iRacing

I think Brands Hatch might be one of the most anticipated road courses, at least for us UK / Euro iRacers.

Here’s a taster of what we might get with an onboard lap of Brands in a Radical SR3.

After 3 pretty poor results in a row in the Radical, any chance for me to grab a top 3 finish in the division was all but gone.

There wasn’t a lot of time to practice the Miami Homestead Road Course ‘A’ this week either and my very poor qualifying time reflected that so it wasn’t with a great deal of hope that I entered the last race of the week in the Radical.

After the horrible start last week at Sebring and the subsequent drop in my SR to below 4.99, my pre-race strategy was going to be to start from the pits and try to have  a clean race and see if I could pick up some places along the way. I was very surprised to find myself sitting on 8th spot on the grid (14 entrants) when entering the race.

So, a change of strategy was needed as it looked like I could pick up a reasonable number of points with a decent race.

Somewhat nervously, I waited for the green light. Unusually, I managed to get away pretty well (I lost one spot) and seemingly so did everyone else as the start was almost flawless as we headed safely through turn 1. Phew!

A few mistakes over the first couple of laps left me in 6th spot with the top 5 haring away from the rest of the field. I got into a groove fairly quickly and was consistently putting in reasonable lap times although a few guys behind were slowly putting the pressure on. My consistency paid off as the race wore on they started to drop away after mistakes leaving just one driver to worry about sitting a few seconds beind me in 7th.

With 15 laps of the 40 to go the driver in 5th suddenly appeared a few seconds ahead after a mistake. I closed the gap to 2s as we hit a couple of backmarkers and the leader came round to lap us. Unfortunately he did a lot better job of negotiating the traffic and the gap was up to an insurmountable 10s with 10 laps to go.

The driver behind had dropped back after a mistake but pushed me hard over the remaining laps and finished just over a second behind at the chequered flag.

A very satisfying 6th place, SR back over 4.99, +27 iRating and 62 points to put me up to 5th place in my division.

I was quite optimistic about getting a good result at VIR this week but unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way.

Only 12 lined up for the race, the minimum needed to make it official, and generally, the other drivers were shockingly fast! I was way down 9th on the grid and facing an uphill battle.

Usually, I count on my consistency in these situations, VIR isn’t the easiest of tracks so I thought I’d pick up a few places along the way due to others mistakes.

Once again, I lost a place at the start and immediately struggled to follow the car ahead who was running very different lines and braking points than I was used to and I was completely unable to find my rythym and get into the flow of the race.

Despite being a little quicker, I couldn’t make a pass and although we picked up a couple of places, I wasn’t feeling very comfortable.

Eventually, with me closely following, he made a mistake and went wide, catching a wheel on the grass and spinning off. I’d gone wide to avoid him which meant I was on the wrong line on the next turn which I got completely wrong and slid off myself, deep into the grass, losing a lot of time and dropping me back to 10th.

Chasing down 9th place, who I  passed without incident, I was once again chasing down the same driver in 8th who I caught but again was unable to pass.

With a few laps to go, needing all the points I could muster, I went in too deep into T3 and left the track, once again dropping me to 10th which I finished the race.

Leaving the track twice is absolutely pathetic, I didn’t deserve to finish any higher and the stats bear that out;

A mere 25 points and -39 iRating (down to 1608). My SR probably took a little hit too with 5 incident points.

Some horrible driving at the start of a recent Radical race at VIR. Not being able to pass cleanly when you are already side-by-side is unacceptable in my view.

Guys with A, B or C licenses should be capable of a LOT better than this;

I had the chance to hit Laguna Seca early this week in the Radical so jumped at the opportunity. Laguna is one of my favourite tracks and has generally been a happy hunting ground in iRacing.

Even though I’m in lowly division 8 in the Radical I’m having to work hard to keep in contention and missing Infineon last week means I need a great second half of the season if I’m going to get a good finish.

I was looking good in practice, putting in the 15th fastest timetrial of the week and a pretty competitive qualifying time.

A relatively small field of 14 took to the track with me sitting in 6th on the grid. I’d have probably taken 6th place at that point!

A terrible start lost me 2 places immediatly going into T1 but the 2 cars that overtook me collided and I narrowly avoided one of them to get back up to 7th. It immediately became clear the top 5 were significantly faster than the rest of us so it looked like I was in a scrap for 6th.

We were pulling away from the rest of the field and it became apparent I was slightly quicker than 6th so started looking for opportunities. After a few laps, the driver in front was getting into a rythym and increased his pace a little but not so much to pull away from me. He was a little ragged in places though and on lap 8 he took too much kerb coming out of Turn 11 and slewed across the track losing a lot of speed which enabled me to out-drag him along the start/finish straight and regain 6th albeit 15s behind 5th.

I was able to maintain a fair gap to the cars behind but I was by no means safe. Fortunately there was a major incident behind which increased the gap to 10s so I was feeling pretty comfortable at half way.

On lap 20 I passed one of the leaders sitting in the pits which put me up into 5th. The rest was pretty comfortable with a mix of incidents and back-markers increasing the gap to the rest of the field.

My first top 5 finish of the season!

91 points has put me right back in contention in my division and +49 to my iRacing has put me a shade off the 1700 mark. No incidents rounded off a fine race!

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• A top 10 at last in the Radical! (popabawa.net)
• Some success at Road America (popabawa.net)

After finishing 12th at Daytona and 11th at Silverstone I was still hunting for my first top 10 finish of the season in the Radical when we headed to Wisconsin and Road America.

With a trip to Budapest planned this week I had to get a race much earlier in the week than usual. I managed to front-load my practice time for once and set a 2:04.5 qualifying time.

This put me 9th on the grid, my highest start of the season but being early in the week I guessed a few guys behind would be quick.

On front of me on the grid was team-mate Don so I had an extra incentive to race hard. Turned out I raced a little too hard on lap 1…

The start went well, I managed not to lose any places which is unusual and quickly realised the guys in front were a little tentative so I wasn’t feeling too comfortable being forced to brake earlier than I wanted to try to give them room.

I got a great run on Don out of the Kink and was pulling alongside coming up to Canada Corner. I didn’t quite have enough speed to pass so started to ease off a little early intending to tuck in behind Don and follow him through. Turns out I left full braking way too late and horrified, ploughed straight past Don, tyres smoking trying to stop. Unfortunately, he clipped my rear and damaged his car while I was undamaged but re-joining back down in 18th.

I quickly picked up a few places in the next couple of laps passing the slower guys and suddenly jumped up to 10th after, what I assume, was  a big accident.

Picking up the pace with a clear track I started to gain on the cars in front. I then had a titanic battle over the next 8-9 laps to move up to 7th and right on the tail of 6th. I was about a second quicker but just could not pass. For 10 laps I was within a second but just couldn’t manufacture an opening. That was probably the most rewarding session I’ve had in iRacing, fighting tooth and nail.

Coming up with 2 laps to go I was considering my options when we quickly caught and passed the guy in 5th who was clearly having problems. 6th would be  great finish so I decided to not try anything too silly and was fairly content to finish there although I pushed as hard as I dared finishing just 0.8s behind.

So, that was my best finish – 6th, highest points – 85 and a +49 on my iRating so a gratifying result but my spirits were severely dampened by seein Don only finish 10th after he was forced to reset after my mistake.

Some highlights of my last race at Silverstone in the Radical SR8. There wasn’t a huge amount of incident in the race (a good thing) but that doesn’t make the best video I guess!

There’s a few of us running the same colours as we’ve raced together for a number of years. I hope we get the ability to form teams in iRacing at some point.

Legends at Silverstone from Iain Mabbott on Vimeo.

I seemed to be going fairly well at Silverstone in the Radical SR8 this week in practice so I was looking forward to racing last night.

A fairly large field of 23 drivers took to the grid for the 30 lap race. I was sitting in 10th at the start and being the #19 ranked driver I knew this was a pretty good opportunity to pick up some points and iRating.

I got off to a bit of a slow start but only lost one place down to 11th which I immediately picked up again and started to settle into the race.

After 5-6 laps I started to close very slowly on the driver in front, taking a few 10ths out of him each lap, reducing the gap from 4s to 2s on lap 12. Coming out of the Farm turn and heading to Bridge, he got a wheel off track and span, thankfully leaving the racing line and a big gap for me to pass.

I was passed a couple of times to drop me to 11th which I could do nothing about, the guys in front were way too quick.

For the rest of the race I was able to manage the gap to team-mate Adam Parle 5-7s behind through the traffic of the lapped cars to take 11th place which I was really happy with.

A whopping 81 points is the best I’ve managed in the Radical, +0.19 SR takes me to the magic 4.99 and +32 on my iRating.

Check out the new screenshots page here for larger versions;

http://blog.popabawa.net/?page_id=591

After the poor performance in week 1 at Sebring I was looking for an improvement at Daytona this week on the road course.

Practice was in pretty short supply but what I managed went well and without being super-quick I was pretty consistently in the 1:47’s with my race set-up so I suspected I could get a decent result if I could translate that consistency to the race.

Despite posting a qualification time only 0.1s slower than my PB I was down in 14th on the grid (22 starters).

The start was pretty messy. The driver in front of me got a terrible start so I was forced to slow right down which caused a concertina effect behind me leading to some contact which I was lucky to escape unscathed. The pause at the start let some of the other guys get a run on me and I lost a LOAD of places going into T1. This turned out to be a blessing as the exit out of T1 was almost blocked by stationary cars facing in all directions. I had time to tip-toe through the carnage and found myself up to 13th at the end of lap 1.

Even though I was a little way off my anticipated pace I was pulling away from the guys behind and keeping pace with the guys ahead. As mid-race approached I was up to 10th place with a big 30s gap back to 11th.

I’d have taken a top 10 finish at the start of the race that’s for sure so I upped the concentration levels for the last half of the race.

I was slowly catching 9th place until we caught some backmarkers that caused me a lot more problems and dropped me back a few seconds with a few laps to go so I decided to not push and cruise it for the last few laps.

On the very last lap, coming through the chicane on the back stretch for the very last time I lost connection. Disaster! I only lost 2 places but I was gutted to lose my top 10 position.

An incident free race game me a whopping +0.19 of the SR so I’m slowly gettign back to where I was at the start of the season.