My F1Time Blogs

F1Time - S19 - Race3 - Shanghai, China

The 3rd Round of this F1Time Season was held at Shanghai, China. 'Waiting for Next Season' arrived in China with 'loads' of confidence by the Point Scoring Finish of Manager Tsigalko in Bahrain. I for one thought of racing after a 'non-race' in Bahrain and so this shouldbe interesting for me as well. I was determined not to make the mistakes which i had done in the First Two races.
In C1, Vitor Ribero continued his good form and topped the WU charts justifying his DC position. Eld was determined to have a go at Vitor and he came up with the 2nd posn in the WU. Lex who was going through a bad run in the last few seasons has finally changed into a Podium racer. He was third fastest in WU. The Season Leader Sow too was racing and he did his WU in 1:18:132. The Surprise package was Nuno Duarte who came up with a time of 1:18:077, thus pushing sow down to 5th place . With the Temperatures just around the 30 mark and a lengthy inout time of 25 secs, most of the top runners went for Stop Strategy. Eld went in with a lil less fuel than others for the Pole Position and he achieved it. Vitor went for a bit more fuel and that cost him the Pole. He missed it by a mere + 0.031 secs. The starting grid was very much the same as the WU except that Nuno Duarte who went in for a 1 Stop strategy and was down in 14th position. The start was pretty normal but RC lost 2 positions in the first 2 laps though he got one back in the next. Woodi and Yih kept changing positions and that was it. The Top of the Pack didnt see any overtaking and by Lap18 when Eld pitted, Vitor took the lead. He was a mere 2 secs behind. Lap 20 saw Vitor, Lex, HS, Arus, RC and Jonny pitting. Vitor used that 2 laps to pull out a 2 sec advantage over Eld and when he rejoined he was 4th. He immediately went back to the Top after the Malaysian Brothers and woodi pitted in the next lap. Everything was looking good for Vitor for another win until Lap37, when his Engine Failed. Eld said Thanks and took the victory. Old teammies Lex and Sow also got Podium finishes. HS came fourth while Nuno Duarte with his 1 stop strategy came 5th. woodi, who was tipped to be the first non-Audi racer to score points in c1 this season, missed out on points and settled for 9th.

C2G1 again was dominated by the Nezam-Stephen Duo. These 2 guys are simply ruling c2g1 as of now and will continue , i hope, unless one of the new tested engines come in and challenge them. In the WU, Nezam followed Stephen and Franz Schmied came in 3rd followed by Luciano Mandler. The rest were a bit slow compared to these guys. In the Qual, Stephen, Nezam and Mandler went in for less fuel and all these were quite close. But in the end, Stephen won it by a mere .014 secs from Nezam. edi who came in 4th was more than a second behind Mandler. Since i went in for a 2 Stop Strategy, i came up with a 7th position in the Grid. When the race began, Nezam lost out to Mandler in Lap2. But he put in some boost laps and came first after lap5. I too had a good outing at that point of time when i moved into 4th position although lost6 secs within a span of 4 laps. Lap18 saw Stephen putting down a fastest lap which almost gave three quarters of a second advantage over Nezam. I was still holding 4th posn, a 24 sec gap from Stephen, with edi and JTix close behind. Lap19 saw the first batch of 2 Stoppers pitting. Nezam's crew was better and that helped him come out in front of Stephen. Mandler, Jesper and myself also pitted. But with the slow crew, i could only manage a 12th place on return. The leader was now edi with Schmied behind him. edi pitted the next lap and his pitcrew put him in front of me when he came out. Also Irman came up with the fastest pittime in our group and that gave him a 10 sec advantage over me. By now, my Driver was tired and i never noticed his endurance level till this race got over. He was putting down hopeless laps which almost made me think of firing him. Stephen on the meantime was trying desperately to get ahead of his teammie. Nezam was quick but Stefan was the quicker of the two. Nezam spun in Lap 32, which helped Stephen to overtake him. By the end of the next lap, the one stoppers (Schmied, Gritsai, Kosev and Mikhail)completed their pit routine and Stephen was back to the Lead. I was 7th by thenand aftermy pit at Lap39, i came behind Mikhail in the 10th posn. A lil luck was on my side when Mikhail had a tyre wear at the last lap and i leapfrogged to the 9th place.

'Waiting for Next Season' managers went in for different strategies this time. While i decided to race, Thomas took this race as the one to save some money. In the end, the money i spent was good for nothing as i could nt get a point and finished in a disappointing 9th place a lap down on the Winner. Thomas was 2 laps down and crossed the line 2 laps behind in 16th position.

posted by [ - Aswin - ] @ 7:53 am