The evening started out as a bit of a disaster for me. I joined and put in some qualifying laps. As usual I attempted a pitstop to check all was well. I couldn't get the patch to register the stop, shuffling backwards and forwards had no effect, another lap and still the same.
So logged off and replaced the track.ini with the original and re entered, there was only a few minutes left, so just did an exploratory lap to verify the patch now worked. Logging off had lost my previous times so it was a back of the grid start.
Race went well, Seb and Olaf let me through a little easier than I had any right to expect so I was soon tracking Bjorn in the other Brabham. We were very evenly matched and I settled in for the long game. A few laps later Bjorn put two tyres on the grass exiting Orchard Corner, not enough to slow him down much but I knew his braking was going to be compromised at Railway Corner, so moved to the right and made the pass under braking.
I noticed we had lost Rainer, so I was now running 3rd and chasing André. He made a mistake at Tower Corner and I was through to 2nd with Tim a long way ahead. I briefly inherited 1st when Tim pitted but my own stop was terrible, I was far to slow getting to my pit board. So I rejoined in 3rd just behind André and was able to match his times but not make any headway into his advantage. Then with a few laps to go it all went horribly wrong when I put a wheel on the grass exiting Orchard Corner and went into a tank slapper narrowly missing the hay bales. This cut my lead over Bjorn in half and André was long gone. So I gave the tyres time to clean up and simply bought it home for the final podium spot.
Congrats to Tim on a faultless drive and André for the runner up spot. Commiserations to the DNF's, tough track.
TTFN
John.
Boreham - R13 12.10.23
Re: Boreham - R13 12.10.23
Fast, Cheap, Reliable - Choose any 2 from 3.
Re: Boreham - R13 12.10.23
"Tim was in a class of his own today" - thank you André!
I read alot of car-setup-technics and asked Robert some Q´s I always wanted to know about this.
And I think it was one of the best things I ever did to make progress. Now I´m able to tweak the car better to my needs.
Here at the Boreham track with almost no bumps nor banking the Cooper felt like on rails, I´m astonished. Almost no steering nessesary, just throttle and brakes.. a wonderful feeling!
Gratulations to André and John for podiums!
@John: I watched replay and again have to say I like your driving-style. Looks so smooth and easy! WD!
Race brought a very saddisfying victory. I spend hours on setup and testing this time. Maybe that brought 0,5 secs a lap.
But the other side of being fast is, that you find yourself far in front and
alone... have nothing to tell, because nothing happens the whole race long.
Hope you all are back next race!
I read alot of car-setup-technics and asked Robert some Q´s I always wanted to know about this.
And I think it was one of the best things I ever did to make progress. Now I´m able to tweak the car better to my needs.
Here at the Boreham track with almost no bumps nor banking the Cooper felt like on rails, I´m astonished. Almost no steering nessesary, just throttle and brakes.. a wonderful feeling!
Gratulations to André and John for podiums!
@John: I watched replay and again have to say I like your driving-style. Looks so smooth and easy! WD!
Race brought a very saddisfying victory. I spend hours on setup and testing this time. Maybe that brought 0,5 secs a lap.
But the other side of being fast is, that you find yourself far in front and
alone... have nothing to tell, because nothing happens the whole race long.Hope you all are back next race!
-
Bjørn Finnestad
- Posts: 37
- Joined: 14 Jan 2023, 12:32
- Location: Norway
Re: Boreham - R13 12.10.23
Grats Tim for win, André and John for podium. 
Well done finishers , bad luck DNFs.
A demanding course with small margins could be frustrating and at the same time easy to drive. The expectations for this race were just to get to the finish line, but it got intense, and the competitive instinct was hard to resist.
The braking points were good to find in the modelled asphalt. Only when no one is in front and you are in the ideal lane, otherwise it is difficult to find points of reference. Was aware of this in advance, especially handling the first right-hand turn starting from the right side in the race, as it turned out for me. The start was good for me, and I kept up with the drivers in front of me for a long time.
John was significantly faster than me in the Brabham and was approaching from behind, so if I had managed to keep the wheels inside the track at the end of this corner, John would have got past at least further on in the race. As the pit stop approached, I lost so much grip that the car became impossible to drive at this pace. Seb was closing in fast, and I had no choice, had to pit. I had started to sweat from the laps which became more demanding with the tire wear and concentration, so I leaned back to have a quick break, forgot to activate the fuel filling, and lost unnecessary time on it.
In the second stint, Seb was ahead of me, and I applied some pressure. I could only approach in certain turns. Was therefore prepared that an opportunity to pass could happen, but probably not. I wasn't alone in that the grip varies, I think I got in a better lap and was then able to brake later into Waltham. It was tight but went well. I don't want to do that overtaking again, because if I hadn't been able to keep the car straight there, it would have gone wrong, my responsibility. In any case, good laps, and fight against Seb, you drive very well!
In the lap after, I pushed as hard as I could to create a distance. I thought Seb was behind when I looked in the mirrors, but it was the leader of the race, then the blue flag came. Tim, I didn't mean to hold you back so long.
At the end of the race, I was supposed to see something or other at Pribluda and just because of that I lost control and ran into the barrels along the track, the steering became crooked and after a few turns the car drifted a little on the opposite side. Got to the finish with this, worn tires and myself very sweaty. A good experience, real driving feeling.
Thanks for race and for the administration, see you at V.I.R.
Well done finishers , bad luck DNFs.A demanding course with small margins could be frustrating and at the same time easy to drive. The expectations for this race were just to get to the finish line, but it got intense, and the competitive instinct was hard to resist.
The braking points were good to find in the modelled asphalt. Only when no one is in front and you are in the ideal lane, otherwise it is difficult to find points of reference. Was aware of this in advance, especially handling the first right-hand turn starting from the right side in the race, as it turned out for me. The start was good for me, and I kept up with the drivers in front of me for a long time.
John was significantly faster than me in the Brabham and was approaching from behind, so if I had managed to keep the wheels inside the track at the end of this corner, John would have got past at least further on in the race. As the pit stop approached, I lost so much grip that the car became impossible to drive at this pace. Seb was closing in fast, and I had no choice, had to pit. I had started to sweat from the laps which became more demanding with the tire wear and concentration, so I leaned back to have a quick break, forgot to activate the fuel filling, and lost unnecessary time on it.
In the second stint, Seb was ahead of me, and I applied some pressure. I could only approach in certain turns. Was therefore prepared that an opportunity to pass could happen, but probably not. I wasn't alone in that the grip varies, I think I got in a better lap and was then able to brake later into Waltham. It was tight but went well. I don't want to do that overtaking again, because if I hadn't been able to keep the car straight there, it would have gone wrong, my responsibility. In any case, good laps, and fight against Seb, you drive very well!
In the lap after, I pushed as hard as I could to create a distance. I thought Seb was behind when I looked in the mirrors, but it was the leader of the race, then the blue flag came. Tim, I didn't mean to hold you back so long.
At the end of the race, I was supposed to see something or other at Pribluda and just because of that I lost control and ran into the barrels along the track, the steering became crooked and after a few turns the car drifted a little on the opposite side. Got to the finish with this, worn tires and myself very sweaty. A good experience, real driving feeling.
Thanks for race and for the administration, see you at V.I.R.
Re: Boreham - R13 12.10.23
Thanks Tim, I'll take that as a compliment of the highest order, although if you were sitting next to me and seen some of the body shapes and faces I was making during the race you would have known that smooth wasn't a word I would have used to describe my driving yesterday.
I was lucky that oAo had driven the track earlier in their season and my team leader gave me a very forgiving Brabham setup. Unfortunately I'm on my own at VIR.
TTFN
John.
Fast, Cheap, Reliable - Choose any 2 from 3.