Rather than a wall of text like my Australia recap, here's a wall of bullet points (made up of text. Hmmm)
The Build-Up
[ul]
[li]I really can't believe how much practice I did for this race, mostly testing out different strategies. So many valid options. SS-M, SS-S-SS, SS-SS-S, SS-S-S, maybe even S-M if you're willing to sacrifice grid position. There was about a 9 second difference between the fastest and slowest over the race distance in my testing.[/li]
[li]Unlike strategy, and unlike Australia, I really did not spend much time on setup. I grabbed one from someone in TT, it felt good (unlike all the Australia TT setups), and I went with it without making a single change. I'm not really a setup guy. I don't understand them entirely, I don't have the patience for them, and they don't make much sense in this game anyway (1-11?)[/li]
[li]I was feeling pretty good about my pace and consistency....[/li]
[li]....until iceman told me what time Dark had done in TT a couple of nights ago.[/li]
[/ul]
Qualifying
[ul]
[li]I didn't spend much time working on qualifying pace until 45 minutes before the race where I went right out and did back to back 1:27.3's with practically identical sector times (which was freaky) in a Mercedes in GP mode, and though neither lap felt great, I was feeling good about the time.[/li]
[li]Then iceman and I jump in our Renaults in online mode, and I can't get any where close to that time - like a second off it! What is going on? I'm thinking it's tire temps, or maybe the Renault isn't so equal to the Mercedes after all.[/li]
[li]9pm comes along, and after being pretty excited about this race all week long, I'm now not so happy about how I can't get close to my GP mode Mercedes qualy times.[/li]
[li]Go out and first lap is a frustrating 1:28.2 - still almost a second off.[/li]
[li]Then I absolutely nail everything on my second lap, it feels almost perfect, but it's still not as close as my single player times! 1:27.5. I'm happy all the same as I had already given up hope of getting a time like that online.[/li]
[li]I'm not really wanting to start any conspiracy theories about cars not being equal yet, but they really do feel different. Can't break so late, not as much corner grip so waiting longer to get back on the throttle. Maybe it's all in my head? [/li]
[li]I've been spoiled in the past because I've always been able to pick my car first or close to first, and back then, equal cars were based on the McLaren, so I was able to use the same car in single player and online. It is a bit weird going between the Mercedes engine and the Renault engine too.[/li]
[li]Piece of PRL history: in our very first season here (or maybe second?), when we discovered that equal cars weren't really equal in F1 2011, we had a championship deciding race at Abu Dhabi, and the championship was close between two drivers, blutank and LITE. blutank discovered (or thought) that his Renault (probably Lotus back then) had a disadvantage and wasn't equal, so he asked to switch cars for that championship deciding race. I let him, he won race (I think), and won the championship. Regardless of equal cars or not, I've always said that letting him use a different car for that race was my one and only PRL regret. He picked it so needed to stick wtih it, and it just felt like it diminished the integrity of the championship a bit, and I think he was perfectly capable of winning in his Renault anyway.[/li]
[li]Back to Bahrain where my 1:27.5 was good for 6th on the grid, and even if I had matched my single player time, it wouldn't have moved me any further up, so ultimately, no complaints. This was a 1 place improvement over Australia, and like Australia, I had my teammate iceman one place behind me.[/li]
[li]Then again, I'm 9 tenths off pole?!?! Come on Dark, give us some tips! (no really, can you PM me and at least give me your setup? Talk later. Thanks)[/li]
[/ul]
Race
[ul]
[li]The plan was a SS-S-SS strategy with stops on lap 7 and 20.[/li]
[li]I had a really good start when the lights went out, while kub in his Sauber really seemed to struggle off the line, so I moved into 5th on the run down to turn 1. [/li]
[li]I'm still playing it super cautious on the first lap; anyone else?
[/li]
[li]I was in a bit of an awkward spot as I was on the far right, making the corner even tighter than it already is, so I really had to slow a lot to make it safely. As I took turn 1, my teammate iceman appeared on my left and it looked like a Ferrari squeezed him on his other side, so he ended up pinched. He didn't take damage, but my front wing didn't look so happy afterwards, and I was already thinking about changing my strategy because of that.[/li]
[li]This was me down to 7th, but as I approached turn 4, there was more carnage in front of me, involving a Ferrari, Force India, and my teammate yet again. This caused his speed to rapidly drop, and I couldn't avoid hitting the back of him.[/li]
[li]Then the Ferrari and iceman go through turn 6 side by side, they touch, which forces iceman wide and off track, and when he comes back on track, maybe his back end kicks out (not sure), so he slows, and I couldn't avoid hitting the back of him yet again! 3 for 3! This time the other side of my front wing is damaged.[/li]
[li]iceman informs me that he also has front wing damage at this point and needs to pit, so he pits on lap 2, and I wait till lap 3 where I fit the Soft compound.[/li]
[li]Just to be clear, despite all the contact between teammates, we drive for Renault, and not Force India
[/li]
[li]Even though iceman and I touched 3 times, I don't think either of us are at fault, ok Charlie?[/li]
[li]I still finished the first lap in 8th, but having to pit so early and the compromised strategy wasn't going to help over the remainder of the race.[/li]
[li]The new plan then was to run the Soft until lap 15, then fit Soft again to run until the end.[/li]
[li]The rest of the race was a lot quieter. I got to have a few little fun battles with Sucuri, bobino, piboye, Olivier, and maybe others I'm forgetting, but everyone was on different strategies, so I never tried to put up much of a fight in order to not lose lap time.[/li]
[li]After the lap 1 chaos, I had nothing major going on, and I was happy with my consistency. No incidents, no time penalties, no mistakes, and in the 31's or 32's.[/li]
[li]Despite that, I found myself outside the points in 11th after everyone had completed their final pit stops which was really disappointing.[/li]
[li]With a couple of laps to go, I thought there was a chance of catching Olivier, and then I saw he was in a battle with Mudd, so that might help my cause. [/li]
[li]Then my engineer informed me that Mudd had wing damage, and I saw he was losing a lot of time. On the final lap, I was able to pass him right before the back straight to steal the final point away from him. Olivier was still a couple of seconds ahead though.[/li]
[li]Huge thanks to the couple of guys I lapped. Backmarkers did a great job of getting out of the way - maybe even more than needed; don't compromise your own races too much![/li]
[/ul]
Final Thoughts
[ul]
[li]Two races. 1 point. That's disappointing, but I'm actually pretty grateful to have 1 point when it looked like 0 points until the final few seconds of the race.[/li]
[li]My total race time was about 33 seconds behind what I was targeting. Most of that was lost in the opening two laps, and then the rest from the compromised strategy. I think 5th was possible if all went to plan, but it so rarely does.[/li]
[li]I may or may not have had a chart next to my monitor that showed strategy adjustments for each lap should I suffer damage or should a safety car come out.[/li]
[li]It's impressive that 13 of the 16 finishers were still on the lead lap which suggests we should have lots of close racing throughout the season.[/li]
[li]Hopefully we can have (or at least I can have) a clean opening lap at China![/li]
[li]China's been good to me in the past, but, like Bahrain, it's pretty technical with a lot of challenging corners. Looking forward to starting the setup/strategy process again though, and can't wait for next Wednesday![/li]
[/ul]
I'll try and get my totally famous
LAP1Series Bahrain entry uploaded tonight.
Dave & Zephyr, what happened to get you a DNF? How did everyone else's race go?
