Archive for the ‘Spa-Francorchamps’ Category

iRacing World Tour 2011 – Belgian Grand Prix

Sunday, 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.

Real Vs. Virtual – #12 Spa-Francorchamps

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

Spa-Francorchamps

Today iRacing released their highly anticipated digital recreation of the famous racing circuit Spa-Francorchamps. A fantastic track with many world famous corners! To have access to a laser scanned Spa is extremely exciting and to mark its release I’ve produced number 12 in my Real Vs. Virtual series.

Here is the comparison in video form :

A static page containing all the source images can be seen here, and you can see the previous sets in the series by clicking here.

A Slew of New iRacing Information

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Last week iRacing held an open day at their office, inviting members the chance to see where the majority of iRacing staff work and a rare insight into how the service is managed. The lucky visitors were treated to a great tour of the office and had the opportunity to sit with key iRacing staff as they discussed future developments on the horizon.

A huge quantity of media (both video and still photos) came out in the days following the open day and here is a selection of some of the footage that made it out.

Dave Kaemmer explains the highly anticipated tyre model

Video footage of the forthcoming tyre model in action

A general overview of the day with key insights from Dave Kaemmer & Ian Berwick, previews of the new shadow rendering methods and Spa track progress!

Race footage from the forthcoming F1 and MX5 vehicles

More footage from the Williams F1

Finally, an official iRacing preview video of the MX5 cup and roadster vehicles, arriving in time for season 4 (just a few weeks away)

Quite enough video footage for one post – season 4 can’t come soon enough!