My F1Time Blogs

F1Time - S19 - Race13 - Zandvoort, Netherlands

Thirteen is not a good number to many. Some even avoid
13 in a sequence with numbers like 12A, 12X . etc. If we
thought F1Time would be an exception, then we are in for
a surprise. Eventful? Happening? Tragic? Doom4? Racing Hell?
What should i call this race? One of these descriptions fit
well to each and every racer who went into Zandvoort for the
13th Race of the Season19. Surely '13' had played its role.
This race was a race of attritions. People went down from
Podium positions and even victories. Noone would have expected
the race to go this way. Even Tabu who had a look at the HP
after the race thought that the Game Engine blew it Big time
today.

Felipe Miranda decided to play spoil sport in c1 where the Big
Guns RC and Sow were the favourites. He topped the WU as well
as the Starting Grid. Sow and RC closely followed him in the
Grid. Eld was there in the second row. Lex was a disappointing
9th on grid while Vitor could manage only 13th. In the opening
straight, Sow immediately pulled ahead of Felipe. In the meantime
Lex was the quickest man off the blocks surging into third posn.
And in another 3 laps, Lex took the lead. In a season where he
was very competitive and settle for third best all the time, this
was a welcome sigh of relief. Eld too got past RC into fourth posn.
As far as the Pit strategies, most of them were on 4 stops while
Felipe's heavy load proved to be a 3 stopper,the same true for
Karen Miller Pace too. Nuno Duarte as usual did not put high
hopes on his Pitskills as he went in for 2 stops along with
Joe Himeji. So that meant Lex going into pits first as was the case
in Lap12. Sow took the lead with Felipe,Eld and RC behind him. Sow,
Eld, Vadim, Jerusevicius and woodi pitted on Lap15 with RC and Arus
following suit on Lap16 and Lap17 respectively. RC managed to get
ahead of Eld and is now challenging Sow neck-to-neck. The second
round of pits for the 4stoppers were in the 28-33 window where Lex
again came in first. The Third Stop window was 44-48. But Disaster
struck 'SloBrazilian Racing' on Lap 54 when both the managers had
to DNF due to Engine Explosion. That was good news for Sow and Eld
as they were the beneficiary. But they never made use of that when
both them crashed on Lap57. The Channel witnessed a furious Sow
who vowed to fly down to Sweden to sort out the matter with Eld.
Felipe in the mean time pitted on Laps 19,39 and 57 respectively
which gave him an easy win. Nuno Duarte with pits on Lap 27 and 51
came second with Vadim joining them on the Podium. Jerusevicius, Arus,
Woodi, Joe and Karen completed the points table. This race witnessed
a very high Drop Percentage of 36.6%. Again the gap remains to be 4
between Sow and RC with jus 4 more races to go.

Our Group was not different in Drops when 40% of the racers Dropped.
The Grid had a new look at the front when R Mandler and Katergaris
shared the front row. Stephen and Schmied followed them. The Mandler
Brothers had a good start when Rogerio kept the lead and Luciano
stormed to second place. Luciano got ahead of Rogerio in Lap 12 but
Lap14 saw Rogerio crashing with Katergaris. The hopes of Podium and
points were gone into thin air. Two more racers had this ill luck
when they dropped while looking good for a win or a Podium. Irman
dropped on Lap63 when leading the pack while my teammie Thomas
dropped when looking good for a second place finish on Lap64. Edi
won the race with his 2 stop strategy. Bakas and Stefan were also
on 2 stops and came second and third respectively. Stephen, on three
stops,was fourth,while L Mandler, on four stops, came fifth. The
results would have been totally different if the front runners didnt
drop. I had a terrible race where i was forced to change my strategy
due to an error made in the Fuel Column. I planned for 3 Softs and
put my money on Pitcrew. But the fuel thing made me go for 2 stops
and even with 30DRP less, i had 18 laps of tyre wear which effectively
sealed my hopes of points. Still there was a glimmer of hope when i
was running 8th till my last but one lap. But Nelesh couldnt believe
his luck when he saw me wearing out and got ahead and again i lost
position in my final lap.
And Congratulations to the 'Unknown Team' of Stephen and Nezam on
winning their TC. My Cup Hopes were also shattered when i finished
behind Stefan.

posted by [ - Aswin - ] @ 12:56 pm