iRacing World Tour 2011 – Belgian Grand Prix

August 28th, 2011

Close encounters at the final chicane

The next event in the iRacing 2011 World Tour recreates the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix. Run on the same weekend as the real world series, this event sees the first time that the iRacing FW31 is used in a World Tour event.

Last years World Tour had a similar event to coincide with the British Grand Prix but unfortunately the FW31 wasn’t released fast enough to be used, so we used the Lotus 79 for a classic style event (my race writeup for that event is here).

363 racers participated in the event, forming 14 individual race events. I started 10th in my split (the fourth split). I was pretty concerned about getting wrecked in turn one (especially as I had been looking forward to this race for a long time and had put a lot of practice in) and sure enough it was a very messy start. Luckily I picked my way through the spinning cars and no-one hit my car.

I settled into what turned out to be a really enjoyable race. I had decided to go for a one stop strategy and it turned out that a lot of the field had chosen two stop strategies. So as the race progressed the cars that drove away into the distance at the start eventually came back into play once the pit stops had worked their way out.

In the final third of the race I checked the race order and found that I was in a very good position – all the cars ahead of me had another stop to make. Sure enough, I soon found myself in first place with a 10+ second lead, and brought it home for a very memorable win!

Belgian Grand Prix results (iRacing members only!)

Started : 10th of 26
Finished : 1st, 142 points (1 incident pt)
iRating : +50
Safety Rating : A/4.98 (+0.34)

There is a similar World Tour event in October to coincide with the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka – a great track.

Posted in AT&T Williams FW31, Race Report, Spa-Francorchamps, iRacing, iRacing World Tour | Comments Off

Racing Rivals v1.2.2 released

August 5th, 2011

An updated version of Racing Rivals was released today featuring support for the latest version of the iRacing membersite (2011 Season 3 build).

The update is required in order to support the latest implementation of the iRacing friend/studied lists feature. Download the latest version 1.2.2 of Racing Rivals here.

I am also working on the feature list for the next major version of Racing Rivals which will include a wider variety of graphs and statistics reporting, along with bugfixes and sought after improvements. Look for that release later this year.

Finally, Racing Rivals is the product of hundreds of hours of development and maintenance, and is provided completely free of charge to the iRacing community. If you have found Racing Rivals useful, please consider donating to assist continued development – thanks!


Posted in New Build, Racing Rivals, iRacing | Comments Off

How to go from first -> last inside 10 seconds…

July 1st, 2011

Facing left to navigate a right hander

For the first time since 2008 (when I raced in the Advanced Solstice) I am in the hunt for an overall series win in iRacing. Racing in the multiclass Grand Touring Cup series I have been racing the MX5 against the often faster Jetta cars and have been picking up some good results which has me in a very strong shape for a top three finish when the season finishes in a month or so.

So it was with regret that a vital Silverstone race during week 9 resulted in a messy lap 3 wreck that saw my position tumble from the class pole position all the way down to 13th in my class (20th overall), and firmly last.

Realising that the Jetta drivers always have a powerful launch against the under-powered MX5 cars I tried to signal my intent to take the inside line for the first right hander at Silverstone (directing faster Jettas to pass on my left) but it seems this wasn’t received by the Jetta behind, as he put us three wide going into a fast turn 1. A moment later, another car clipped my rear quarter panel sending me into a spin and out into the weeds.

I was seeing red as I had been looking at a strong win (I was on class pole, and had a clear pace advantage over the second place runner) so with a tight grip on my wheel I set about seeing how far I could catch up. After half a lap of frantic driving I was surprised to see that the class leader hadn’t been able to scutter into the distance (the erratic Jettas around him had seen to that) and I was only around five seconds back, albeit with several hard racing cars in between.

I did my best to dice through the field and eventually fought my way to second place, on lap 4 of 19. I was five seconds back, and around 1-2 tenths faster per lap than the leader. It would be tough.

Racing hard, I had some success and managed to slowly claw my way back within two seconds with a few laps to go, but it was not to be as a rogue Jetta (one lap down and in 15th place no less) had caught up to me and started racing me (for no gain to his race as he was far far back from his next competitor). His wild moves and general disarray slowed my progress and allowed my race rival to trot into the distance uncontested in some nice clear air.

Had I been able to convert this mess into a win it would surely have been my greatest victory in iRacing, but as it was it remains just one interesting event and a reminder of what could have been.

Here’s a short race highlights clip of the initial spin and mission to get back through the field.

iRacing Grand Touring Cup race results (iRacing members only!)

Posted in Mazda MX5, Race Report, Silverstone International, Video Footage, iRacing | Comments Off

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