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Season 37 F1 SPRINT – Round 8 –  MEXICO  
Round 8 takes us to Mexico City. The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is a 4.304 km (2.674 mi) motorsport, named after the racing drivers Ricardo and Pedro Rodríguez. The circuit got its name shortly after it opened when Ricardo Rodríguez died in practice for the non-Championship 1962 Mexican Grand Prix. Ricardo's brother Pedro also lost his life behind the wheel nine years later.

Server = UKGPL_10
IP = 217.155.118.41
Race date = Sunday 08-11-2020
Time = 21:00 UK time (21:00 GMT)
Track = Papyrus
Race length = 26 Laps (50 minutes)
Variant = 1967
60fps patch used   = 60fpsV2newmod
Damage Model = Intermediate
Qualifying time = 30-45 minutes
Replay =  here (https://www.sendspace.com/file/ypgki7)


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=1152&theme=6)
Please check the Season 37 details (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=1102&theme=6) regarding rules and the 1967 F1 Sprint Championship pages (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=1152&theme=6) in particular.

Drivers must complete 50% of each race to score.

"Works" drivers are not allowed any resets.
"Privateer" drivers are allowed a maximum of one reset with a compulsory Stop & Go within two laps.
Drivers are reminded that Lap 1 incidents carry an extra 1 place penalty.
Only reported incidents will be moderated.

The chassis token system is explained on the championship standings page. Please ensure you choose a chassis that is within your budget, which can be seen by hovering the mouse over your points total in the standings.

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

Works drivers are :
Angex
Bagrupp
Doni Yourth
Pepe Higdon
Ricardo Da Silva
Dulima
Phil Thornton
Baab
MagicArsouille
Arf Arf Arf
Gareth
Iestyn Davies
DuFossa
Markus Friedrich
Syd Drake



Privateers drivers are :
Albert Hallu
Billy Nobrakes
Dave Curtis
David Sochenna
PaulV
Francesco Molteni
Bernie Darwin
karliss
Daniel_San
Badblood
Maestro57

Not sure what happened there. Nice practices in the 1:53-1:54 range. Slow but consistent. Qually was a bit odd so went back and tweaked the setup to get something stable. Qual 1:55 - disappointing but ok. Race - undriveable. :(

Quit so that I didn't take anyone out. Tyre temperatures were through the roof and not answering the wheel. Not ideal at Mexico. Hope to get this sorted for Zeltweg. One of my favourite tracks.

Server replay available from:  here (https://www.sendspace.com/file/ypgki7)
Also added to event details page.

To help me concentrate in a race, I try to focus on just one thing. Tonight it was 'Beat Dave.' He's right ahead of me in the combined standings, so all I care about in Mexico is Senor Dave. I will first kick him in qualifying with my Lotus to make it easier to kick him in the race with his Eagle. In the online practice before qualifying I set a new PB by 0.32 seconds, not bad for one of the original tracks, I thought. My qualifying plan also goes well and I do crush him by four-hundredths of a second. I'm fourth on the grid while he lies a distant fifth. So far, so good, at least in the way I calculate things.

The start went well. I held my position through T1, fighting a temptation to outdrag Markus, and at the end of L1 I remained 4th overall. And L2. And L3 . . . And L19. This would be a better story if I could say that at some point I'd shaken Dave out of my exhaust pipe but I never did. On L20 Eduardo went off the Pribluda board, elevating me to third. The bad news from Pribluda was that Bastian and Arf were now on my tail. I'd been wondering for more than a half-hour where they had gone, perhaps lost in parallel space along with Doni, Andreas, and the now missing Dave. I knew my 4th-place qualifying had been a fluke. Fast guys are fast guys, and it doesn't matter in the long run --- 50 minutes being what I call a "long run" --- whether they're in a BRM and I'm in a Lotus. Is it reasonable for me to try to fight these guys off for the last six laps when they're right behind me and all I'd ever cared about was hammering Dave? No. On L21 I let both of them by, confident that Dave was now gone with the wind.

Oops. He showed up about fourteen milliseconds after I'd let Arf-Arf slip past me without a fight. Okay, now I've got five laps to hold my nemesis off. I hadn't made a single mistake the entire race, and I didn't make one for the rest of the way. I actually increased my dominance over Dave from three-hundredths at qualifying to four-hundredths at the checkered flag. Mission accomplished, as we're fond of saying in the U.S., even when we're never really sure about how to judge such things in the first place.  ;)

Charming, I'm sure!
I think you are making far too much out of that! You are only there because you have already had 2x non-scoring rounds so far,  so you'll soon get your rightful position at the table.

I'm more than happy with the event.  Meant to take the Ferrari, but although in prectice was a bit quicker in that;  was more unstable than the Eagle, so spaffed the extra tokens.

From the start, was surrounded by works guys, so tried to let them slip away without losing time.
However, Bastian was proving a little difficult to let past initially, so I carried on my way.  I'd surely see him later :)


Hadn't realised, but apparently the envent qually/practice session lopped 0.426 from by previous practice time & race time was better by 0.368.

One good thing to come out of 2020, is that I'm now just below +30 rankwise;  at least you can't take that away from me :)

Anyway, good running Mr H.  Was happy for you to pull me along for the last laps,  but wanted to be ready in case of a mistake/opportunity.


Cheers,
Dave.

My start was okay. The acceleration of the BRM is slightly less impressive than that of the Lotus. The long straight didn't help me much either. Thanks for the restraint. Driving with cold tires parallel through the first turn is an exercise I was glad to do without.

First laps I tried to stay close to Dulima and Bob. I lost a few tenths every lap and my left front started to overheat slightly. So I backed out from pushing hard. However, I did not achieve to manage my front left tire much better even when I tried to brake earlier for and go slower through the long last and first turn. After a while I lost some confidence and so I did not get up to the speed I achieved at my practice single player race at the morning (on average I was around half a second faster per lap at the morning). With the championship standings in the back of my mind I decided to take it easy as I already had some distance to the next cars. Unfortunately I spun one time when touching the gras. This happened a lap before the incident between Dulima and Bob so I could not take advantage of their coming together. I am sorry for Dulima that he had to retire after protecting his position for such a long time.

All in all I am not entirely happy with my performance. I was too cautious and when I tried to go faster during the last laps I already lost the confidence for braking late and really pushing through the corners. During my practice race I was better at tire management and maintaining a good speed.

Didn't think I'd enjoy this race, but in the end it was lots of fun - close racing, respectful back markers and lots of action. Respect to anyone who took the BRM at that circuit, I thought to try it but just could not make it turn in the twisty bits - annoying as every time I see my GPL rank i see that I have not gone green in Mexico with the whale...

The Cooper felt so slow on the straights and I watched cars drive away from me, but lots of fun catching them back up in the corners. I managed a cheeky overtake of Dave(?) who was maybe a little blind sided by a back marker, and Phil lost it on the SF line after many laps chasing, which was a shame for him. Everything else had to be fought hard for. I did have one moment in the barriers at T1 but that was due to a defective downshift rather than bad judgement, so overall happy. It did cost me time and position but ultimately it cost me only one position, which I nearly got back from Bastian after a great chase over the last couple of laps, and I was only 0.21 secs behind him... if only that line was further down the straight :-)

A difficult round for me.  I was positively mugged on Lap01 as trying to avoid hitting another and being hit down in T1 complex, I lost all speed and was a sitting duck.  I was P6 going into T1 and by the time I got to the chicane, down to P9.  Avoiding Syd at the hairpin, the BRM fell off the cam and Phil passed easily.  Now P10.  Groan...

On Lap03, I got one place back after passing Syd on the main straight and another after Bastian clipped a polo in the T1 complex and spun to be pasted up against the guardrail.  I didn't even see him there.  I was keeping up quite well with Colin and Phil but on Lap09, got a surprise to see Bastian listed on my pit board as the next man down to me and closing.  Starting Lap10, he breezed by on the main straight.  At the end of this very lap, things started to go sour for Phil.  A dramatic spin coming off the Peralta from P6 dropped him down to within my striking distance.  Only two laps later, a spin entering T1 was salt in the wounds.  Bad luck there, PT.

Up to P8 at half distance, I still had Colin, Bas and even Dave Curtis in sight down in the hairpin but could do little to close.  In fact, my attentions were more to Syd only four seconds back in his Cooper and holding fast the gap.  Lap14 and I made my only 'off-track' lap as I just clipped the grass in the leftie coming off the far hairpin.  To those who regularly attempt to shave time off by running through the grass, tsk, tsk...

Lap19 and with the pack pulling away, my chances for climbing the leaderboard were looking dim.  That is til Markus got out of phase in the Esses and went for a spin striking the outer barriers.  He lost a lot of time and it could have been the end of him but he recovered just in front of Pepe to hold P3.  Lucky boy.

Lap20 and high drama for the lead.  I'll not comment on the soundness of the pass attempt by Baab beyond saying that it was highly optimistic as a minimum.  That it cost Eddie the lead and a finish, well...

Eddie's retirement promoted me to P7 where I ran out the rest of the race keeping an eye on Syd closing much too fast for comfort.  Made it home to P7 with barely a second to spare.

Congratulations to Baab on the win and forever how long he'll keep it.  Markus a good P2 and clearly favoured by the gods.  Bastian a roaring performance for P3.

It is not my favorite track and was not so motivated yesterday evening.

So i found a good start and found myself on 4th and hit the tires in t2 and lost many places.
I thought i will get tire problems when pushing and did not expected to get much closer to the others,
but all went good and i was surprised beeing on the podium. some good fights, thanks for racing. Grats Baab and Markus !

lol, respect to anyone who took at any time !

The race started well for me, up to 6th with Dave a couple of hundred yards ahead. Apart from an enjoyable battle with Arf for a few laps, that was as good as it got. I couldn't get the tyres warm enough and when I pushed it a bit too hard in an effort to catch Dave I lost the back end and spun around. I managed to set a PB in the later part of the race but too many spins left me well adrift.

This has always been a bit of a bogey track for me, I've never felt comfortable here. To be fair it is an excellent track for testing a driver's ability. T1 trail braking while changing direction, last turn early power on with the car rotating under power, heavy braking into hairpin, controlled power delivery in twisty bit. Come to think of it, that's probably why I've not done too well in the past, it exposes my weaknesses. Anyway something to work on  ::).

Grats to the podium. Good to see Syd back with us and driving well  ;)

Second race, and I felt a lot more comfortable. Nice to see I finished less than 2 seconds behind the championship leader as well :)
Qualified 10th so right in the middle of the field. It was really scary the first few laps with all those cars around me, and remembering how difficult driving side by side in GPL can be. No door-to-door here :). Managed to avoid hitting anyone, and settled into my race pace. Wasn't really possible to fight anyone on the front straight, as they just drove away from my Cooper. The difference between Donny and I grew up to 5 seconds before I manged to close it down to almost nothing, then made a bit of a mistake on the last lap last corner for the final difference. Generally happy with my pace, unlike Solitude, where it was all about survival. And now I have the tokens for Lotus and Eagle for the last two races :)

I was more competitive than I expected in this race.  Arf and I did a bit o praccy the night before and I was in the low 49s...but had no idea how fast everyone else would be and Markus has been working miracles in the BRM lately!  Anyway I was pleased to qualify in the 48s albeit half a sec down on Dulima.  The first few laps I thought I was holding Markus up and expected him to fly by any moment, esp on the straight but given his tyre issues it didn't happen.  With Dulima's being so quick in qual I expected him to clear off in the race but after a couple of laps I could keep with him and felt I had a bit in hand.    I also managed to keep it together on this challenging circuit for most of the time before my first of several mishaps when getting close to Dulima's Lotus, hitting the brakes mid turn to avoid hitting him.  Dulima seemed to take very different lines to me through the twisty bits which presented some opportunities although the door was closed in most cases.

So the accident, the replays crash gpl on my laptop so I needed to get the old desktop working to have a look and only just did so.  I've reviewed it several times, at the point of contact I have more than 100% overlap, his lotus cockpit hits my rear wheel, I can be seen to move to the left in his mirrors, can be heard to the side and after so many laps fighting closely a move was to be expected.  Shame the contact ended your race Dulima.  Over to the mods.

Cheers for the racing,

Bob

I was looking forward to this race and had put in a lot of practice .  I managed a decent lap time and qualified on race fuel , made a good start but unfortunately my  race only lasted as far as T1 where I was shunted over the barrier by an over enthusiastic team mate , after the s/r I tried to run too hard to make time up but lost the will to after a couple of Off's  and decided to retire rather than run on my own for the rest of the race  :-\



 

Save accelerated!

I really have to thank you for not filling the back of my car, twice, that I remembered

You even lost your car, got out, running, instead of hitting me, I highly value it!

Now, regarding our incident. I was on the tangent of the curve, I didn't see that you dived that way

If I had seen it, I would take my foot off and you would go there to the grass

Surely you have much more technique than me but I had no car to pass me, even more on a circuit of long straight and curved corners

You would only pass if I missed, had to try by pressure and it almost worked, twice I almost filled the guardi rail on the clamp

But forcing an overtaking like that, it wasn't cool

But everything is quiet, it was a disputed race

You were very perfect in the mixes and I couldn't get rid of you, it was a fun race, until the 20th lap ;D :fencing: :gun_bandana: :hang:

Everything quiet on my part, it’s always a pleasure for me to share the track with lice like you

And we go to Austria

Moderation posted.
It was not an easy work !
Hope, it will get better at Zeltweg.

Good work David thank you !