SimRacing.org.uk

1955 Grand Prix - Round 7 – Albi

The seventh race in the 1955 Grand Prix series is in France, to be exact to the small town of Albi in the Midi-Pyrénées region.  Racing first started on the Circuit des Planques in 1933, the pits and startline being on a short straight before the road twisted down into St.Antoine. At St.Juery the cars had to contend with an extreme hairpin bend, followed by a railway level crossing. The 5.531 mile circuit was shortened in 1951 to 1.859 miles, before being closed in 1955 following the Le Mans disaster. Racing resumed at the nearby Aerodrome in 1959 which is the circuit we now know as Albi. The Chicane du Sequestre was introduced in 1988 but we will be using the original layout as raced in 1967.
 
Carefully read the rules on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=639&theme=6).

Race list	iGOR
Server	UKGPL_4
IP address	95.149.71.205
Date	12-08-2018
Track	albi67 (http://a.bosco.free.fr/gpl/albi67.htm)
Mod	55F1 with 60fpsV2newmod
Damage	PRO long
Race time	~ 21:30 UK time
Qualifying	20:45 UK time - 45 minutes
Race length	32 laps
Replay	here (ftp://ftp.ukgpl9.co.uk:32122/Season33/55GP)

Please restrict chat to emergency messages only including at the end of the race until ALL drivers still racing have crossed the line.

Password: see above (#post_event_password)
Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=639&theme=6)

Handicapping and chassis allocation.
This season the 1955 Grand Prix cars will be using a token system which allows drivers to purchase any chassis of their choice for a given number of tokens as published on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=639&theme=6). Drivers classed as Amateurs will be allocated an additional 10 tokens.  The token allocation will not be managed in SRou this season so (unlike the 67F1 Works and 67F1 Privateer divisions) the tokens available to each driver will not appear in the championship table (when the mouse pointer is hovered over the driver's total).  Rather, the available tokens will be published in the race announcement. See table below.

Available Tokens:
Note: These are the tokens available to each driver before the 10 tokens are added for making the race start.

Driver	Tokens	Status
bagrupp	17	Pro
Clive Loynes	8	Pro
Doni Yourth	30	Pro
EvilClive	13	Pro
fpolicardi	6	Am
francesco	11	Am
Phil Thornton	0	Am
DLogan	12	Am
Gareth	10	Am
Jeep	7	Am
Uli	6	Pro
FullMetalGasket	70	Pro
Will Tway	5	Pro
Baab	18	Am
Cookie	15	Pro
Samb	10	Pro
Ziu Bacubacu	5	Pro

Practice server is up for you to test your connections and your brakes. There are some long straights and heavy braking zones here so you need to know how the extra speed from slip streaming will affect your brakes.

Hopefully a few people will join this evening so we can have a proper "brake test". If you intend to join, post a time on here so other drivers will know when someone will be practicing.  The server is on a continous loop so it should always be available (unless it locks up which it can do sometimes - if so I'll reset it).

Thanks Phil.

Will try to test but don't know when yet.  Perhaps 8:00ish.

with any luck I might be able to join any fun around 8:00. This could be an awkward circuit without brakes ( or ability!)  ::)

I find that I can do a few laps with the brakes hovering in the red but then the tyres melt and I spin instead of rushing off the track head first as expected.

It is a tricky one.

Based upon my experience at this track in all the other mods, I would hazard a guess that it is only one tyre that melts?? Perchance the rear left??   ::)

Last nights practice session, for anyone called Clive, revealed that the greatest hazard is that of being overtaken by someone with no brakes! 

Similar to Aintree but worse!

I wonder, who can he be talking about????   ::)  , but he is right about no brakes  :D

I think that was my first proper tryout in the Gordini, against something other than the AI. Generally surprised at how quick it could be, but the brakes are spectacularly non-existent after 2 or 3 corners.


Clive is right to highlight the braking at Double-D especially. If you want to finish this race you will need to be aware of your own brakes, and those of the car behind, at this corner, or else things will get very messy.  ;)

Has anyone else notice that they are sometimes placed on the grid with the brake indicator showing yellow or red?

This happened on the practice race last night and it has also happened before.

It's a bug.
It does it sometimes after a Shift-R too.
Only way to avoid starting with red brakes (this mode of failure is very rare tbh - not happened to me yet in a league race) is to finish qually with cold brakes.
Find a nice solid wall is probably best ;D

LOL

I was only just thinking that the only way to stop the ruddy thing at the end of qually was to drive into something!  Otherwise I might miss the start completely whilst I wait for it to come to a standstill!

great race.
first a rejoin into the track, seconds later my engine explodes.
2 Laps...

Engine explosion at lap25 but i have not understood why the game,at a certain point,have gived me one lap less ???

Yes, I spotted that you had lost a lap.  Good drive Fran.  You had a solid podium there.

That was good fun - Although I've discovered a fault in my throttle pedal - It keeps jumping around so I don't really get full throttle  :(
That said, I don't think I could have kept up with Evil in his Green whizzy thing even if the pedals were working.

I can't get my head around the Qually times: 0.001 sec separating Cookie and me! :o

Well done to all who finished, this was a punisher on brakes.
Did anyone else notice the server going a bit weird around half race distance? I lost some frame rate and got a very red bar for about 10 seconds - then there was some sort of visual 'pop' and all was good again. I'm wondering if that was when Fran dropped a lap down?

Also apologies to someone in a red car (Fran I think), I may have moved over on you too soon at Double Droite as I saw a red car going off onto the grass in my mirrors and thought it was you :-[
I only realised when a second red car appeared very close in my mirrors a second or 2 later..

Yes I got bad frame rate for what seemed like a couple of corners and then it was fine after that.

Not a bad race for me, my pace wasn't too bad but I did my usual trick of making too many mistakes. Over-driving the car trying to keep up with the faster drivers.   :taz:

I've loaded the chassis the drivers used into the token calculator spreadsheet.  For the next race the available tokens will be as declared in the table below (the table will also appear in the next race announcement).  The calculated values are automated but selecting the cars is a manual process so please check your tokens to make sure I haven't made a silly error.  There was no token overspend for this round so no one is disqualified.

Available Tokens:
Note: These are the tokens available to each driver before the 10 tokens are added for making the race start.

Driver	Tokens	Status
bagrupp	15	Pro
Clive Loynes	18	Pro
Doni Yourth	30	Pro
EvilClive	18	Pro
fpolicardi	6	Am
francesco	9	Am
Phil Thornton	5	Am
DLogan	10	Am
Gareth	10	Am
Jeep	7	Am
Uli	6	Pro
FullMetalGasket	80	Pro
Will Tway	5	Pro
Baab	18	Am
Cookie	10	Pro
Samb	10	Pro
Ziu Bacubacu	5	Pro

Yes, it felt like I had run over a badger as I crossed the line and I believe that that was when Fran lost a lap.

And the chequered flag appeared a lap too soon for me too.  Did they have a celebrity on it?  I ignored it but had Evil breathing down my neck on my last lap before he realised that he had finished.

Well done to Evil and Tim.  Early on I spent too long waltzing on the grass with Dean because my brakes had got themselves in a bad way.  After I settled into a rhythem I was able edge towards Fran, little-by-little, but I don't know what I would have done had I ever caught him.  Great drive Fran.  I still think that you need to look at your gear changes.

Possibly different but. . .
I have had this and was able to replicate it. For me the issue is if you shift-r or Esc back to the pits with your foot on the brake. It seems to remember your last "Brake State" for some reason.

TTFN
John.

I think that was some other.I have had no problem with you.

Also from the replay my car disappears before the end of lap 10,reappears after the start line but with a lap less.

Grats to  Tim and Clive for bringing home Team Gordini in 2nd and 3rd spots. No mean feat in the French Onion Vendors transport.
After a rare ( for me) practice session with Clive on Sat evening, I was hoping that I might be competitive for this race. Opted for the solid old Connaught, although I briefly considered the 250F ( maybe save that for a faster circuit ?), or the Gordini fast over 1 lap, but those brakes??!! and with Double Droit to face I chickened out.  ;).

Surprised to get pole early in quali, so switched to a full fuel load to check consumption for the remaining time. Then Tim turned his turbo boost up and got very close to my time, dragging Axel with him in the Lancia. I was fairly confident that I could out drag Tim to T1, (the Gordini is a real problem off the line), but a Lancia could be a problem if it got ahead of me?. I doubt that the Connaught would have enough grunt to pass a quick Lancia  :-\.

Almost bogged it down at the start but dipped the clutch and made it to T1 still in first place...…..a quick glance in the mirrors and at prib showed that Tim had been swamped and Axel was 2nd!!  Could I get to DD ahead of a quick Lancia and avoid any brake failures behind me?? Just about managed to keep 1st place by using ALL my brakes at DD in one hit.
The 2nd part of my race plan was to build enough of a gap to be safe if someone behind lost brakes. So pushed as hard as I dared, but Axel held the gap for a few laps, until I think he went off at DD? Suddenly I was 200mtrs clear of Fran ...and Tim who was getting the Gordini rolling.

 Tim moved up to 2nd spot and I watched the safety gap very carefully. I did not want to push too hard and risk a mistake, so I just very slowly eased the pressure on and watched the gap grow by about 10 mtrs a lap.
 Then I think Tim made a small mistake and the gap doubled. For the middle part of the race I was simply running steady laps and wanted to be sure of fuel.
 I just had to get to the flag without a mistake, but then I spotted Clive's Gordini ahead with about 6 laps to . Just had to try and lap him, didn't I?. Another lap and I might have passed Clive but instead had to tail him across the line.
A few more races in this season and it will be a tough job to overhaul Mr Loynes' points lead on the faster circuits.  ;)

Don't know about that.  We have the same amount of Thornton Dollars to spend so it is going to be close!

At least I don't need Tim's spare Gordini again.  When I planned out my car usage I didn't take DD into account and there was no way that I could match his pace in the same car.

Congratulations to Evil and Tim on a master class in their respective chariots.

Castle Combe is easier than Albi, thank goodness, but the esses are still a severe challenge.

I find your comment "my planned car usage" seriously disturbing Clive !! lol

Do some members actually give that much thought, and plan their season, around which cars they will use at which circuit for the whole season in advance??? Maybe some are taking this more seriously than I thought  :blink: Should I be giving this more thought?

I never make a decision until I am about to join the server on race night. Maybe a quick check on how many Thornton Dollars are in the account, but generally because I rarely use the top cars the account is usually OK.
 I have never done more than a couple of offline laps in the Mercs, Vanwall and both Ferraris as yet, and I have no clue as to a setup for those beasts. In fact I only have the Maserati and Connaught comfortably sorted, with an 80% of a setup for the Lancia and the Gordini, which is why I tend to stick with the Connaught, cuz it works for me?
Tim has taken on the challenge of thrashing the Gordini through each race which makes his choice simple and impressive, given his results thus far. He has shown that even the Gordini can be competitive against much more powerful machinery, so I might be tempted next season  ::)

When I'm not punishing myself I plan out chassis uses in advance - It actually makes things a lot simpler.

LOL I'm on Issue B of the car schedule, which should leave me with a balance of zero after Silverstone.  ;-)

Some of us need all the help that we can get!

"Simpler"...…? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?  I don't think I have ever planned a season like that  :o.

Planning at that level might involve using more than 2 brain cells for an extended period, and I'm not sure that my life support system could function at 50% of normal capacity.  :wacko:

  It was easy when racing in HIki Waza, just take the white thing with the red dot on it. Now I have all the cars to choose from, and usually enough tokens sloshing around so I generally guess at what might go well at any track.

LOL  This is not a professional approach.   :nono:

I'll have a word with Nurse to get your medication tweaked.  ;-)

Moderation published.