First race of the season!

Our insecure F1 driver Friedrich Bang took the seat of Eddie Irvine at Jordan and started the season with hopes of a points finish in Interlagos, Brazil!

Autódromo José Carlos Pace

This blog post contains front wings, rear wings and spoilers, so I you want to check out the race first, here it is:

We probably wont be fighting for victories this season. The AI is very fast, it's insanely hard to drive with wheel and pedals and no driving aids and not to make any mistakes. And also we have a handicap: I've set the car performance team dependent in GP2 Edit so the Hart V10 engine of our Jordan lacks about 70-80 horsepower compared to the front running teams.

I chose Jordan because the car is relatively competitive but also quite reliable. I have mechanical failures enabled so we don't want to drive with a bomb :D

So we'll have two goals for the season: Win our team-mate Rubens Barrichello and bring Jordan a top 5 finish in the constructors championship. The same result they got in real life in 1994.

We are no match to the Williamses nor the Benetton of Michael Schumacher but we should be able to fight for points. I guess our main rival for the 5th place might be Tyrrell.

Interlagos

I had practiced the track beforehand and felt quite confident with the car and the track. Usually I would choose a quite conservative and balanced setup when I drive with a racing wheel. It's so easy to spin the car with a normal GP2 “keyboard” setup where you have a lot of wing up front, but low rear wing. Those setups are very fast but work best with a keyboard at least in a full-length race since the steering help doesn't allow you to attack the corners too hard.

This time however I decided to go with the aggressive setup, simply because it was way faster. Also I'm quite familiar with Interlagos so I thought I could deal with low rear downforce by being careful in the dangerous places.

Qualifying

Qualifying went well and I got a great starting position as we got to the 5th place on the grid! Schumacher and Hill started from the first row, then Ferraris of Berger and Alesi. Somehow we managed to beat the Williams of David Couldhard which was a big surprise! Our team-mate Barrichello started from 8th position so things looked promising for Jordan.

Qualifying results

Race

Decided to take the 2 stop strategy for the race. Just sounded conservative and safe. And I know I should research the strategies more.

The start was not too great. I didn't bog the engine nor did I have too much wheel spin but non the less I dropped down three places. One of the cars that flew past was Rubens. Soon I got past Mika Hakkinen who lacked the pace.

Barrichello was very fast in the beginning as were many of the other cars around us. I was a bit off-pace and started to suspect that others were running lighter in the beginning. Also I felt very insecure and didn't trust the car one bit. I started to doubt if the aggressive and oversteery setup was the right choice for the race. There were few moments I nearly spun the car and it felt exhausting to keep my focus at all times.

My suspicions proved correct as the cars around us started to pit during the 3 stop pit window. So that's why I was off the pace, others were running lighter! I still had 10 laps worth of fuel in the tank. I got up to 4th place and it started to look very much possible to get some points from the race! However I still didn't feel too comfortable and now the rear tires started to feel a bit worn as well.

And then came lap nr. 19. In the exit of corner 13 I accelerated just a little bit too hard. The worn rear tires lost the grip, I couldn't save it and I spun. The spin itself was recoverable but unfortunately someone (might have been the Sauber of Frenzen) hit us from behind and we lost the right rear tire. Race over :(

That sucked.

A sad ending to the race

In the future races I'll probably have to compromise more with the car setup. We'll have to use more balanced setups because I'll need to have more trust to the car. It means we'll loose some speed but to get points we'll have to finish races!

In Interlagos I wasn't in my best form, I had problems concentrating and felt shaky and insecure. Partly this is because of the skaty and snappy car setup and partly because of tiredness (our new-born baby keeps me awake some). I guess theres also pressure from the live-stream since it felt better when I practiced by myself. Can't come up with more excuses for now, must get back to you on that.

Next we're going to Aida and I hate the track. Expecting 0 points and a horrible race. So there's something to look forward to.

Cheers and thanks everyone for participating in Youtube, it's been great fun to share the sim racing nostalgia!