Pre-race
So we are into the 3rd race of season 29 and we go to Indianapolis GP, with there being two different race winners in the first races, and only 3 points between 1st place Justinas Smyšliajevas and 2nd runner Toygun senler. This track is Mindaugas Sarocka’s driver’s favourite track, and with Mindagus having his best ever start in elite since he joined in season 25, so could this help him further? Heidi Aareskoski still yet to make an impact on the points just yet, but with a previous win at this track before, Heidi will hopefully look to progress up the rankings
Qualifying
Toygun Senler takes beautifully while also breaking a new record for fastest qualifying lap, wha a style to take pole position, with Justinas just behind him in second this was looking well for the title race early on in the season already. Mindagus also proving himself with a very respectable 4th on the starting grid. Heidi still only able to make 30th on the grid though, but we all know starting position doesn’t mean everything, with 73 laps between the start and the final result anything could happen.
Race:
And they are off Heidi’s driver has an excellent start moving up 6 places upto 24th, Frederico Neves on the other hand drops 7 places to 35th it just goes to show how important your attention and reactions have to be in formula 1. After the first 10 laps not a lot had happened except Heidi was able to get herself upto 21st which is up 9 places from where she started. And a surprise surge from chris Hewitt who had jumped upto 24th when he had started all the way down in 37th. Lap 25 see’s the first lot of pitters and with the top 3 drivers all within 0.45s Pits were looking to be vital. Lap 35 sees a lot of tyres starting to show their wear, and on lap 36 Justinas goes into the pits dropping into 3rd. Both front runners Toygun and Aleksej Sutkin go into the pits who would come out on top? And Justinas takes the lead on lap 38, seems his tactics have worked by pitting a lap earlier. Lap 38 also sees Frederico Neves’s Brakes cause huge clouds of smoke, so they bring him into the pits to have alook, but they feel that he can continue and send him back out. We get to lap 72 and not a huge a lot has happened positions have stayed similar apart from Heidi who has been able to get herself upto 19th and chris Hewitt who has been able to get himself upto an impressive 16th seeing as. But we do have 7 cars smoking, seems like there are going to be a lot of managers who are repairing their cars quite extremely. And the checkered flag is up, Justinas wins and toygun comes second which now increases Justinas lead by 5 points, with Aleksej coming 3rd and all 3 finishing on highly worn tyres, I think you can say they had the perfect tactics. And oh wait whats this! Mindagus ha a spirt and race an amazing lap of 1:12.529s that’s a new track record!
So at the end of this the race it wasn’t the most action packed race we could have seen but both the best qualifying and best track lap record were broken this season, you don’t get to see that very often.
For full results check here
(Quotes to follow)
MASTER-2 REVIEW: Sam Dulledge
One of the underhyped groups of this season in GPRO is the 2nd Master group, which has our triple champion Zdnek Hladik, who got relegated after falling into a negaive money balance at the end of a frustrating season. He also seems to have been the one with the most to lose with recent changes to Driver Experience and it's effects on laptimes. 'Z' started race 3 from 3rd on the grid, looking to beat Vlad Nedobuga for a first leg victory in the cup, Vlad had started 28th.
The biggest surprise on the grid was Albanalopolis, who took advantage of his circumstances to qualify 2nd on the grid, just 0.756s behind Gazi Arslan's pole times.
The 73 lap race started dry, but it seemed to be mayhem. Albanalopolis crashed at the start, managing to recover to the pits, whereas Gazi kept his lead and 'Z' lost 2nd place to Andrey Vlaskin.
Gazi's lead couldn't be maintained, the gap sometimes getting under 1 second for the top 4 (Gazi, Vlaskin, Z and Michael Keeeey). On lap 10, just 0.152s separated 1st from 4th, whilst Gazi kept alternating between fast and slower laps.
By lap 21, it was obvious hat the top 4 had broken away, it was now almost 7 seconds from 4th placed Keeney to 5th placed Kerem Arslanli. On lap 25, Vlaskin and Keeney both pitted, whilst Arslan and Z would continue fighting until lap 36, where Z's worn tyres had finally necessitated a pitstop. Z came back out in 2nd, ahead of Keeney, who had managed to jump Vlaskin during their pitstops.
At halfway, 38 runners remained in this 39 manager Master race. leader Arslan had worn tyres, but hadn't pitted and therefore had a lead of 44.519 seconds over Z at lap 37. However, the long pit time meant that he had come out in 4th place, 3 seconds behind Z who had inherited the lead!
By lap 47, it was almost a repeat of the first 4 car chase phase. Z was leading, but Arslan was within 1 second of Z in 4th! By lap 49, it was starting to become obvious that it was splitting into 2, different stratefy, 2-horse races. Keeney and Vlaskin seemed to be going with a 2 stop strategy with a short second stop, whereas Z and Arslan looked set to battle for the win on a 1 stop! The pitstops put Vlaskin ahead of Keeney in 9th and 10th, which would eventually become 3rd and 4th at the flag.
Arslan kept a brutal chase on Z for the win, lap after lap on this easy overtake track, crossing the lap within 0.5s of Z almost everytime.
On lap 66, Z's tyres were showing the fatal sign of wear, Z couldn't go for the entire 7 laps on worn tyres, he would almost certainly need to pit again. Arslan came through on lap 69 to take the lead of the race whilst Z was defenseless. It seemed to all be over.
Lap 71: Arslan was smoking, the same fault that had put Toygun out of a well-deserved win at the beginning of the Elite season had come back to bite his fellow countryman. Fortunately for Arslan, he wouldn't have to worry as Z pitted from his worn tyres on the penultimate lap, an unfortunate mistake which may have cost him his first win this season. Z came back out in 2nd, leaving Arslan to take one of the mos incredible races I've had the pleasure of reviewing.
QUOTES:
Samoeni Albanalopolis (Qualified 2nd, finished 27th):
"Well, my qualify pace was quite good. To be honest it was way better then I expected, but not all good things end with a happy ending as they say.I manage to be 2nd in start but in the 1st lap I got messed up in an accident, therefore I was forced to pit. It was harsh to see myself last just after one lap but there was nothing I could do about it.It was my good chance to manage to score my first points in Master but guess I wasn't that lucky yet.After that accident, my race was just a story with nothing interesting in it anymore"Zdnek Hladik (Qualified 3rd, finished 2nd)
"I am happy with Indy race, despite wrong tyre calculation, I finished second. (On difference between Elite and Master) The races are more relaxed, I feel less stressfull and have more fun, which is my goal that I expect from the game. I am preparing devil plan to come back into Elite.
Race summary can be found here and the ongoing Master 2 championship can be found here
No comments:
Post a Comment