iRacing Season 2 IndyCar - Infineon Raceway (IRL) - Mar 9

[Ken Murray]

I was catching 6th down to the far hairpin and out of the fast chicane coming back.

[popabawa]

Pretty chuffed with 5th despite the small field. I really enjoyed that race  

Smashed my PB in qually and still ended up only 7th on the grid

I was surprised to keep up with Ken and Brandan for the first few laps whilst keeping Dave a couple of seconds back but then had a horrible couple of laps to let them slip away and get Dave back on my tail. Got back into the groove and started to pull away a bit from Dave as Brendan pitted for fuel.

Ken had pulled a lead then span in T2 and rejoined about 5s back, I managed to put in a few decent laps as he only slowly reeled me in and was catching me coming up the pitstop so I decided to jump in a lap early rather than try to keep him at bay thinking I'd need every second if I was to come out in front of him after his stop.

I managed a decent stop and was surprised to see myself in 5th a few laps later after the stops, obviously Ken had problems. Brendan started making a a bit of an impact but I was 8s clear when his puncture came so then I was clear and cruised it in

Thanks to Martin on the penultimate lap for an easy pass.

Grats to Paul on the all-too-easy win and Dan in 2nd. Well done Andy after a very impressive drive to get the final podium.

It seemed a very clean race, well done to Dave on 0 incidents, and to Dan, Ken and me on 1.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Tried all sorts of setup changes during practice and never really found anything that worked. Never had any traction in the slow corners and on occaision it would also swap ends in some of the fast corners. Eventually I settled on Shark's hybrid between my mungeration of the setup Dan posted here and somebody else's gears.

Then on one lap I think Ken had come out of the pits and Gizmo was a bit slower into the last corner and I jammed on my brakes to the max to avoid hitting him. Unfortunately I span whilst doing this which ended the fight (not that you can overtake here anyway, like 75% of the awful american circuits in this game).

I tried to leave room on the right as I saw you coming, but there wasn't time to call it over TeamSpeak and I didn't want to end up stuck behind you.

Start was very sensible and soon Pops and the rest of the cars ahead were vanishing into the distance. Shark was certainly looking faster but despite being on almost identical setups we had very obviously opposing strengths and weaknesses. I still had no confidence in the car and was having to being painfully conservative in the low gears and through some corners that I knew were in theory flat.

After Shark spun I adopted an even more conservative pace, stopping at the end of lap 14 (I assumed I'd be lapped and so that would be half distance). Shark stopped on the same lap and dropped back to 15 or so seconds behind courtesy of a few more offs, then started reeling me in. I didn't dare push any harder so I just stuck to my pace.

After Paul's late stop I realised I was actually going to finish on the lead lap, much to my surprise, and with Shark finishing behind Paul I had a chance to press much harder on the final lap safe in the knowledge that I couldn't slip down the order, and duly set my fastest lap of the race.

Hopefully I'll go better at Road America - or at least be able to drive with more confidence.

[popabawa]

Duno if you guys have got the Legends Dallara skins downloaded, I thought the front of the grid looked pretty sweet last night though I might be a bit biased

[purdie]

After the first laps of practice a couple of days ago I was pretty sure that i would not enjoy it... then on the server on Monday night I drove for almost two solid hours and it all seemed to click (as in I stopped falling off the track every lap  )

Did a p.b. in the pre-prace practice but couldn't quite replicate it in quali but still started 2nd  

After the slowest pace lap in history, I spent the first couple of laps driving extra carefully until everything was up to temp. Paul and Dan were a second either side in the opening stages and I almost thought I could keep with Paul for a little while!  

As Paul started pulling away I was hoping to get a gap to Dan while Michael hassled him.... it worked for a few laps but when Paul disappeared from view my pace dropped a little... I don't know about anyone else but it felt like the tyres went through a graining stage. It seemed to understeer and take an age to get the power on in the long left-hander   Then it all felt good again and I had Dan glued to my gearbox until my pitstop.

Dan pipped me in the pitstops and came out just in front of me, after trying to overtake him I spun out of the hairpin and had a 5 sec gap to make up in the remaining 8-odd laps. I only just kept in front of Mike when he was alongside into T1 coming out the pit  

It was hard catching Dan when he was pretty much the same pace as me, it was just who made the least mistakes and he didn't so 3rd it was    

Grats Paul for a flawless drive.... and to Pops on 5th ....good Legends result  

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I don't know about anyone else but it felt like the tyres went through a graining stage.

Mine never had a grippy phase.

[Dan Minton]

Just watched that vid and i noticed how different the shape of the real front tyres are compared to the iRacing ones... theyve got that a bit wrong.

What, in real life? Tongue

Yeah theyve got the real ones wrong.


Good race that. I didnt really have the pace to beat Purdie on raw pace but i just made a better pitstop and made one mistake less.
My tyres went off after about 8 laps  and it took a few laps to get used to it.
Thought Mike was gonna pull a cheeky one and go all the way on one tank at one stage.
Cant be bothered to type anymore....

Grats to Paul different class mate.  

[purdie]

I don't know about anyone else but it felt like the tyres went through a graining stage.

Mine never had a grippy phase.

try this!

[Blunder]

Had been in Brum all day and only got back in time to run quali as if it was practice.
Ran very conservative, from the back as planned.
A couple of unforced half spins but was happy to finish without too many incidents.
I do like driving this car but I must admit that is it not as much fun when it takes all your concentration just to drive round conservatively
and get next to last place! 
Talent lacking!
Dissappointing that others seem to practice but not even bother starting for fear of ruining someone elses race 
Not ideal! Means that cars at my end of the field are on their own more.
I think that track is a tough one!
BTW, I did practice VIR by mistake for over a week! now that is great fun, car seems more manageable, to me anyway!
Might be worth considering for next season?

Cheers guys

M.

[Kerr]

I put a little practice in today and came up with a couple of setups.

Just finished my first qualifying sessions and squeezed a 1.18.6. I really hope to be mid 19s race pace with my setup too.


They are over at Team Shark site if you want a shot.

[Kerr]

Raced last night(the only race to go off so far) and won. I nearly chucked it away though.

I was 14 seconds ahead of P2 and 18 seconds ahead or 3rd place guy.

After the last few races I have been worried about how I'm getting thrashed at the pit stops and knew I better keep pushing.

I stopped at halfway. 2nd and 3rd went on through for another 2 or 3 laps. 2nd place then crashed out.

On my out lap I took my eye off the road and ran wide in the very long left hander. Having watched it time and again it cost me 6 seconds maximum. Certainly no more.

Put in a couple of good laps to make sure I would be ok but it was by the skin of my teeth.

The guy who was 3rd and 18 seconds behind had to back out when coming out the pits or he would have joined in my path. I think he thought about going too.

So maybe I lost 6 seconds for my daft off, but that is another 12 seconds wiped off me at the pit stops. I can't for the life of me see where I'm going wrong. Every race I'm getting murdered in the pits.

Managed to get race pace down to 1.20.0 last night but had another tweak or two of the setup and now it will post mid 19s all stint long. Not quite as easy to drive though as the rear wants to come around more at the two uphill right handers.

Again the set is at Team Shark.

[Paul968]

So was his car stationary for a much shorter time than your's Brian?

[Kerr]

I did not save or look back on the replay as it was 0230 and well past bed time.

My laps before the pit stop were good and my laps after other than the off were good.

This track has a more complex pit entry and again I made sure I was quick around the bend and up to the cones.

I'm baffled where this time has gone.

Every race at Road America I got done but noly once did I pit directly alongside another car to judge.

Without changing tyres and stopping 1sec behind my rival I lost 5 seconds that time.

I think I'm somehow losing 8-10 seconds per stop.

From now on I will save replays and review as there seems no randomness unless I'm the random one!

[Simon Gymer]

Perhaps they are starting with a full tank and then adding less fuel than you therefore

[Kerr]

Perhaps they are starting with a full tank and then adding less fuel than you therefore

At Road America there is little to play with on the fuel strategy. One click down on a full tank for me and some require the full tank. So it was not on the fuel front I'm dropping time. A couple of the races I did not change tyres either and was still slow.

Last night I started with 18gallons and added 17gallons. Fuel seems to take seconds once filling but I will need to do more test stops to check what advantage not adding a further 4 gallons gives.