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UKGPL Season 17 - Division 1 - Race 2 - 67 mod - Albi

Albi there, will you? ::)

 After the high speed roller coaster through the hills and forests of the Ardenne, we move south to La Belle France and a circuit that is as flat as a flat thing that has been flattened by a flat iron ( except for a few molehills on the edge of the circuit in places).

For those of you visiting this circuit for the first time , its a short(ish) track and easy to learn, but like any circuit finding the optimum lap is not always easy. Be wary of too much demon braking into the hairpin...it usually ends in tears and frustration.

Old hands will know what to expect and the team battle looks like it might be quite lively this season if Spa was an indicator.

I hope we can repeat the numbers on the grid that we had in the first round and keep Division 1 bubbling.

Please exercise caution at the start ( he is overweight and needs to build his stamina ;D) as it is a short run to T1, which is blind, so if there is an "incident" with a leading car anyone from mid grid might find themselves faced with a road block as they round the grassy knoll.


Please be in VROC UKGPL chatroom by 8:55 p.m.
(You will need to set up a channel called #ukgpl if you haven't already done so)
Race password: see above (#post_event_password)

Server ukgpl1
IP address TBC
Race date = 22-03-2009
Time = 21:00
Track = Albi
Variant = 67F1
Damage Model = PRO
Qually time = 30 minutes.
Race length =  (  42  laps)


Division 1

	Single Stop Time		Double Stop Time
BRM	No Stop		N/A
Cooper	Stop and Go		N/A
Honda	Stop and Go		N/A
Brabham	4		N/A
Eagle	15		N/A
Ferrari	18		N/A
Lotus	32		11

 First Pit Window is: 33 (to go on your pit board) to 22 (to go on your pit board)
 Second Pit Window is: 31 (to go on your pit board) to 11 (to go on your pit board)

I just put that as my Skype signature.  :laugh:

I have a tasty pair of Setups if my fellow Waza's are interested  ;)

As far as 67s are related I'm loaded up with setups, but thanks.  8)

Send me the setups and I will give them a go, just to see if they suit my wierd driving style ::)

Will Email you when I get home  :)
I'll also send you my current (not quite finished) setup for the 65's for incase you're interested.

I am hosting Division 1 practice overnight, no password on this one, but treat it nicely, I will not be there to babysit any catastrophes that occur (I'll be sleeping ;D). Anybody got a loose grid before I set this going?

You can get them from Mike's website; http://www.jamesonline.net/gpl/patches.htm (http://www.jamesonline.net/gpl/patches.htm)

Cheers for those Tim.

She's up on VROC tonight and overnight, be gentle. :)

Server name: "J.Walters"

Enjoy. :)

So......... race password yet? I know it's 6 hours away, but still....

?? not sure why the pword is not up yet, it should have appeared by now.

I will make sure that all my teammates have it before the start ;D..oh! and maybe one or two others. ::)

It should be there now Clive. You'd forgotten to select the smf topic and then hit update when you did the announcement.

Installed the track on the machine, and jumped in qually to (re)learn this track. Ended up making a few too many mistakes, not the greatest setup I created. Remembering last time, the race was a disaster too but that time I at least had the pleasure of nailing Alan Wallace's Honda. :laugh:

Congrats to all who finished. :)

Satisfied with qualy, seeings how I'd not done a lot of laps preparation for the race. Start went well, got into the lead when I think Hristo bogged down, and kept it until 1st pitstops. Made a couple big errors with nobody in sight between 1st and 2nd pitstop, and the 2nd one went well considering I got in front of Clive Loynes, who was my target in the Lotus. Tried going into T1 ahead of evilclive and totally missed the braking point, which knocked steering out of whack. This let Hristo through to lap me, so I just kept plodding along, and hoped to catch evilclive if he was ahead, which Prib said so. Got through, tried to pull a gap, had a very wide Hristo preventing me from opening any kind of gap, although I did do a couple quick laps, and then he weaved in front of me on the main straight which totally confused me as I was in a rhythm and attempting to at least maintain the gap, if not pull away, to clive. Then found myself mated to Hristo's Honda, and him ploughing the grass with 3 wheels, which I still maintain I couldn't avoid, but need to check the server replay since I had a couple issues throughout the race with slowdown, which probably manifested itself in warping car, which ain't exactly helpful.

I appreciate Hristo's very angry with me, and I would be if I'd been taken out whilst leading, but in his position, I'd have let the guy through, and probably a couple more guys behind if I'd checked Pribluda to see what was happening, and just eased off a lot on the last 3 laps. The fact he had a 40 second lead and was still pushing like crazy I don't quite get. In hindsight, I should have probably just let him go, but I was always gonna be close to him because we were very similar on pace, if not each quicker at times, and I tried to maintain a gap back to evilclive and see if I could catch the guy in front. I glanced at Prib to see where evilclive was, and I think he was a bit of a way behind, but it was a bit of a blur cos I wasn't sure what was happening.

EDIT: Having seen the replay I saved, it appears Hristo braked into the kink, which is flat in any car, and I couldn't avoid him. Almost makes me wanna say the words "brake test", but I doubt it was, since a racer of Hristo's calibre surely wouldn't do something like that.

A very enjoyable race which resulted in a rather fortunate win in the face of adversity. Qualifying went well, I managed to shave a second off my Clubman's effort and ended up 6th (I think, can't really remember to be honest!). So, the start went away and I gained a couple places on the run down the straight and then had my good work undone when I outbraked myself for Double Droite. Was very lucky I kept it on the black stuff but I still lost a couple of places and found myself in 6th again, behind Clive's Honda. We then had a raging battle for a few laps till the Honda's back end decided to swap ends so I found myself driving my own race.

It remained that way throughout the rest of the race. I passed Jethro and Clive through the pitstops, overtaking a car here and there and found myself in 2nd with 10 or so laps to go. With a lap to go, still in 2nd about 40 seconds behind Hristo, I found myself in the lead at the race's end. I wondered how on earth that happened, but it turned out the Hristo and Jethro had an unfortunate tangle. A lucky win then. Hopefully Snetterton will produce another finish.

The wife had me wiring up a new hall light so naturally it took me 1 hour longer than planned... :o...
so I was really late to qually and eeeked a decent lap in at the end. Think I lost 3 spots before the end of the first lap but quickly made them back up as a few folks must of had problems. Later in the race, I passed a few more that had longer pit stops and was chasing Sam but not gaining at all. The gap was steady at around 10 seconds for several laps. I was expecting a Lotus to creep up any minute but it never came. I thought if I can just maintain, I might get 3rd for Team Antipasti.....

Damn piston.

Another disaster though I at least managed to get in a couple of laps before another screen freeze took me out (and I hope I didn't take anybody else out as a consequence). I'm not sure what's causing it  -  it isn't an overheating issue and is more likely to be a scenery related problem as it always happens at the same spot - on the start straight. I've tried different cards (880GTS and 9800GTX+) with the same effect. It might have something to do with my using D3D but when I switch to OpenGL the whole game slows to a crawl. Further experimentation is called for. Just for information - if anybody has any suggestions -I'm currently using Windows XP,  AMD Athlon 64x2 4600+, Geforce 8800GTS, 4Gb RAM, Audigy 2 ZS Audio and I don't have any problems with the other racing and flight sims that I play (GTL, IL2, FS9).

Sounds like it might be related to the pit lane freeze problem, some info in this post https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=5903.msg102127#msg102127 (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=5903.msg102127#msg102127)
Likely to be a D3D / rasterizer issue... There was a lot more info on RSC, shame it's down

Hard luck Gasper, much the same here.

Thought that I was cruising to a steady 2nd behind Hristo when something in the engine went "ping".

That happened at the second to last corner on lap 29 and resulted in a lack of power that saw me understeer off behind the crowd.  Did my second pit stop anyway but when I cam out it was plain that all I could do was limp to the finish if lucky.  I wasn't and it stopped completely on lap 37.

Then I watched Jethro and Hristo.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on but Jethro plainly wanted to un-lap himself and get after Tim but Hristo wasn't having any of it.  It looked as though it was going to end in tears and I was right on that count.

I wonder what would have happened if Hristo had let Jethro through and it had then transpired that the server had just dropped Jethro for a lap?  I can see why both drivers were doing what they were doing.  Interesting................................

From a Soggy view point, phew........thanks Jethro!   :clap:  Saved our bacon there.



PS   Looking at the Numptygraph, I think that Jethro may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick as far as Lotus pit stops are concerned.  He may have done a 32 second stop and an 11 second stop instead of two 11 second stops.

I think this is usually a video driver problem.  Certainly the newer nvidia drivers can cause it.

Think my nvidia drivers date from 2007 and there is no way that I will update them.

I'm totally disgusted with what happened. How on Earth does someone who makes a bunch of mistakes, falls a lap down and then gets lapped thinks he has any chance left to race the leader and put both him and himself at risk repeatedly at almost each corner is beyond me...  >:(

I had a good qualifying and I didn't want to risk with the engine on the start so I even moved to the right to let the Lotuses by and then just settled behind them, waiting for their pitstops. All in all had a nearly perfect drive and after the pitstop had Sam at a big distance back in 2nd so I just focused on maintaining my rhythm and saving the engine. I could've easily gone half a second faster if I was to use the full capabilities of the car and take fastest lap without problem but there was no need for that.

After lapping Jethro I had a slight off before T2 so he managed to catch up in my slipstream and despite knowing I'm the leader he raced me as if he was racing for position. I thought ok, he'd realize that now and back off, but nope, he kept racing me for the remainder of the race going against all rules. I would understand if he was much faster, but that wasn't the case and the only reason he was able to battle me was due to his engine power and getting in my slipstream. Instead of realizing that and back off whenever he'd get too close he kept attacking me like crazy and even going over the grass in a risky attempt to pass me, it totally pissed me off. I tried to remind him he should back off by doing a bit of weaving and blocking him, so he would just settle, but no... Since when is the leader supposed to let backmarkers who lost all rights to battle with the leading cars that lapped them? There wasn't even the slightest of chance for him to catch whoever was ahead because that car was at least 3-4 seconds into the distance with just 3 laps to go. At the same time nobody was challenging him from behind, so in the end he was just trying to race me for no obvious reason. How is it justified to say I was slower when I have lapped him and I was merely saving my engine otherwise he'd stand no chance? Really, I'm totally disgusted with this...

-=Hristo=-

What am I, a martyr or something?! :P

With regard to pitstops, I always thought that it was a case of, at least for the double stops, 32 seconds for the 1st stop and 11 seconds for the 2nd stop. But a mod would have to confirm that, since I guess it's open to interpretation. It's certainly a different way of looking at it.

EDIT: Waitasec, with pitstops, is it you can do 1 pitstop at 32 seconds, or 2 pitstops at 11 seconds each? That woulda saved me about 15-20 seconds in total! Still came out ahead of Clive though. :D

from what i understand you had a large lead and that being the case i would have just let him unlap himself , however there is no rule against somebody driving as fast as they can go . there is a rule about cars about to be lapped , but nothing about once they are .


now this is against the rules

"Blocking is not allowed, but defensive driving is allowed. If a driver moves off the racing line before the car behind attempts to overtake, this is defensive driving. If they move off the racing line after the car behind has started to move across to overtake, this is blocking. If a driver is driving defensively they may move off the line and back onto it only once per straight/section."

don't you think weaving and blocking is being rather silly and dangerous in a league race ?

john

jr, you fail to grasp something about both things you mention.

First of all, if Jethro was much faster than me, sure, I'd have let him go without hesitation. That wasn't the case though and if I didn't have that slight off he'd have never caught up with me and also even if I had let him by, as soon as he had no slipstream to use he'd be just blocking my way infront and getting blue flags. I can't afford to slow down because as you should already know there is a safe pace and rhythm you fall into and slowing down only distracts you and is much more risky thing to do, so no, I don't agree I should slow down just to make it easy for backmarkers who were lapped. I was already off the actual pace of the Honda by attempting to save my engine and that's enough of a distraction.

And second, about the rule you mention - the rule is for when you're fighting for position. I wasn't blocking his attempts to take the lead, so it's totally irrelevant and also, I wasn't blocking him constantly, I did it a few times AFTER he spent 2 full laps making all sorts of attacks trying to pass me, so it was meant to get him back down to Earth. Even if he had not hit me and ended my race he already breached the rule of challenging my lead after falling a lap down. I've had it happen with other people in the past, but they were reasonable enough to realize they have no right to attack after a few corners, but for this to happen for 3 full laps is outrageous.

For the record Hristo, there is no mention in the rules about no blocking / weaving only being valid when you're passing for position. As I interpret it, and I think others do, it's a blanket "no weaving / blocking". The fact you nearly ran me off the road twice also irks me.

i was just making two points


i never said anything and yours or Jethro's speed only that "from what i understand you had a large lead and that being the case i would have just let him unlap himself" , as this is what i'd have done .



no it isn't it under racing Racing Etiquette 

https://www.ukgpl.com/index.php/rules/etiquette

something to be done at all times .

john

it does not say constant blocking but "Blocking is not allowed" so even if you had only done it once and not a few times it would still be against the rules .


where is this rule ?

could you please show me it as i don't believe there is one .

john

Maybe it's a "Hristo" rule. :-\

Hi guys, sorry I couldnt make it, was 1st day back at work for 2wks, and i was bloody knackered in the evening, and since it was Albi tight grids and circult I didnt want to wreck anyones race because of it.

Not my best race - don't know if it was me being slower than in clubmans or just everyone else being quicker, but I just couldn't seem to hold a good pace. Oddly GPLRA says I was 2nd in the consistency stakes behind a very impressive effort by Sam  :notworthy: despite my SnG towards the latter half of the race.
Qualified fairly low down - 8th or something - but made up a few spaces over the course of the first 10 laps or so.
Found myself behind Sam after a bit and managed to chase and almost challenge him for 6 laps or so before I melted the front left tyre and started loosing confidence through the first corner sequence.... From there I was just concentrating on holding position and hoping the pit stops taken by people ahead in faster cars would benifit me - they did. I soon found myself in 4th and still within 4 seconds of Sam approaching the halfway mark. Pitted with 15 to go which allowed Will to sneak by - again I just couldn't fight the Honda into pulling him back.
I had to concentrate again on trying to achieve the best lap times I could to try and hold position in 4th (Jethro had dropped back in his first pit stop gifting me 3rd for 15laps or so). Going by the gap back it all looked slightly worrying up until Jethro either pitted or span off somewhere, after which he wasn't gaining fast enough to have any real chance of catching me .
Supprised I did as well as I had considering I felt I wasn't driving too well at the time.
Congrats to all finishers and bad luck Hristo  :)



Sorry H, but there is no such rule barring a driver unlapping themselves either here in UKGPL (yes, I've just read them all) or in any real world motorsport I'm aware of.
Infact the opposite is more true as at most drivers briefings I've been present at in RL, the Steward would suggest that drivers treat cars on different laps much the same as they'd be expected to on a trackday.
I.E. if someone's appeared behind you (even a lap/2 down) and you havn't just passed them, then they're almost certainly faster and you would normally allow them by if they make a firm move.
Unlike when being lapped there is no solid ruling on this in writing, but it is often encouraged at race meets to avoid exactly the incident yourself and Jethro suffered.
I realise however that the circumstances behind J's closing on you, and your respective lap times leading up to that event would hardly make a clear cut case for one or the other of you being quicker and therefore yielding.

Sorry if I sound harsh (and of course for siding with the round eye's :hammer:) I'm not having a dig but I felt this point suitably important not to pass it over  :ninja:

Dude, i'm talking about general accepted rules for behaviour on track, they're not written in particular, it's a sporting agreement...

You don't need to have an exactly written rule to follow a sporting behaviour, do you? Unless the driver who is lapped is much faster than the car on the leading lap that is ahead, they have no right to pass or attack. It's not like Jethro was easily passing me and I blocked. He raced me side by side and could never complete his attempts to pass me. He's not in a position to force me to slow down and let him by just to have him blocking my way afterwards.

Irvine attempting a risky pass on Senna in 93 Suzuka GP is a good example of that, except he did it just once against Jethro doing it repeatedly for 3 laps straight until he took me out of the race. Was Irvine faster than Senna? Slightly, maybe, doesn't matter. Even for that he got the flaming and a punch.

After someone has a near perfect race and laps someone who has made a bunch of errors, you tell me who has the right to keep their pace and chose their lines without putting the leader at a risk repeatedly. Should I remind you that if I didn't react as I did on couple of occasions Jethro would've taken me out or at least collide with me much earlier than when it happened?

If we're to follow written only rules there'd be no end to problems on track... but I guess sportsmanship isn't a valid thing to some, well I'd know from now on to treat them differently when racing.

If you're so much into rules, I'll quote this one:

*If a driver is following a slower car, they should remember that they will brake earlier than the faster car.

Considering the differences between the Honda and the Lotus does that mean that any time I lap someone in a Lotus or similar car they should race me on the following straight simply because their engine allows it or I'm not willing to use the full power as to save engine, or I brake slightly earlier because of the car weight difference? There'd be no end to lapping and unlapping especially when the pace is as close as it was with Jethro and myself.

Anyway, I'm leaving it to the moderators to judge it, but as long as I hear ridiculous opinions like yours I won't keep quiet about it.

-=Hristo=-

no you don't , however there is a written rule about blocking which you have said yourself that you haven't followed .

I'm all for sporting behavior thats why i cant stand weaving .

however it looks to me that what you did wasn't so much sportsmanship as gamesmanship , all this talk of "I tried to remind him he should back off by doing a bit of weaving and blocking him" and "get him back down to Earth" sounds to me like you wanted to give JW a lesson .

you still haven't said whether you think weaving and blocking is being rather silly and dangerous in a league race ?


they have a right to race and to go as fast as they like.



sounds like you think your Senna , however Senna was a great driver and if i remember rightly decided to let the other car unlap them selfs .

john

 

I take major issue with that Hristo, because the first time you screwed up the exit of T3 and the kink, you were slower on the straight. I was perfect onto the straight, had a little tow, pulled alongside, braked in my normal place, and then found you inside of me slamming on the anchors up the inside of me. You did the same thing to me into Parc, and again the next lap, and again a couple laps later. Braking late at the last corner left a gap, which I went for so's not to hit you.

Since you're quoting rules out of context, might I remind you of one or two:


More than once you blocked. But take heed of the second rule quoted please, it applies to lapped cars too.

How is that I think I'm Senna? I was giving you a very similar example I could think of. You can go and find what he says about such behaviour from backmarkers and if you disagree with that as well, then I don't know.

No, I don't accept blocking either, but as I already said I did it after suffering for 2 laps of nearly being taken out, being put at risk at almost each corner. I don't see a single logical reason for this to happen and to have a lapped car putting me (or whoever if it happens to someone else) at such risk, especially when in the lead and having nearly won a race.

Apparently you're ignoring what I said that it's one thing letting by a car to unlap itself for being much faster and quite another to let a car that is on similar pace as you, a car that you just lapped, despite you going actually slower than your real pace. What, you're going to say I should totally slow down, go against my own pace and rhythm, to let a hothead who has already made a bunch of mistakes to end up being lapped through? I don't think so.

Why should I suddenly penalise myself just because I made a few mistakes during a race? A perfect race from my standpoint is hard to come by, and the fact that my pace up til then was very good and consistent appears to have no merits (from a personal view, you saying that "I forfeit all rights to race with the leaders after going a lap down" is a very very one-minded attitude), why you then suddenly upped your pace to try and keep me behind doesn't make sense. If as you said you'd slowed down, then you should have been fine with me going past you since I'd have been able to pull away at around a second a lap since I was still racing - racing the guys behind and in front, and you prevented that.

Jethro, you're mistakenly seeing the less efficient acceleration and the necessary short-shifting due to machinery differences as blocking. I only blocked you twice and that was after 2 whole laps of having you harass me without managing to even complete a passing move and expecting me to just totally ease off to let you go as if I was the backmarker. Apparently you never, even for a moment, thought what you were doing was incorrect, so I had no choice but to act the same. And as I mentioned, you ignore the fact that I actually had to do the opposite of blocking in the previous laps to avoid a collision or two as you were unable to act in a safer way.

You're wrong to think you were faster. You only had a go at me because you were able to catch slipstream and due to my slight mistake soon after I lapped you. Had I let you go I'd have had to ease off even more than I had already as to not have you blocking my road ahead and you would've been getting blue flags instead. What were you going to do then, let me by again just to Lotus power me down the next straight? I don't agree that the leader of the race should set his pace according to what backmarkers do just to let them have it their way unhindered. When two cars are having their own pace but one is being lapped it's obvious who has more right to the road and who has to give way. You say you had consistent race, right? To fall a whole lap down takes a big loss of time and that only means that despite your pace and consistency you must've made big mistakes because the last time I saw you before that you were some seconds ahead of me in the lead.

Please have a look at the fastest lap of the race (replay is online on UKGPL Replays section somewhere, the report's been exported), and what laps I had been able to churn out. My pace following you was actually slower (1:12 as opposed to the 1:11s and 1:10s I had been doing in clear air.

And you ran up the inside of me on the brakes twice in one lap when I was expecting to be let go!!!!!! I had to avoid colliding into you.

Lol, how were you going to have 11s and 10s if you were in clean air when you had a 12s behind me and that was already at the end of the race? Makes no sense. I could've easily had a low 12 with a tow and a bit more use of revs. And should I remind you when you tried that insane pass on the grass out of T2 and didn't care to lift up risking both of our races? How could you be expecting me to let go when you're the backmarker?! How can you say I ran up the inside when you were the one attempting a pass and I was merely taking a line on the inside. Complete nonsense.

Gentlemen

I suggest this debate has gone on long enough.  This is one for the moderators to sort out and I would be grateful if you would commit to accepting the moderator's decision what ever it may be.  There have been a lot of quotations from the rules but may I remind you that the rules are not and never can be completely exhaustive.  There is always room for interpretation.  The penalty guidelines are there to help moderators apply the rules consistently but there would need to be an infinite number of scenarios to cover all eventualities.  

Please put this incident aside and let the moderators deal with it.  As for tonight's race and subsequent races, please stay cool and courteous.  If you have a grievance do not try to resolve it on the track or in chat, let the moderators deal with it.  Concentrate on your own race and let the moderators worry about everyone else.

Regards

Phil

Aww!

Just as things was hotting up too , I for one was starting to enjoy this  ;D


Bernie AKA Alonso

I was getting ready for 12 rounds with Mike Tyson. ;D

Is there gonna be a rough timeframe for moderation on this one?

I usually wait a week for all submissions to the court system to be made before reviewing the race, because some drivers consider their position and grievances before deciding to post and to let the dust settle so that incidents are viewed objectively in the cold light of day as it were.

My draft report will be looked at by the moderators forum and comments made. In this instance this is necessary because I was involved in one of the incidents  (although of course I am absolutely impartial and anyway never do anything wrong::).)

The report and findings should be published before the next Div 1 race, which is what I generally aim to do every time.

Good strategy, was just curious, since it's unlikely I'll be able to make the next D1 race and "incidents" like the ones occured in this race can make it take a while to make a decision.

Yeah, real sorry about that. Any penalty that comes my way for that mistake I'm happy to take, since it wasn't my intention to ram you off the road, I simply forgot where to brake! :angel:

Good report, enjoyed reading that. :) Fair all round I think. ;)