Triple 7 Racing

Here you can post reports of how the qualifying and the race went for you.
or anything else after Round 4 is finished.

Well, It was a great race for me. Sure, I finished 16th, but I didn't ruin anyone's race(atleast I think), and I brought it home.

Good enough for me.

Generic greetings,

Thunderhead.

Thankfully thats the last of the RB4 - I hate it with a passion  :laughing7:

Quali - What can i say but baa humbug. 7 minute in and I put the car on it's roof after catching the kerb in the chicane at the wrong angle :sign12:. So nothing else to say

Race - Could have done better  ;) Sorry to those I bumped at the first corner at the start of the race my bad a schoolboy error (lost concentration and my braking point). The race overall was not too bad had a couple of little battles. Then the tyres were hot so tried to do consistent 1:26.5 laps. Towards the end kept catching Franky but then made little mistakes at the chicane and lost the time again.  :)

Conrats to the podium and to all the other races.

Meh, way of my PB in quali and can't really say why.  Started well and was going ok but then after my pit I was a second away from the times I should have been doing 1:25's instead of 1:26's and again I'm not sure why.

Tires were ok and I thought I was taking the same lines, braking points and what not but was a few tenths off on all my splits. 

Guess it's a concentration thing or something, not great to just drop back when you don't feel like you're going any slower ???

Congrats to Dadge tho.

I must admit that before the begin of the race I wasn't really motivated for this car, and therefor (and some other reasons) I didn't do much practice before the event, nor did I work out a setup. I downloaded flotch set from Inferno, tweak some small things and that was it.

Qualify went better than expected with finishing 2nd and improving my pb a lot.

Race, well that was about of the best races I had for a long time. Although I didn't had the fastest car I still managed to get in front at T1 and had pressure from behind till the end of the race. First 10 laps where just fighting with 3 cars for position while trying hard to keep my front tires at a reasonable temperature.
At some point I managed to get a few secs away, but lost it again with my awesome heel'n'toe technique...
With my tires heating more and more up I decided to do my pit and give them at least a few secs to cool of. When I got back on track I got directly behind another group of car of which I though they hadn't done their pitstop yet. I managed to pass BBO and with less and less laps to go I realised that these 2 had already done their stop and managed to sneak around me which left me with the 2nd place.

Great race :D

Qual went well considering I was way off the pace an hour previous and had just found some new speed, started 8th

Those around me got a better start and I lost a place before T1. There was a bottleneck at the first visit to the chicane which put Exodus, Luke and myself three abreast down the straight, I had the inside but was surprised to come out in front. Things settled down a bit with even gaps except Exodus was obviously quicker than me and bearing down on me. On lap 4 he had the toe down the straight and I was accepting he was going to take the place, unfortunately we touched at the turn-in which put me running wide on the grass. Exodus, being the gentleman he is, let me past in the next couple of corners. Unfortunately I had also lost 4 other places, yet he still did it – very sporting but too nice :)
I knew I’d be seeing him again later in the race.

I followed Franky for half a lap till he understeered at the esses. Exodus had caught up again as I was looking to get past Wardy, I got a pass when he understeered at T1 but Exodus had to fall behind him.

At this point (lap 8 ) I knew Exodus was going to pass me, it was only a matter of time, so concentrated my race on gAg who was 4.5 seconds ahead. My tyres were doing OK with just the inside edge hotter than optimum. It was a case of grinding out the laps through the middle stage of the race, creeping up on gAg and Exodus was a second behind. The middle section of the tyres got too hot and grip suffered. I decided not to contest a pass too hard when Exodus caught up because I didn’t want to be slowed down from my main aim of gAg. But of course Exodus didn’t know this and when he got in front he was driving defensively for a few laps till there was daylight between us.

I saw gAg go in the pits around lap 20 and planned on pitting later to give me as much time to affect a pass, always easier passing in the pit stops :)
Exodus pitted, Dadge was behind and I knew he had already pitted, so I was going to give up the place but then his pressure fell back a bit. When the gap to gAg was up to 22 seconds I came in on lap 28. Accelerating parallel to the main straight I saw I was going to meet two racers at the hairpin (who could the other one be?), and just nipped through before they could put the gas back on. Where’s gAg? It was Exodus and GreyBull I had just passed which was a shock, I was up to 6th!

The tyres had lost some tread and were therefore cooler again, which allowed me to put in some clean fast laps (for me) and keep the place till the finish. Great racing and a better finish than I expected.

I give myself a 4/5.

1-  finish race:   check

2-  don't finish last:   

3-  don't mess anyone else's race:    check

4-  don't get a penalty:    check

5-  don't spill drink in my lap:    check

not a bad race me finx. qually went ok i guess. alot of people where faster than me and i felt that i would be lucky to make it into the top 10. i think i finished qually in 7th place so everything looked like a damage limitation exercise for me. my main goal was to qually and finish ahead of pingo. as he was not on the server i had less pressure and was able to relax during the race.
during the race i got off to a good start. i was at the back of the main group of cars (about 5th) and i was catching BBO. we swapped position once in T1 where i out braked him but left a RB4 sized gap on the apex to which BBO slid into and regained the position. a few laps later he pitted. this gave me the chance to leapfrog him when i pitted. so i closed the gap to Greybull when meant that i had passed BBO. i felt that Greybull would of held me up so i pitted. this is the c losest pit i have ever had. i made sure i didn't cross any pit lines and stopped as planned. the split to BBO was just over 16 seconds so i knew it was going to be close. a bit to close if you ask me. i pulled out of the pits and rejoined the track with bbo behind me. he was so close that when i rejoined he was right in my slipstream.
now that BBO was behind me i got down to the business of catching the leaders. i knew that i needed to get within 16 seconds of three jump in order to take the lead. he was 18 seconds and dropping. i kept putting in the laps and BBO was keeping up too. he was no less than 2 seconds behind me throughout the race. on lap 18 i think, three jump must of had a small accident as i gained 2 seconds on him to bring him 14 seconds ahead of me. this meant that i would leap him when he pitted. for what felt like for ever i waited on three jump and max to pit. then they did. first three jump and on the last available lap max pitted too. this put me in the lead with a 2.5 second lead to three jump. i had three laps left and i didn't want to blow it. so, i reduced my pace to make sure the car lasted. this meant three jump was catching me but i made sure it was not at a rate that would put me under any pressure on the last lap.

all in all, it turned out to be a very good race. just goes to show what a good pit strategy can do for you :)
did someone say XFR?

Qualification

Well i cannot be unhappy with my result. I basically got close to my pb on one of my first laps so the pressure to do better was not getting worse after every botched lap  :icon_tongue:
Ended up getting myself pretty far up the grid for the race

Race

Race started pretty well with action from the start. Gavin, Luke and myself 3 abreast down the back straight was going to be interesting and i decided to brake early and not make a mess of things.  Couple laps later though i had the inside line on Gavin into the same corner and made a completely stupid mistake and came back across on Gavin nudging him to touch the grass on braking.  I always slow when i take someone out....unless i do a superb job and get you on your roof  :D

Lost a lot of places and a big set back but Gavin and i had some very good pace and stated out way back through the field. Gavin was smoothly driving past people setting them offline and making a nice easy overtake for me too on occasions  :laughing7:. I was catching Gavin a few times and loosing time on the exit of the first chicane always letting him get that gap where i couldn't draft enough. Finally i got it right and then wanted to get going as i thought Gavin would stick with me. In turn i started trying a little to hard and was making a mess and having to drive defensive offline. 

Come the pit i thought i honestly had a good enough gap to Gavin. Pitted and left and had a good exit  putting me right behind GreyBull. Gavin pitted and i could see him over the wall as i was driving up to T1. He put his foot right down and came flying out just in front of me, i was on his bumper it was that close!!! Think i need to hire Gavin's pit crew because that is twice this season he has jumped me on the pit  :twisted:

The race to the end was good with me overtaking GreyBull around the outside on the turn after the back straight and an effort trying to get to Gavin again.

Was a great race! Thanks for the entertaining drive all and a eventful race Gavin, really sorry about the nudge! Who knows where you would of finished if i hadn't made the mistake.

My Penalty

Chatting in the race....dammit!  :wacko: Didn't even know i had done it after Jan told me! Was concentrating on the race way to much!

Congrats to Dadge! Super performance, well deserved win!

What a race. The race's just keep on getting better and better.

Qualification:

Had hard time on deciding the fine tuning of my setup. Then went with my race set in the quali, to get more used to it. Quite nicely 3rd allthough 0.2s off my pb, but not so bad.

Race:

Was quite confident about my race setup and pace. So was aiming for the win :D. And what a race it ended up to be. Really tight figting in the top three for 16 or so laps. Changing places starting from lap 1. I think i tried really hard to pass 3 jump for about 10 laps, giving him really mad pressure tailing like grazy, but he didn't leave any openings. Allways keeping the inside tightly. Don't remember on wich lap, but max managed to take us both and was first for a while. Then we catched up again and 3 jump got past and now the one i was chacing was max. So no improvement for me there. He drove exactly the same way as 3 jump great defending everywhere.

I think they both had softer and higher suspension than me so they ended up getting better exit thourgh T2 and to the longest straight so clearly i lost there. Was really hoping to stick close there, but every time lost slightly in the exit of T2. So after i think three tries to pass with max i decided to pit. Well in the middle of fighting for the positions slight touches had occurred :) and the car was little bit damaged. Remembered that i had turned the repair off before the race like i usually do. So you can guess the amount of cursing when i pitted and the clock just seemed to take forever 1 2 3.... 12.

So way too far behind. So just hotlapping madly and trying to gain us much as possible in the hopes that there would be somebody with problems or something. Managed to pass Gag and Greybull and ended up 5th. In the end 10sec gap to the leader...


I'd say good result considering the pitstop, but upset about that mistake  :BangHead:. Going to double check next time for sure. XFR next the front tire eating flipping monster.

Gongrats to Dadge, really well timed pitstop  :mrgreen:

Quali:
This time I didn't really practised much for the race and got a set from Exodus 2 days ago.
Tweaked it a bit here and there and was able to do 1:24.36 in the afternoon in front of the TDC.
In the qualyfication I did 0.2s slower and the 4th place was OK. 

Race:
My plan was to stay out as long as possible but all went wrong  :laughing7:
I passed Biaggi in T1 (woohoo 3rd) and was passed again by him (hm 4th again), I tried to pass him again and run wide in lap 2 and then GreyBull also passed me there (oh no 5th).

Then I was kind of stuck behind GreyBull and Dadge made lots of pressure from behind. He passed me but I counterattacked and passed again. But GreyBull was still right in front of me and I thought he will slow me down and the next time I try to pass him, Dadge will also maybe pass me if it went wrong, so I switched my pit strategy to an early stop and pitted in lap 5.

I came out right behind PM Hasse but could pass him quickly, then in lap 8 I could see Dadge coming out of the pits and thought "oh no not again" but he was in front by 7 tenth of a second at the 1st split.

At the end of the lap when he passed Deano and Franky who pitted in front of him I was on his back again but I tried to not attack him this time, as I know you loose more overall time then you gain.

I kept an eye on my and his tires and mine were looking way better so I thought "stay in your rythem and don't push your tires to hard Bernd". But in lap 14 I somehow mis-shifted and my clutch went red (Oh no). I tried to drive more carefull for the next couple of laps to get the red colour back to orange. During that Dadge was away by a bit over 2 seconds.

Then I saw Jouman standing in the pits in lap 16 and wondered if he will get new tires or something as it took so long.

In the next laps I could hold the distance to Dadge and thought "hopefully he will loose some time when he closes up with P1LOT and Exodus" and he did in lap 26 after we both passed 3j (in the pits) I was only ~1 second away but soon after that both T7R guys in front of him pitted.

Then I started to calculate and asked myself to much questions (starting to think about the racing itself is a bad thing while racing but sometimes it happens  :lol:). I wondered if 3j got new tires as his tires looked as good as mine and then I made one little mistake after another. Breaked a bit to late here, slided there and 3j was coming closer and closer.

To not risk anything (as 3j is often not knowing any friend or foe when he wants to pass  :icon_tongue: ) I opend the door and let him through. I thought I can catch up and use the draft to maybe also pass Biaggi who was about to pit during that lap, instead of loosing time while fighting with Three Jump.

But unlucky for me Biaggi came out of the pits right in front of me and drove between me and three jump. Then on the straights in this lap he got slipstream from 3j (that was my plan :'() and I couldn't catch up again.

In the end I was only 0.75 seconds behind. And I found it funny that we three (3j,Biaggi and me) all got a 1:24.91 fastest lap. A 4th place is better then nothing and so I say it was a good race but I have to work on these little mistakes that have cost me again the podium.

I know, but I don't care :D And I didn't hear anyone saying "Let Bernd pass for the Championchip"....  :laughing7:

That just shows that we don't use Teamspeak in these races or have any team orders and are called T7R instead of Ferrari  :laughing7:
btw
I didn't meant it in a bad way. In fact I like your uncompromising passing efforts, I wish I could do it like this.
But it's different when you still can fight for the podium in the championship and have to think about points
or when you just drive for the fun of a race where you can risk everything as you won't loose really much if it goes wrong.