Grats to the podiums for both races.
This track certainly bites back and punishes any errors!!!
OK! Yes! so maybe some pre race practice might have taught me a little more respect
But, I have to confess that I was less than impressed with my driving last night, and I was close to hitting the "ESC" key in both races
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I used the Opel because it had gone well at Nurburgring and I thought I had it sorted. Haha! this track seemed to prove that perception wrong.
The biggest frustration was that I could hook up what promised to be a really fast lap, only to have the tail end sweep around on one of the last corners and spoil it.
Race 1 was a comedy of errors for me and it did appear that one or two others were also experiencing difficult handling. I would gain a few places, only to lose them again with a spin. Eventually I just slowed down and cruised to the finish. Tony performed one or two spectacular excursions that I witnessed and on occassion I found myself picking my way past 3 cars that had spun. But inevitably any places gained were lost a lap later when I too lost the rear end and had to watch the field go past again.
Thanks to Geoff for posting his proven setup for the Opel for race 2.
I tried to do as many laps as possible during qually to "get a feel" for his setup, ignoring lap times. Ironically Geoff got things a little wrong at the start and dropped to the back of the field. It took me a couple of laps to get used to the different gearing, and once I had that sorted, things started to improve and I picked up a few places. Gradually I moved up the leaderboard, more as a result of others misfortune than any great skill on my part.
At one point I think I made it up to 3rd place, and I could even see Erling ahead in 2nd!!!
But just as I was beginning to feel that maybe I had grasped the right way to drive the Opel, and that Geoffers setup needed studying for future use things started to take on a familiar look.
I would approach a corner and brake at the same marker as I had the previous lap, downshift at the same points and get off the brakes and turn in at what felt like the same place and speed, only to have the rear end to sweep slowly around. No amount of opp lock could catch the slide and a 180 degree spin was the consistent result. A great way to watch everyone else take the corner, but not conducive to a great result
Towards the end of the race a great many cars dropped out and I found myself in an undeserved 4th, chasing Dominick. I could close up and the maths said that I would catch him with a few laps left to find a pass, and maybe a chance of some champagne?
But each time I got closer, I suffered the rear end waltz and dropped back again no matter how careful I thought I was being
It would feel 100% solid going into a corner and then just when you reach the transition point where you ease off the brakes and reach the apex ready to apply some gas, the tail would just swing around. This only happened on the real tight corners and the car was quite stable through the fast Esses with no hint of losing the rear. It had to be something about the way I was braking??
So once again I cruised the last laps...and even managed a couple of spins when not even pushing??
I know that I am not as consistently quick as him, but I had used Geoffers' setup ( which was proven to work well), the tyres were not badly worn, and yet I could not get within 2 secs of Geoffers on a lucky lap?? There was something going wrong!!
Always looking for an excuse and something else to blame
I wondered if there might be something awry with my hardware. So post race I looked at the Logitech Profiler settings.
I had set things to apply my GPL profile to all simracing games, (and TBH I have not been too happy with my races in GPL lately ) so I dived into GPL to check how things were configured there.
I discovered that somehow the Accelerator and Brake were sharing the same axis,and I am not too sure how that could work effectively?? It may have happened when I migrated to my new PC?
Anyway I have re-configured the G25 to use separate axis for brake and accelerator and will have to test things out when I have a moment and report back. It is quite possible that my abilities are the problem and that I am in denial