Japanese Grand Prix - Race Report

Post below...

Qualifying - 1st
I saw that it was going to rain in the race so I decided to go out on the Options. Tried to sort a bit of a Wet Setup out for the race but I had no idea without testing on a wet track (As you would have guessed I had no practice of a Wet Japan Track). All in all happy with my time and put in a 1.26.221 YET ANOTHER POLE!

Race - 2nd
Pretty dissapointed to be honest cause I could have won comfortably if it wasn't for a couple of mistakes. (Watch Race Edit). Had a decent start, it looked like DarkPSI did as well but I managed to keep 1st. I built a 1 second lead for around 7 laps. On lap 8 going up to Spoon Curve, I went slightly wide and went onto the outer kerb. It just totally grabbed hold of me and caused me to spin losing about 8 seconds to Dark. I decided to pit at the end of that Lap to get some fresh boots on and put some decent laps in to try and get close to Dark. Pitted as planned and came out a few seconds behind Capain. After a lap I got passed him on the back straight but going through 130R he glitched ahead of me. I stayed behind him through the chicane and he peeled into the pits which released me to push onto Darks back. I stayed there for the rest of that stint trying to save fuel but it was just not working. We were within 1 second all of the stint.

We both pitted on Lap 18? In hindsight I probably should have pitted a Lap later because I was faster than him and that would have released me to put a good lap in. Again we kept within 1 second all stint. On Lap 22 we were both closing in on DizzyMind to lap him on the back straight. He couldn't have realised and he held Dark up through 130R and the chicane, I thought this was my time to pounce. I did. I was a little bit to eager with putting the throttle down and using KERS as well. It caused me to spin and lose time on Dark. It was by that time I conceded and was happy with 2nd. I still pushed the last few laps just in case he made a mistake. By the last lap I was right up behind him again. I just decided to put it into Mix 3 as I had nothing to lose really but unfortunately I ran out of fuel on the back straight, maybe if I had a little more fuel I might have took him. Who knows?

All in all pretty dissapointed as I should and probably would have won if it wasnt for them to mistakes. 18 points anyway with only 1 race left in the Championship which means I have won the World Drivers Championship for 2011!!! Just need to put in a good performance to get the WCC as well!

Race Report DarkPSI - Suzuka Japan

Qualy:
As rain was predicted for the race almost everybody was going for options in qualy.
I really had problems to make a good lap on options, and was nearly one second slower than on the primes in free practice. But except of cookster everybody seems to struggle a little bit,so I was 2nd which was a good result.

Race:
First of all I want to recommend to watch the cookster's race edit, as he cut the video very good so that you can see all important situations regarding the fight for win in the race.
It was raining which was good as I always like rainy conditions. I had a good start and could nearly catch for first position but cookser also start very good so I was 2nd after turn 1. Very soon in the first lap Crankshaft braked to late in the hairpin, so I had a big gap behind me and could concentrate on my race with cookster.
The first 2 rounds were needed to anticipate the track conditions and cornering speeds, braking points etc.
I was able to follow cookster in a one second gap, but was never in the position to overtake him,as he was too fast. Luckily he had here and there some little oversteer moments which helped in holding the gap. In Lap 8 he came in turn 13 (spoon) with the rear tyres to far onto the curbs (green tarmac) and spun.
As I was driving the first 8 laps behind him, I had really problems in finding the right reference points for braking and lost some time.
Luckily overtaking is very difficult on this circuit especially in rain and with the topspeed of my renault I felt comfortable in sector 3.
At the end of the race I had some "nice" moments with backmarkers. Especially Dizzy had fallen asleep in the merc :-) Cookster had almost overtaken me in this situation and for my luck had an oversteer moment during acceleration, which rescued my position. After that I tried to drive the race home which worked quiet well. Thanks goes to the team.

Qualifying - 3rd

After wasting 5 minutes of the 15 by eating slices of bread from a fresh loaf Mother Crank had bought from Sainsbury's, I was calmly preparing to do my normal 2-lap run on Primes. However, I by chance noticed the race was going to be wet, and this induced a moment of panic as I hashed together an appropriate setup. After all this, I realised I had 2 minutes left of the session to do a timed lap. Under pressure, bunged some soft tyres on, loaded up my setup. Got out there, BOOM, managed to blag 3rd with a decent 1:28.0 by my standards

Race - 3rd

Stressing about making a wet setup proved to be a complete waste of time, as I mindlessly selected my normal dry setup regardless, forgetting that the race was wet in the first place

Got a good start as always, but with the run to the first corner being short and the track wet, I didn't try a silly move to utilise it. Was running well for the first sector of the lap, until I slightly out braked myself at the hairpin, ran wide onto the grass, resultantly dropping down to 6th place.Thereafter, the race turned into a very close scrap between Wootton, MickW, Raave and myself; with us all being covered by no more than 4 seconds for the first 13 laps or so. Was surprised by how early MickW and Raave pitted for their first tyre change on lap 6, and managing to get mine up to the end of Lap 10 really got me back in the game. Indeed, managing to do a 2-stop race proved helpful to achieving my final position. The latter part of the race turned into a great duel with Wootton, with us both closing up and pulling away from each other at various points, as we both used different fuel mixtures and treated our tyres differently. Our battle was cut short, when he spun coming through the last corner with 3 laps to go - doing immensely well to save it I might add; but I was certainly pleased to seize 3rd place, in what was actually my first ever wet race around Suzuka on f12011 haha

I look forward to Korea and whatever cars we have all been allocated for Season 2

All the best,
Capt_Crankshaft

Quali: 4th
Race: 5th

Qualified a bit better than expected. So thought that i would have a good chance to grab the 3rd place in the race. But things didn't turn out as good as i hoped.
Had a good start and a clean first lap. But on lap 2 i outbreaked myself in the hairpin and ended up the in the gravel. Then on lap 3 i did the same mistake again in the same corner.
Wery angry with myself at that point. Lost many positions on those two mistakes.
Did follow the strategy that the game set up. But i should probably had gone a bit longer on my first stint.
Had a great battle for 5th place with my team mate in the last half of the race. I were around 1-2 seconds behind him, for what seem to be around 15 laps or so..
On the last lap i managed to get really close to him, and in the last chicane on the last lap he finally did a mistake. And i managed to pass him.
Felt like a little victory after been chasing him for so long :-)

Ravve__

i dont want to write a report because my race totaly sucked ass after being taken off losing my wing, partialy my fault partialy somebody else's fault. I practiced way to much and lost all my motivation after Japanese grand prix. that's about it.