and was 5th behind Marko or Gaetano when I went wide in t5 on the first lap. This allowed Anthony to pass me and I started chasing him for the next 13 laps. I feelt I had better pace than him, but he never made a mistake big enough to allow me past. Therefore I started to focus on the pit stop instead. I had to fill 58 liters and decided to stop a lap earlier than planned (at the end of 15) to try to undercut Anthony. However, i never got this chance as Anthony's race ended suddenly.

Second stint I started chasing Marko who was maybe 8 sec or so ahead. Soon I realised I would need most of the stint to close the gap if I avoided mistakes and this became my mission. Towards the end of the stint I was on his tail and at one point I got to try to pass without success. We pitted at the same time more or less, me right behind. Luckily I hit the box perfectly and did a more or less perfect pit stop.(again 58 liters).

Leaving the pits I was 5 sec or so ahead of Marko and 50 sec behind Reik. At this time both Tim and David had LC and I was second. Throughout the stint the gap back to Marko grew and the gap ahead to Reik varied between 49 and 52 seconds, I guess he was taking it easy/safe.

It was ofcurse fun to get podium, but the fact that there were so few finishers put a damper on the enjoyment. I am sorry for you all

Results are out btw on www.prestogp.com

Reik Major · Mar 23, 2012

Big congrats to Nico and Marko on the podium, well done guys

! And of course congrats to all point winners.

Practice:

I joined the server when a big shower had passed the track. It took a while to get used to the conditions but it was great fun to drive (drift, slide,...)

More of it please!

Qualify (1st):

Not easy to put in a decent lap with soooooo much heart beats, so the lap was far away from perfect. But it was clean enough to put me on pole.

Race (1st):

Strategy: I had no time to have any practice stint so I assumed the following strategy to be ok. All stints (16/16/15 laps) on soft compound and each with 65 l fuel (well, 15 l reserve in the end

). It worked well.

I had a good start, so I could take T1 on the ideal line. From there on I was safe not to be attacked into T3. I quickly found a good rhythm and felt confident with my (suggested) race setup. It turned out that the balance was great through the whole stint.

My gap to Tim in 2nd slightly increased all the time. I think it was ~ 8 seconds when I pitted after 16 laps. To my surprise Tim went on. Now I was fearing a strategical trick by him. Maybe soft/soft/super soft(?). So I pushed harder. A few laps later he pitted too. Now I was sure it would be too early for a one stopper.

The gap now was ~ 15 seconds and I tryed to hold this gap, so Tim would have to push hard in the 3rd stint to close this gap again. But in the middle of the 2nd stint Tim disappeared, following some other drivers like David T., Anthony, Jim, Valter and so on. I was in doubt if he had pushed too hard. Now I know it was a connection loss

.

So my gap to Marko in 2nd was already big and even half way to go. I was in doubt if I should drive it home safely now, because that's the way you easily make mistakes. So I decided to go on attacking and enjoy the challenge. The 3rd stint was the shortest one, so I tryed to drive it qualy-style. But this resulted in too much small mistakes and earlier tyre wear, so the gap to Nico (being 2nd now) didn't increase anymore.

Finally I finished 1st and the only thing to be proud on was my fluid racing without big mistakes. In sum my sad feelings for all those unguilty DNFs overweighs the happyness about the victory. So my big step forward in the championship doesn't feel right. :oops:

The only good thing is, that we have many drivers close together. I hope we can have more fun now at Sepang without any technical issues so we can fight it out on the track.

As allways I like to thank Nico, RD, MMG, the great PrestoGP community and my faithfull wife!

I'm glad to see our unlucky guys never give up!

Nicolai Nicholson · Mar 24, 2012

Here is a video of my race, 1st lap + the few events I had

Kennett Ylitalo · Mar 24, 2012

Melbourne Results

Nicolas Rouge · Mar 24, 2012

Qualify : DNF (17th)
I built my qualify setup during the practice but I forgot to change tires so I started my outlap with the wet tires! I didn't know that after a few turns of my outlap, when I saw my top left Motec window flashing red. I slowed down as best as I could to cool my tires before the qual lap, but then I made too much mistake and quit the session. That's another qual session that I lost completely

Race : 6th
Strategy : start with 122 liters and supersofts/softs tires. 1 stop at lap 13 for softs/mediums and 1 stop at lap 30 for softs/mediums and 62 liters.
Once again I started at the back of the grid and it went well because I was on the right side of the track and I soon was 11th with laggy Jim at my heels. I knew that I would be slow because of the amount of fuel I had at the start, but it wasn't so slow so I could contain the pilots behind. I began to make some mistakes at lap 6 and 7 and it cost me 3 places to Jim, Valter and Eliezer. After that I managed to stay focus on my driving and that helped cooling down my tires and keeping me on the track.
I pitted at the end of lap 13 (I was then at the 9th place) and exited the pits at the 12th place, a few seconds ahead of Reik that was almost 1 lap ahead. I made one mistake when being lapped by Reik at lap 15 but it only cost me a few seconds. A nVidia freeze also cost me only some seconds in lap 21.
I pitted for the last time at the end of lap 30. I exited the pits with Marko on my heels and almost ran into him at T1. Sorry mate.
I finished the race without further events except for another nVidia freeze at the last lap.

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