Bravo to our podium finishers! Well done, lads.
Welcome to two FNG's participating here at the UKGPL for the first time to best of my knowledge. That would be J. Pettet and Kalevi Turpasauna. Hope that you had some fun, boys.
I engaged in some spirited dicing with old amigo, Andreas, both of us in 330P4's. That was some fun! Sadly, we both ran afoul of Kalevi in the Eastwood Chicane* with each of us sustaining significant damage. Andreas reset but I carried on not fully realizing the extent of my damage. That became apparent on the Mulsanne Straight when I was down some 20kph on top end. Sigh... Just carried on as best I could losing positions as the laps wound down. Made it home without further dramas which was something of a surprise. See below...
On December 23, I purchased a digital copy of Automobilista 2 from Steam and installed. After just getting it up and running, I shut in down. I fired up GPL and found to my horror that my FFB was shot all to hell. Feel why stationary was as per usual in swinging the wheel about through its travel but the moment I moved away from rest, it was glaring apparent that something was seriously wrong. All feel within about a 30° sweep in either direction gave me zero feel when it normally would. It reminded me of my old 1965 Chevy Malibu with power steering. You could change direction alright by turning the wheel but it might just have been disconnected from any feel of the road. Sigh... Efforts over the last two days to correct this lamentable situation have come up empty. I even uninstalled AM2 hoping that would fix things. Nope. I contacted Steam re the buy and asked for a refund. They have agreed to this but I'm afraid the damage has been done.
Eastwood Chicane? Sure. Why not? This is the treacherous chicane down-track of Arnage which to the best of my knowledge carries no name that I can determine. The tie-in with Clint Eastwood is the character he portrayed in his famous spaghetti western films. We never knew his name so...
BULLETIN! BULLETIN!
In a late and on-going development, race officials are reviewing the start with Andreas not obeying the pace lap procedure. True, he did back off and and resume in his proper place before we arrived at Tertre Rouge but officials are not amused. Race director, Michael Masi, he off 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix fame, has suggested that Andreas be hit with a time penalty of 63 seconds which, oddly enough, would put him just shy one second behind me in the final placings. That Masi is my brother-in-law has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his decision, I'm sure.