Well done on the win Tom. FMG's race report was so good I am going to watch the replay myself soon
I was interested to read that you use first gear at the hairpin (I presume you mean Leeukop?). I don't use first anywhere at Kyalami which I suppose is a waste of a gear. Was your idea to sacrifice speed off the line by having shorter gaps between the gears once you were up and running?
Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
Usually I use to do as Tim say. 1 st as getaway gear then rest for the track. anyways on this track I found I had to compromise too much. I wouldn t like to have second shorter than it was the way I used it and I remembered I had a tendency to loose ground there last race. a high 1st there gave me a good turn in (not too good wich is dangerous) and a decent torque at exit. The fact that I had too shift twice at the short straight after was actually a trade off but putting it straight to 3 rd (H shifter) (wich I had to have that high to stretch it all the way to the hairpin and also not get a too big gap up to 4 th) became a too big gap. 4 th I had to have as it was to stretch it down towards the right turn before the hairpin. if I used 5th there I would either have to make it so short that the gap to 6 th would be too high or just loose time on that shift. I did not like to have to shift in the middle of the fast lefthander ( that would be t3)
lots off words as usual trade off trade off.
I can t give a straight yes to your question because the alternative would be to not use 1 st there at all, but lets just say it was easier to go fast there with a high 1 st so I was faster in average.But yes I did sacrifice the speed off the line. with a peerfect entry I think to keep it in second would be just as fast if not faster, but I tended to go wide or cut kerb too often. This race I didn t loose ground there . ..xpt when I tried to enter defending once with Tim behind me
defending entry means bad exit so he passed me right after anyway hehe, but a defending entry in second would mean very low revs, or use a very low 1 st there would often result in twitchy entry, very careful with acc on exit and actually have to shift up a big gap to second before exit was done completely.
You can look a bit on how it worked if you take time to look at rpy. I even think I used to gain a bit on gøran in the hairpin but I might have to eat those words. At least I didn t loose anything.
Can also put in that I was a bit scared to put 2 nd shorter cause a possible aggressive turn in at t1 when shifting down, although others might have had full control there anyway. Its down to driving style and how I use the clutch and H shifter. I also liked to have 2 nd as it was for possible side by sides down to t2 and a somewhat close gap between 2 nd and third.And can t forget about the last twitchy segment and final turn either lol.
omg I guess I could have made my point using a 10 nth off all these words.H made a good point,he was talking about 5 gear boxes, but I think it also applies here.Tims point of more shifting mean more time in neutral is also good.I like to be able to not shift up just before a brakedown. tell me if you had patience to read my hole post.
