GTP 7th F1 World Championship - Round 11 - Germany
Weather - Brief shower at the start of qualifying, otherwise dry
Qualifying Results:
Pole -
DarkPSI (Benetton) -
1:14.395 (10 pts)
2nd. - Pipeslice (Jordan) - 1:14.515 (8 pts)
3rd. -
Shaggy Alonso (Tyrrell) -
1:14.603 (6 pts)
4th. - Baumi27 (Brawn)- 1:15.677 (5 pts)
5th. -
Mutu20 (Tyrrell)-
1:15.718 (4 pts)
6th. - pj-gm (Brabham) - 1:16.461 (3 pts)
7th. -
AliT12 (Brabham)-
1:16.538 (2 pts)
8th. - kcheeb (Hesketh)- 1:17.008 (1 pts)
9th. -
Tombrooks97 (Jordan)-
1:17.757
10th. - MikeTheHockeyFan (Benetton)- 1:18.780
11th. -
Jerry786 -
1:19.113
Race Results:
1st.
Shaggy Alonso (Tyrrell) (25 pts) = 4m03.507s
2nd.
DarkPSI (Benetton) (18 pts) + 10.2s
3rd.
Pipeslice (Jordan) (15 pts) + 16.6s
4th.
Mutu20 (Tyrrell) (12 pts) + 62.4s
5th.
pj-gm (Brabham) (10 pts) +75.4s
6th.
kcheeb (Hesketh) (8 pts) + 1 lap
7th.
Baumi27 (Brawn) (6 pts) + 1 lap
8th.
AliT12 (Brabham) (4 pts) + 2 laps
9th.
Tombrooks97 (Jordan) (2 pts) + 2 laps
10th.
MikeTheHockeyFan (Benetton) DNF
11th.
Jerry786 DNF
Qualifying:
So we move from one great historic track to another great historic track, Hockenheim. Home favourite
DarkPSI seemed bullish about his chances, myself rather less so. It's a track that I enjoy, but i've never really excelled there, in any game. Though it has a really nice crescendo feeling to the lap when you enter the stadium section, ride all the run off on the final corner then launch your car into the fast right hander at the start of the lap - epic.
As the qualifying session started, I left the pits for my first 2 lap banker run and the rain started spitting. Mindful of this, I wanted to put in two proper laps without silly errors. My first was a solid 1:15.1 banker which was quickly out done by
Pipeslice who was just behind me on track with a very fast 1:14.6. My follow up lap felt good and was enough to slot in behind Pipeslice and infront of Dark who did a 1:14.9, however this was not representative of his true pace.
The rain stopped, and whilst on my next run, Dark put in an eye popping 1:14.3 which I knew surely had me beaten. I put in a lap 0.150s up on my previous to go ahead of Pipeslice temporarily, before he found another tenth and usurped me again.
For my final run, I knew something special was required in order to beat Pipeslice, never mind DarkPSI. I changed the weight distribution slightly for a more aggressive lap and it seemed to be working for me as I was a further 0.150s up at the end of the second sector, but I got a little ragged into the final sector when I came across
tombrooks97 on his in-lap and I failed to improve on my time. Although theoretically I could have gone faster, I had already broken my PB at this track and as Senna once said, stringing together your
perfect lap is as futile as trying to tie your shoe laces completely evenly - if you gain time somewhere then you lose out somewhere else almost inevitably. The fact was DarkPSI and Pipeslice just had more raw pace than me. Congrats to Dark on a stunning performance, he really kicked ass in that session đź‘Ť
Race:
In practice for this race I had been very happy with my pace on the option tyres - consistent and error free. But the primes were a totally different story - the turn in was poor, the rear slippery (I could take turn 10 flat easily with full fuel load on the options, but had to lift on lighter fuel with the primes bizarrely) and they were causing me to over drive and make mistakes. I decided that if I found myself in clean air I would try a 2 stop race to minimise my time on the primes and to use the full grip of the options, which start off a full 1.2 secs per lap faster in my estimation than the prime, at least in my hands.
I got a good start, about equal with
Pipeslice as both of us homed in on
DarkPSI. Dark was pushed wide at turn one by Pipe and I profitted as well as I sailed up the inside and took a defensive line into turn 2 to secure my position. I briefly caught a glimpse of Dark getting tagged by
pj-gm. Agonisingly this put him right down the order and he'd have a tough job fighting back to the front.
I tried to exert pressure on Pipeslice and I knew that if I could just stay with him there was every chance of winning the race. He was driving pretty hard and nearly lost it completely when he skidded across a bit of gravel at the tricky Mobil 1 Kurve - this put me literally on his gearbox but I couldn't get past into the Sachs Kurve as he held the inside line and blocked my approach. He settled down shortly after that though and the gap stabilized at in and around a second, both even in the first sector, him usually faster in the 2nd and me faster in the third. This carried on for a few laps until lap 6 where we both approached the other home favourite,
Baumi27 who had a difficult start to the race and was a lap down. He moved off the racing line but Pipeslice moved to the right as well and got stuck behind him, so I just stayed on the racing line and took the both of them.
I was proud of being able to consolidate this gap at a second over Pipe as he's a phenomenally fast driver and I knew it'd be a tough job to beat him on raw pace alone, and he was faster than me in qualifying no doubt. Towards the end of our first stint, I was gradually able to edge out a tenth or two on him and I was getting the impression Pipe's set-up was maybe taking more out of his tyres than mine. We both pitted on lap 11 for fresh rubber, and since I was in the lead I decided to go with the 2 stopper and fitted some fresh options, while Pipeslice's lollypop man was half asleep and lost him about 3 crucial seconds in the stop giving me breathing space to build a gap. I started pulling roughly a second a lap on him on my faster rubber. I got the impression that perhaps Pipe was pushing too hard to match my pace, possibly unaware that I was on options and this led to him making mistakes as before I knew it, our time differential wasn't registering on screen anymore and I'd probably cleared the length of a pitstop between us so that I could pit again and hopefully remain in the lead.
Indeed, I pitted for primes on lap 23 and emerged 7 seconds clear of Pipeslice who remarkably had a feisty
DarkPSI on his tail who had fought his way through the field to third. I felt vindicated on my two stopper because my pace in the final stint was barely any better at all than Dark's, who's primes were about 11 laps older than mine. In fact he was still faster than me in the first sector of the lap - this is where he was destroying us all in qualifying too. Incredibly, after his disastrous first lap, DarkPSI did find his way past Pipe and moved up to second. My fuel consumption was higher than i'd anticipated and I had to turn the engine down on lap 32, and still ran out of fuel out of the final corner but the gap was enough to maintain the win.
All in all, a very pleasing race from my perspective, I managed to keep a consistent pace and avoided any big errors which is what's required in order to win against these guys. It's worth noting from qualifying just how much the field has closed in on us. Down to 8th place there was a spread of 2.5 secs which is a lot closer than it used to be.
kcheeb's quali lap was quite good in my book but it still left him that far back which shows how intense the competition is.
AliT12's pace has improved massively since he got his wheel but as ever ultimate pace isn't everything and, kcheeb drove a great race to finish ahead of him.
Tombrooks97's lap time in qualifying probably just shows how he got left a little bit behind by not being able to get in much practice vs his competition - like everything in Formula One, if you don't move forward you get left behind.
Race Footage
Courtesy of kcheeb:
kcheeb's race:
Hockenheim Qualifying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7frk9e9W1A
Hockenheim Race Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0yZOlC9ajQ
Hockenheim Race Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG59AtINNeU
And here are the tables:
The Championship Tables (As of round 11):
Drivers Championship
1st.
Shaggy Alonso - 318 pts
2nd.
DarkPSI - 270 pts
3rd.
Pipeslice - 191 pts
4th.
Baumi27 - 180 pts
5th.
Mutu20 - 167 pts
6th.
Tombrooks97 - 66 pts
7th.
kcheeb - 53 pts
8th.
Ardius - 44 pts
9th.
MikeTheHockeyFan - 43 pts
10th.
AliT12 - 41 pts
11th.
Upuaut - 36 pts
12th.
NumbPhase - 34 pts
13th.
pj-gm - 24 pts
14th.
DOUQA - 19 pts
15th.
Jerry786 - 12 pts
16th.
Shark33 - 3 pts
17th.
Manios22DC - 2 pts
18th.
jordy7777 - 2 pts
Teams Championship
1st.
Tyrrell - 485 pts - Shaggy Alonso, Mutu20
2nd.
Benetton - 313 pts - DarkPSI, MikeTheHockeyFan
3rd.
Jordan - 272 pts - Tombrooks97, Pipeslice, Jerry786, Shark33
4rd.
Brawn - 226 pts - Baumi27, Manios22DC, Ardius
5th.
Hesketh - 108 pts - kcheeb, NumbPhase, DOUQA, jordy7777
6th.
Brabham - 101 pts - Upuaut, AliT12, pj-gm