VSCC | S4 | R5: Brands Hatch GP

[Sam Smith]

I've been doing online sim racing for 10 years now and that was definitely one of the most intense and satisfying races I've driven.

I knew I had the pace to be in the top 6 for qualifying but I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be on pole. Kind of ironic given I opted to start from the back of the grid at Queensland considering how far off the pace I was there.

I can't suss out the fancy footwork needed to clutch-start these things off the line, so I wasn't in the least bit surprised to see @Matheus Machado beat me into turn 1. I was resigned to the fact it was going to be almost impossible to beat him to the finish line, so I was really only concerned with keeping @Stiggy at bay. Managed to pull out a gap ahead of Steen, pitted as early as possible, and luckily came out to a clear track.

In the second stint, Steen was slowly closing in on me, but not quite fast enough. I passed @Sniper (who didn't change tires) without incident using a boost, and from there it was a relatively straight forward run to the finish line.

It was hard work!! I was trying to make every lap count, made it through without any mistakes, and so the end result is pretty damn satisfying Haven't been that stoked after a race for a long time.

Thanks to the pensioners, especially the Italian one, for the setup help
And thanks to @Chris Stacey as always for the event

Now that's how you do a post race write up. Awesome job David.

 

[Sean]

I really enjoyed Brands Hatch. Was not a fan initially, but found a groove and a good setup.
Quali was my best lap around Brands in any session I had done to date, a change from my usual form where my quali is at least half a second off my best attempt for the event.

With a top 10 qualification (a really good result for me ) the race looked very promising indeed.
I got a reasonable start, but going into the first right hander, I just tagged @Sniper, thankfully he skillfully recovered without a spin (sorry Tony), this lost us some momentum and I was overtaken by two cars and crowded by another two on either side going in to the hairpin.
From here it went south, with contact between @Fred Locklear on my inside and @Mike Bell on my outside, three into the corner was never going to end well. I was spun around and ended up dead last. Sorry for any heart attacks suffered for the rest of the field coming past, but thankfully they all avoided my car that was stationary in the middle of the corner.

Pressing on a bit hard after this to catch up resulted in an small off that messed up my suspension, so I had a bit of a poor handling car up until the half way mark where a pit stop for tyres, fuel and repairs sorted the poor handling.

From here it was a mad drive to make up positions and finally catch @Jeremy Talbot and for once finish ahead of him!

I did notice that when coming from the back after an early in the race spin (and long pit for repair etc), when you have reasonable pace is really tough, some guys just don't let you back past to unlap yourself, even though you are faster at that point.
I had @Chris Stacey come up behind me, a lap down, but I let him through without busting his chops. Would have been nice if some of the other guys were more accommodating on my recovery run.

Race was pretty clean after that, wasn't until the end that I had a real battle with @Sean Rogers. Recently we seem to be on the same piece of tarmac at the same time, good stuff He just pipped me with 3 laps to go but it was close until the end.

Lol, we sure do seem to! Was a really good run to the finish! Glad I was ahead this time though

As for the race it sucked. At start I got a nose ahead of @Sean Rogers and tried to stick to the inside (and not on the instant spin curb) but we touched and Sean got the worst out of that.

Was a pity, three into the corner and invariably someone is going to turn around... unfortunately this time it was me.