AC WEC Multiclass @ Red Bull Ring OSRW - Sat 21Apr18

[Celtic Pharaoh]

Nice race, and congratulations to Joel and Geof.
Apart the first laps my race has been pretty lonely, I was on 2 pits strategy like Joel but his Toyota was too fast, nontheless after my second stop I managed to exit in front of the other Toyotas that were on 1 pit strategy bringing safely an honorable 2nd place for Audi.

Great driving from all the GT drivers during the whole race, I didn't have any issue with them, only a couple of time I complayned with other LMP1 drivers that were 1 lap behind not giving place but boosting with blue flags.
Maybe they were too busy driving those things not checking their mirrors.

 

[Bobby Pennington]

Thanks for joining in tonight guys. I hope most of you enjoyed it. I understand how multiclass racing can be difficult to navigate and there are often situations where either an LMP or a GTE car lose out. Unfortunately, this is the nature of this type of racing.

As mentioned on TeamSpeak earlier, if there are any particular LMP drivers you've felt were impatient and reckless as a GTE driver or GTE drivers who were unaware and had poor track positioning of LMP drivers as an LMP driver, message Bobby and myself and we can look into the replay. Please insure to include lap number and corner to make our lives easier as we won't watch a whole replay from a single driver's perspective to see.
At this point, no drivers will be banned but should we find a driver to be at fault, a warning will be issued.

I can only echo what The Ambassador has stated here and agree with him. We thank you all for taking part in these races and hopefully we can still stay one big happy dysfunctional family. WEC is tough and it's a testament to you all that you can take part and we don't have any major riffs among us. Till the next dance ladies

 

[Matt Percival]

Great driving from all the GT drivers during the whole race, I didn't have any issue with them, only a couple of time I complayned with other LMP1 drivers that were 1 lap behind not giving place but boosting with blue flags.
Maybe they were too busy driving those things not checking their mirrors.

I was one of those drivers. Sorry about that. In VR, unfortunately I didn't realize how far off to the upper left the flags were. Once I realized it, I was constantly looking there. Again, sorry for inconveniencing you.

 

[Bobby Pennington]

I was one of those drivers. Sorry about that. In VR, unfortunately I didn't realize how far off to the upper left the flags were. Once I realized it, I was constantly looking there. Again, sorry for inconveniencing you.

I've only used VR for a few days when my nephew let me borrow his. It takes a while to get oriented in it, plus where I put some of the apps got very close to my notification flags. It's about the only reason I like a screen vs. VR. That and I like my virtual mirror when I drive my baby

 

[Fernando Deutsch]

I was not very comfortable with the car and the track. Was not able to find the speed I was looking for. Also I tried medium tires for race pace, but they were impossible to put on the right temperature window, so it would be soft compound all the way. Also could not decide the best MGUK mapping, and when I finally got used to it, I realize was using a different one in qualifying, so again a very bad qualy session for me.

I got a pretty good start, again, gaining some places. By turn two braking we were three wide. Unfortunately, an Audi that was on the inside could not brake on time and went straight, not allowing me to turn the car, gotten sandwiched by him and an unlucky @Dirk Steffen on the outside. I was able to recover pretty quick and on turn 3 gained two more places. By the end of first lap was on place 4.

First part of the race was very intense with some fights. First it was a good duel with @Ronnie Boehme that extended for many laps, changing positions a couple of times. Then @Pauli Ahonen joined us on the battle, interchanging painting on turn 3 two times. Very fair but hard racing. At the end I could not kept their pace and was starting to lost ground. By that time my tires were not in very good condition. Planned to extend my first stop was not a good decision, and more as the race go by I got involved on incidents that did not help the health of the rubber. One self spun on the braking of T2, followed by a miscalculation from myself while braking in T1 which resulted in a collision with @Giovanni Lazzari GT2. I am very sorry Giovanni, all my fault. Some laps later another weird situation on the main straight while passing @nico Jahnke, changed his line without any clear reason, hitting my rear resulting on both spinning out of control. By the time my tires were dead. I was barely able to finish the first stint, entering pits for fuel and fresh tires. After that my pace was way better, but it was kind of lonely race up to the end. Finishing in position 6 very distant from 5 and 7 place.

It was a very good race with some lessons to learn from it. Seems like a two stop strategy would have been way better, so do not be afraid to gamble on two stops. Check and plan from the tire life whenever is possible, combined with proper fuel loads.

Small advise to GT2, GT3 on these multi-class races. Please be predictable. You are not forced to change your lines on the straights, take the line that you want and keep on it. Is easier for the LMP cars to adapt, while still have time too. Many times on this race I had to change my line as the car ahead decided to "move" from the current line. Two times I had to be on the grass to avoid collision. Some cars moved just after the turn exit to gave the line, which is very appreciate and on anticipation, that's fine, but please do not change the line close to the end of the braking zone, as usually one is already commited to a braking line.

Thanks for another great race with you guys !

 

[Tberg]

I was one of those drivers. Sorry about that. In VR, unfortunately I didn't realize how far off to the upper left the flags were. Once I realized it, I was constantly looking there. Again, sorry for inconveniencing you.

You should give Crewchief a try, it says if you get a blue flag. It works great with VR!

I had a good time, actually my first 90min race in VR, it was a bit tough for the eyes and very hot, but the race didn't feel so long amd boring because of multiclass, always something happening

 

[Shaun Evans]

First race for me last night with you guys, though it was a lonely race on the mediums which I couldn't for the life of me get into a nice operating temperature. started picking up pace when I swapped over to the softs but was already too far behind. Was nice to just ease myself into it though and try stay out the way of quicker cars! Cheers for it though everyone some great driving and thoroughly enjoyed it!

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Thanks for the nice race for everyone involved guys ;-)

It was my first multi class race in a LMP1, first race in an LMP1 ever actually and I wanted to thank especially Tariq and Joel for the great help and advice to get me started with some direction on these cars. Your tips and suggestions were invaluable to being able to take part in this race.

I prepared myself with test sessions and offline races for this event and seeing some lap time gains every day really made me look forward to this race. I was never ever able to get even close to the blistering fast lap times the guys in the front were able to do, yet had high hopes to finish in the group just behind the resident aliens as I prepared seriously for this and also saw my hopes confirmed in the qualifying, not having set my PB time yet qualifying in a satisfying place (I think 6th or 7th on the grid).

Well, … as it happened … no matter how good the preparation, everything can be ruined at the start in T1, and so it happened.
I started from the left side of the grid, kept well away from the other cars in the grid and gave plenty of space, even going extra wide into T1 as I knew it was a 90 min race and yet the field exploded in T1.
I felt disbelief, anger, frustration as I just didn't felt this necessary at all, given how easy it really is with the LMP1 cars to actually overtake and sort out the field on the straights.

I didn't know who caused the incident, only saw @Fernando Deutsch 's car flying slightly above mine on my right (did I mention explosions) .

I was very angry at that point that no one actually seemed to have considered to abide by the Racedepartment rules and let those who suffered from their T1 mistakes let by, but the entire field marched on.
After blood pressures calmed, so did I - march on.
I had a difficult time to get back into my rhythm after the T1 incident, found myself battling with a few LMP1 guys and then got my throat slit in the hairpin, when another LMP1 driver who was all event long consistently slower went for the inside in the hairpin, not sticking to the inside line but actually completely cutting me off and parked his car in front of me, forcing me to a complete standstill in order to avoid a crash - that was dirty and I called it out right away without any reaction whatsoever - uncool.

When after these incidents I lost so much time towards the front of the field I found myself overtaken by @Matt Percival who admirably tried to make for a nice race in one corner suddenly backed off the throttle while I was directly behind him (I think it was in T3).
I touched him, he spun, I waited for him to reenter the track and continued.
I knew this would hurt my chances to catch up with the guys ahead immensely (I lost 5-10 seconds due to the incident alone) but this is just the thing you HAVE to do when in doubt at RD races and I wish others would take this gentleman agreement to heart more as well.

Those three incidents had me have a full 20 second gap to the front I was never able to catch up with over the course of the race. My goal was to catch @Daniel.13 directly in front of my the rest of the race and over the middle of the race I chewed bit by bit on that gap and slowly got closer until I made a mistake, running wide, loosing time again and finally settled for the position I was in.

I thank @Henri Sinik for his patience and the racing we had in the beginning moving back and forth through the field.
Henri, I believe was one of the guys who suffered from the T1 incident as he is a much faster driver who somehow ended up behind me and then caught up with me and tried to pass.
@Henri Sinik I knew you were much faster, in hindsight it would have been strategically much better if I would have let you pass and just kept turning lap times.
This did not occur to me in the heat of the battle. I was on a fixed programmed ERS mapping and never ever touched the manual deployment button - it was just that your ERS deployment and my fixed program clashed in such a way that you had a hard time getting by.
The GTE drivers who were caught up in our battle for position I apologize to.
I remember one occasion where there was a grey GTE car on the left side on the straight after T1 where we went three wide (!!!) with me trying to pass the GTE car with as little space as possible as I knew Henri must have been right next to me on the right and I touched the GTE car - my apologies - it all happened just too quick.

I truly, truly enjoyed this first LMP1 race overall and had a fantastic time on the track - this new sensation that EVERYTHING just happens SO FAST that you cannot even clearly see the cars you are passing by and that there really is just no time to relax around the circuit is just completely exhilarating.
I love it and I will definitely come back for more.

Big props go to all the GTE drivers who were amazing in how they were aware of the much faster LMP1 cars cutting through the field - sure there were some comments made - and I also realized that myself a few times - were GTE drivers would deliberately try to make way or (the worst) try to slow down to ease passing.
I think though that most attending the race are very much learning, some (as myself) are outright beginners in this format and I am sure everyone has taken some good lesson from this race and will try to improve for the next one.
I hope the next multi class event will not be that far away (I am hooked).
I also VERY MUCH hope that there can be found a way to include a BoP'ed Porsche 919 LMP1 into the field as that would just be an absolute dream to drive a Porsche LMP1 in a proper WEC field with you guys.

As an idea - there is a Porsche 919 EVO mod for download here at RD - maybe it is possible for a talented modder to create a Porsche 919 LMP1 2014 mod in terms of same energy output cap to the 2014 Audi and Toyota so that BoP of those three cars could be made much easier and allow the three to race together?
We are racing modded Kunos tracks to allow larger grids, why not race a modded Kunos car that allows a close BoP to run the 2014 season LMP1 cars ? That would be awesome !

Maybe we could look into adding the URD 2014 Porsche 919 LMP1 into the field as it may be easier to BoP that car ? There should be a Porsche LMP1 racing against the Toyota and the Audi.

You should give Crewchief a try, it says if you get a blue flag. It works great with VR!

I had a good time, actually my first 90min race in VR, it was a bit tough for the eyes and very hot, but the race didn't feel so long amd boring because of multiclass, always something happening

Crew Chief is an app I could not live without in racing!
Another very easy way to be informed about traffic, spatial awareness and blue flags I wholeheartedly advice anyone to try is Car Radar for download here at RD:
https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/car-radar.15743/

It can be set up to actually look quite close to a realistic projected windscreen HUD recent road cars do have as an option (like recent BMW road cars).
It will show all cars around you (similar to helicorsa, yet in a much more close to life, realistic way) and it has an option to display cars that actually lap you with blue flags.

This way it is extremely easy to distinguish a car you fight for position with and a car that will lap you under blue flags.
Crew Chief may or may not call out blue flags, CarRadar will show you precisely which car that is from all the cars behind you
From what I hear and read in the support thread, it does work great in VR as well.

 

[Henri Sinik]

Henri, I believe was one of the guys who suffered from the T1 incident as he is a much faster driver who somehow ended up behind me and then caught up with me and tried to pass.

@HO7DOG You can't turn into corner like that and act I'm not there... this dropped me from P5 to last place meanwhile you lost only couple of places

@Henri Sinik I knew you were much faster, in hindsight it would have been strategically much better if I would have let you pass and just kept turning lap times.
This did not occur to me in the heat of the battle. I was on a fixed programmed ERS mapping and never ever touched the manual deployment button - it was just that your ERS deployment and my fixed program clashed in such a way that you had a hard time getting by.

I was also using intelliboost

 

[VRTSmith]

Sounded like it was one hell of a race! Gutted that I couldn't be there for it, but there's always next time

 

[Glaurung]

@Henri Sinik, for me in that situation Ronnie managed to gain some distance with a late braking and you didn't have enough overlap to try an overtake.
He could give a door open on the inside and at the same time you could give up the inside, but eventually for racing netiquette is the driver behind to blame when an incident like this happens.

 

[Bobby Pennington]

First race for me last night with you guys, though it was a lonely race on the mediums which I couldn't for the life of me get into a nice operating temperature. started picking up pace when I swapped over to the softs but was already too far behind. Was nice to just ease myself into it though and try stay out the way of quicker cars! Cheers for it though everyone some great driving and thoroughly enjoyed it!

You did a great job. The Saturday races have some of the really quick guys in them so you are to be commended for jumping into the deep end where the Great Whites circle Even though they are Sharks, they wouldn't hurt a fly and will help you in more ways than you can imagine Hope to see you in more of our US and EU races.

 

[Dirk Steffen]

You did a great job. The Saturday races have some of the really quick guys in them so you are to be commended for jumping into the deep end where the Great Whites circle Even though they are Sharks, they wouldn't hurt a fly and will help you in more ways than you can imagine Hope to see you in more of our US and EU races.

 

[Lum]

Oh gods, I really forgot Mr. Goldblum was in that movie

 

[Tberg]

Oh gods, I really forgot Mr. Goldblum was in that movie

How could one forget, that's his signature movie

 

[Ronnie Böhme]

@HO7DOG You can't turn into corner like that and act I'm not there... this dropped me from P5 to last place meanwhile you lost only couple of places

I was also using intelliboost

@Henri Sinik I'm very sorry it turned out that way. From the cockpit I thought there was enough room since I normally attack the inside curb quite hard, so it felt like I was way off line there. Watching your replay now I see that there wasn't. I clearly misjudged the situation, causing an incident, thus reacting not the way I should have, by waiting and apologizing. I'm doing the latter now and hope you will accept my apologies.

Looks like I have to overthink my view settings since this wasn't the only situation I've misjudged. Sorry again @Pauli Ahonen.

 

[Bobby Pennington]

Just letting everyone know that the Rage Quitting rule is now being taken very seriously and we will start enforcing the rule of missing the next Multi Class event when you drop out of a race, notwithstanding technical issues. This is nothing personal and I am in no way upset with anyone. I personally do not like seeing people quit. I think it shows your fellow competitors a little lack of respect when you just drop out because things didn't go your way or someone may have taken you out. That's racing and we all know that. I don't do it myself so I'm not asking anything of you guys that I don't demand of myself.

Thank you for understanding and showing up and racing with us. Full grids rock and full grids where everyone finishes shows professionalism and knocks it out of the park.

Have a great week guys.

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Just letting everyone know that the Rage Quitting rule is now being taken very seriously and we will start enforcing the rule of missing the next Multi Class event when you drop out of a race, notwithstanding technical issues. This is nothing personal and I am in no way upset with anyone. I personally do not like seeing people quit. I think it shows your fellow competitors a little lack of respect when you just drop out because things didn't go your way or someone may have taken you out. That's racing and we all know that. I don't do it myself so I'm not asking anything of you guys that I don't demand of myself.

Thank you for understanding and showing up and racing with us. Full grids rock and full grids where everyone finishes shows professionalism and knocks it out of the park.

Have a great week guys.

What Bobby is trying to say is: if someone really, really has to quit, have the courtesy to the others to make it a DNF due to technical issues.

Also: make sure to share a video of the quitting in the race thread to qualify for the next event at the discretion of The Chancer.

 

[Bobby Pennington]

What Bobby is trying to say is: if someone really, really has to quit, have the courtesy to the others to make it a DNF due to technical issues.

Also: make sure to share a video of the quitting in the race thread to qualify for the next event at the discretion of The Chancer.

How did you find that video of me? Like I've been saying......a German.......living in Shanghai......can only mean one thing; you're a Chinese Spy Where's my ban hammer? Oh that's right, it's my fist I'm pummeling my keyboard with