UKGTR Season 11 - Spa (2003) - Jan 3

[Berger R - 74]

i did exactly same mistake with tyres as simon did.
1st stint intermed., and i had no temperatures in the tyres very much time in 1st stint and i did loose many places, then short before i did pitstop i did hit the wall hard and i had the "aston" fault with the 95sec. repair suspenstion, i did change this on XD to not change and do my pitstop.
i did again same mistake as simon and changed to soft wet, in beginning of stint great, but then nightmare, i did not coold down the tyres and i had sometimes between 140-155° in fron and nearly same in rear.
but the main problem was, that i had perhaps realy a suspension problem, because my car always drive to the right side in the straight always, it was dump in the corners, but after 2 or 3 laps it was nearly no problem i only had to do the wheel always a little move more to the left side, so no time i did loose (i think), because i was same fast then simon.
we both come always little more in front, but any laps before end he did had suddently 5-6 sec. lead, little mistake here and little mistake there from me.
2 or 3 laps before end gazzer do come in outside of last corner and i was 4th, and then in last lap suddenly the gap to simon do go lower (little) very quick, but i did not can catch him.

this was a very very hard race for me, the rain strong? did change so much often, 1st stint no tyre temps and 2nd stint to hight tyre temp., but race was good and very intensive and 4th place in end is a good result in this conditions and it was exactly how jayblue did pm me, the traffic, lapping cars, overtake is best i ever did see, so much gentleman drive it was.

servus
ps. sometimes you must use your imagine, i do often not know the correct words in english.

servus

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart

[Legzy]

The Spa race seems to have disappeared from the league table


Yup, that was Spa... hope not to see it again for a while.

On top of that, racing in those conditions wasn't racing.

[LeeB]

First race back after a long break and what a race!!!!!

Started on soft wets, as the Vertigo seems to not punish them. Thought I was doing a superb job at the start, but now reading some of these posts, I think it was down to others tyre choices.
Had an awesome scrap with Goldtop, I just couldn't get past him as I didn't have the confidence to try outbraking or going the long way round, so just pressured him for several laps, hoping to force a mistake. Alas it didn't come and I fried my front trye's, pitted and for some unknown reason selected soft slicks. After 2 laps of spinning and sliding I came in for replacements and took soft slicks again, well after more fun and frolicing came in again for soft wet rears and medium wet fronts and then set about just trying to unlap myself or at least finish the full race distance.

Great job by the GT1 guys not forcing passes on us slower guys. And congratulations to the winner.

Hope to do loads more races (and not screw up).

[goldtop]

On top of that, racing in those conditions wasn't racing.

Yep, totally agree with that one. Tyre choice was like flipping a coin and then some dork shouting best of three

[phspok]

Another potentially good race spoiled by "realistic" weather. As Legzy said, it's not "racing" it's just masochism when
it gets that wet. It was like ice at times, quite silly IMHO.

[jan duijs]

Been at Spa many times and i can tell you its a haunted place,the weather is changing all the time,and it gets very tricky,you will never forget it when you have seen a Saleen just under you crashing at Eau Rouge( in the wet just touched the kerbs).Its an epic place because of this and all the drivers love it,the game simulates it pretty good i think.
GTC is peanuts compared to GT1,you have to be so carefull and thats exactly how it is in real racing at Spa,how can it be easy to handle 500HP in the wet

Jan

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

only for the race not to end across the line, even though my counter showed zero and i was a lap down on the leader  

I dunno why everyone always seems to find that a surprise - the race isn't over until the time has expired and the leader has crossed the line. If you're a lap down there's a 50/50 chance the race won't end as you cross the line after the clock hits zero - it depends entirely on whether the leader is ahead or behind you.

[Truetom]

@ weather moaners: racing in dry all the time is boring.

Made a rookie mistake and hit the wall while entering the pits - aero and suspension damage, punctored tyre. Spent amost two minutes in pits. Might be 7th was lucky, while the podium was likely.

LOVE SPA, LOVE RAIN.    

[picnic]

I don't mind some rain but I do not understand the love of changeable conditions. We do this because we believe the game to be a good simulation but sat in the cockpit of your car you can't really see what the conditions are about to do and you can't converse with your pitcrew as you often can RW. You can't even select different tyre pressures between your dry and wet tyre compounds  I don't practice voodoo witch doctor mumbo-jumbo so do not have an empathy for what the next random change will or won't be. It doesn't make for fun racing.

I've debated the last 3 wet races and whether to take part. I fluked a win 2 races ago by luck, I shall not bother in future if it doesn't look dry. That is because if it's dry it tends to stay that way, however if it's wet to start then its pot luck what will happen.

Rant over, see you in Dubai

[goldtop]

I don't mind some rain but I do not understand the love of changeable conditions. We do this because we believe the game to be a good simulation but sat in the cockpit of your car you can't really see what the conditions are about to do and you can't converse with your pitcrew as you often can RW. You can't even select different tyre pressures between your dry and wet tyre compounds  I don't practice voodoo witch doctor mumbo-jumbo so do not have an empathy for what the next random change will or won't be. It doesn't make for fun racing.

Exactly my thoughts; the game just doesn't allow for this.

Add to this some less than considerate driving and the enjoyment is gone. I was punted off track twice. One driver waited and later apologised while the other did not. My report has gone in for the latter.

[Jayblue]

I think the thing i don't get with the weather is that the forecast was for "light snow", or light rain, yet we had thunder and heavy rain all race? Surely it should have been a lower amount of rain for less time, if thats possible?

I have tried using the GTR2 Weather Generator and that works well and even has a randomize feature so that the guy who sets the weather doesn't know exactly what is going to happen. I do like our current system but i think it is just a bit too random in comparison to the real forecast, particularly if the forecast is for light rain. Having said that it does make for interesting races and calls for intelligent tyre choice and thinking ahead.

RE: Picnics comment on tyre pressures - if you use the latest version of GTR XD you CAN change tyre pressure before pit stops.

[ginsters sponsored]

I don't mind some rain but I do not understand the love of changeable conditions.

I agree. For me, the "fun" added by changeable weather is far outweighed by the number of unnecessary incidents it causes. If we know its gonna be a wet one, with focused practice I'd hope incidents would be fewer. For me, announced wet or dry races would be ideal.

I'll be back for Magny were it never rains 

[spanner]

Well, when i looked at the forecast admittedly it was -3 deg but the forecast for the next few days never mentioned rain so with our software expected a bit of rain but new it was going to be cold. How wrong could be it! I dont think i've ever driven it conditions that bad before and many times was seriously considering quitting as i wasnt particularly enjoying it. Admittedly for the first 30 mins i was enjoying it as most of those in front dropped back as i guessed they were on the wrong tyres, even managing to get up to 5th

But qualifying had shown that hard wets worked ok on the front but on the rear were cooking after a few laps with the wear quite high. So towards the end of the stints the car was a nightmare to control espcially with the weather occasionally easing when they got quite hot! This meant i lost a quite a few places at the end of the race needing to pit to repair the car, thought i'd try out the inters on the rear for the last 10 mins and they were working brilliantly though dont think i could have survived on them for the rest of the race on them.

I've decided i'll jump in to GTC next race, just not enjoying the GT1's as much as i used to, plus its become a little too quick for my liking, or is that me just being to slow? lol


Something that was mentioned on TS is that it might be worth setting the practise time longer as that is the first time we get to experience the race specific weather.

[picnic]

Something that was mentioned on TS is that it might be worth setting the practise time longer as that is the first time we get to experience the race specific weather.

Fair comment but the race weather file is generated in the 5-10 mins before the event start so there are still no guarantee the practice weather will be much like the race weather. Also it's in the race where the changes happen and the practice server only runs very short races to ensure people don't get locked out of it so I'm not sure there is that much benefit.