Round 2: Germany - Hockenheimring (10May17 @ 8pm BST)

[AaronWebb85]

 

[Xaidenb29]

Unfortunalty i have to go hospital again sorry for this but all will be fixed soon so unable to race again most likely I will be able to race next week

 

[ENiGMA]

I've finally recieved my new pedals, so I will be participating

 

[ztikes]

Not sure if i'll make it. Been sick the whole week so we'll see if I feel any better tomorrow! I'll let you all know.

 

[yarmolenko9]

It's a complete asshole, not a Formula 1 race !!!!!
At the start, Force India (Ztikes32) took and carried me to the grass for no reason.
On the third lap under the safety car, the Toro Rosso (dntxrage) disappeared and the game gave me 5 seconds penalty! Just great. At the first pit stop, these 5 seconds did not count, for the second I stood on the pit lane.
On the 32nd lap RENO (PhilFPS) flew out of the track and began to wag in front of me. As a result of the broken wing and without glasses !!!
This is nonsense, not race! In the championship you can not go any further, just do not make sense. From the race you need to have fun, and since now - just burns ass!

 

[salatoimikud]

First wet race
Was intresting, went slowly to first corner and gained few places. But after safety car i was like on ice. It was so slippy until i changed to int. Also fucked up at the end when second safetycar came. I needed to hold pace but watched away for moment and didnt notice, that my pace was red and got drive trough penalty  Also some kind strange lag behind second safety car and got broken front wing.

 

[karnak07]

Scintillic hate me and i hate him now     Seriously, I have not seen inappropriate behavior, only unlucky fight for me  


I'm sorry for a few overtaking over someone, but

1) when I saw the rain I put a wrong setup and I did not have straight speeds so I had to invent hazardous overtaking cars with slowest pace race but faster in the straight

2) I have often mistaken braking

 

[jetzekoper]

A very dissapointing race for me today. I was very nervous for my first league race but the start was good, i was very careful attacking Veoxic but after 3 tries i felt back unfortunately. But then i took a bit of kerbing in turn 1, lost traction and spun into the wall..... Race over

 

[Veoxic]

Was fun battling with you jetzekoper. You did indeed drive safe. Didn't take any weird chances and I appreciate that. It's a pitty you crashed out. Thanks for the battle

 

[ztikes]

I apologise fot that yarmalenko, I was not close to you on my screen so I guess there was some lag involved, other than that I don't think it's necessary to flame in that way, I did take you out for no reason and that reason was because I was miles away on my screen and I had loads of space, must've been the lag. Again I do apologize, nothing I could've done really

 

[ztikes]

Other than that I think me and samster did a great race in the force indias today and scored more points than we initially thought, all and all great race with great race pace.

 

[SamsterHam]

Was a awful/amazing race for me. Start was fine but I was too quick on the lap to the SC and got a drive-through which I tried to take immediately (something I didn't know I couldn't do) and ended up making a pit stop. After that I caught back up to the SC queue and gained a couple of positions from other people's mistakes and them pitting and ended up back behind my teamate again. Unfortunately he had to brake suddenly to avoid something and I just clipped the back of him and took damage to my right-front wing.

A lap after the SC I try to come into the pits for the penalty but my team stops me to replace the wing instead (which I didn't need because I wasn't losing much time from it, and was planning on waiting until Inters to get fixed). So on the final lap I could take the penalty I did and was about 30 seconds behind Yarm/Storm in front.

After that they soon came into the pits and tyre-wear was good so I carried on and so I caught up close to them. Then they all pitted again for Inters and I stayed out again and came in a few laps later for the Inters myself as I'd started losing time and came back out about 10 seconds behind them. Was slowly catching them (even though I made quite a few mistakes) and as I got closer I made a mistake and lost about 5 seconds but soon after the SC came out again and I made a cheeky stop and caught up to the pack again.

A lot of other people pitted after me (as I was the first person to reach/pass the SC as it came out of the pits) and soon I was up to 7th or 8th thanks to a few mistakes from you guys. After the SC came in I managed to get past my teammate ztikes thanks to my fresher tyres, but just after I passed him I got overexcited into Turn 1 and cut it way too much and landed myself a 3 sec penalty. From there till the end I just as hard as I could in Rich mix and built the gap to tikes and finished in a PRL F1 personal best finish and, as Mu11 said, scoring more points than I did the whole of last season... All in all a good race that was a bit nerve-raking in the middle.

P.S: Apologies for the essay but a lot happened to me this time. Promise I'll just record it next week!

 

[CrystalCatcha]

It was an eventful race for sure. Of course, for the reasons we all know after speaking post-race - but lets not put a damper on things and discuss that until that has been resolved.

In terms of my race, I was surprised at qualifying in 9th for the second race in a row, after feeling like my pace was horrendous around that track. Unfortunately numerous drivers knocked me throughout - which was seen in the race incidents - but i hold no grudges as there are obvious connection issues sometimes and desync.

I got spun under the SC and lost 6 places and gained 2 red wings with random incidents, as well as a drive through for accidentally speeding in the pit lane which i tried to serve but it put me in the pits. Eventually after the chaos i ended up overtaking my former team mate yarmalenko for 10th place to gain that last point so all in all i was relatively happy with that finish considering how many incidents there were all around and how unconfident i was around the track - especially in the wet.

I was streaming to twitch throughout but for some reason the stream didn't save which is a shame as i was trying to record each race to have a "series" of recordings for my first full online season.

How do people stream to youtube? (If someone could message me on steam that would be great!)  

I'm looking forward to USA as that was my first ever PRL race last season when i joined late in the williams and managed a P6 on my first ever race. I'll be surprised if i can finish that high again, but excited for a hopefully dry race with a little less chaos haha.

So far i have thoroughly enjoyed my PRL experience and I like the attitude of 99% of the drivers understanding that mistakes happen and sometimes connection issues cause it also. One thing i'd like to suggest is that even if you finish your race and you're in the top 5, please refrain from talking until everyone has finished as it could distract those who are still running on that last lap!

Good luck to everyone for the next race

 

[CrystalCatcha]

Sidenote: I watched yarmalenko's stream on youtube and the incidents he mentioned did look questionable - each one of them. However, as others have noted these may have been desync and connection, these things happen, but I think as a grid we should try and respect each other on track and off. At the end of the day its a game, i think we all try to race fairly so lets keep that going!

 

[CrystalCatcha]

I'd like to start by saying that post-race the entire grid had a discussion about the issue i'm going to raise. It seems as though no one has filed a complaint as of yet, but after reading the rules I can understand why - there is no clear rule that I found that talks of 'suspicion of cheating' so no one would be able to file a complaint regardless if they have evidence or not, if they follow the complaint guidelines.

The league is: European PC Championship [S5]

The driver in question is: Racesimkid/nickvanleeuwen

The issue's in question are:

1. After he qualified 15th, far off the pace of the front-runners, as can be seen in mu11mans footage and everyone else who streamed the race, he instantly pulled into the middle of the grid speeding right up the middle of everyone somehow managing to get into 3rd position after turn 1. This is not possible. Even with an accidental de-sync jump start, yeah you might gain a few places but if you look at how rapidly he accelerates through everyone its just not possible.

2. He set laps 3 seconds quicker than the front-runners, on the slower tyre. Regardless of how fresh his tyres are, this is also impossible. No matter what the set up, there is absolutely no chance that someone who qualified 15th is going to be running 3 seconds quicker than the front 3 on the slower tyre.

Racesimkid/ nick (qualified 15th, 2 seconds behind pole) fastest in race lap: 01:23.018

Compare that to the front-runners in qualifying who were on the faster tyres in the race yet somehow 3 seconds behind nick?

PhilFPS (2nd in qualifying) - In race fastest lap: 01:25.990
Millix (pole in qualifying) - In race fastest lap: 01:26.343
Veoxic (4th in qualifying) - In race fastest lap: 01:26.836

Evidence for the race start issue 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7UsltcH8Ho

Watch the sauber accelerate through the grid after race start.

Now, i dont have anything against the guy but these incidents cannot be ignored. I had suspicions of his pace in pre-season and race 1 after his driving was fairly chaotic, trying to pass people in ridiculous places and getting involved in incidents - yet somehow managing to claw himself back through the grid despite some really great drivers. Of course, these were just suspicions but in Germany we have clear evidence that everyone saw, and everyone spoke about in teamspeak post-race.

Anyone wanting to file a complaint can't because none of the rules speak of cheating, or "going impossibly fast" - so i dont understand how we are supposed to file a complaint to the stewards on this one. I'm willing to put my name down and bet that there is something going on here though, all you need to do is watch mu11mans stream and check the lap times on the standings page on the forum.

Personally i think it is unfair that a possible cheater will maybe be allowed to get away with his actions, so that is why i am making this post considering no one else has yet. I didn't want to because i'm new to PRL and felt like it wasn't my place, but I cannot sit silently whilst things like this happen.

Please, if you were in this race - involved in the discussion afterwards or even if you just watched the stream and agree with the issues i have raised, comment below because otherwise it may just look like one angry driver moaning about someone going to fast when that is far from the case. Him winning doesn't effect me at all because i'm not competing for race wins, so its got nothing to do with jealousy or anything like that.

I'd appreciate it if a steward could look into this as i've said above we cannot file a complaint if no PRL rules have been broken. (I lost my twitch stream but mu11mans youtube stream and other drivers have recorded the race - so it would be useful if you guys could post these as evidence)

Thank you and I wish everyone the best for the rest of the season. :mrgreen:

 

[Racesimkid]

I think everyone was aware something wasn't right. I was also surprised of what happened. After the race with the discussion and the videos and the stuff we've seen, we can be pretty sure it wasn't legit. I am totally responsible for the stuff that happened during the race and I will accept all consequences.

So to start, we will look at the start of the race. The start of the race was the game's mistake. I've done some research online and have found that there is a bug in the game where the lights go off earlier than the rest of the lobby. Ofcourse I don't have proof but it's something that can happen.

Well and then the pace. My pace during the race was extremely high and almost impossible. My fastest lap was 3 seconds faster than the faster drivers like Millix and Phil. That's already something strange. But then the tire wear was something different. We all started the race on full wet tyres. During the first part of the race the dried up a bit and it was time to go on inters. The first people made their stop and I was still just at 20% of my full wets. Because of that I could drive for about 3-7 laps longer.

It's obvious something's not right. After the race I spoke to a moderator and he was thinking of possibilities that might have caused the strange things that happened. One thing that could be a major problem is mods. So far as I know I have only installed 2017 skins for the cars. But there is a possibility that one of the mods contained 2017 grip and tyre wear. That would be the most logical reason this happened.

So ofcourse something has to happen with this. And I totally admit something isn't right. But saying this, I would like it to be clear that I am not doing anything on purpose and am not trying to cheat intentionally. That's why I also have no problem with a 5/10/15 grid penalty or even a full disqualification from this race.

So I will see what happens with it. I hope I haven't ruined anyones race or spoiled the fun of this league. I will reinstall my game and keep it as default. That way it will always be legit. From this race on I will also record every race from my perspective, so we will always have evidence if needed. Hope to see everyone next race and hopefully we can have a genuine competition.

Kind regards, Nick/Racesimkid

 

[ztikes]

Wish I could've recorded that race start since i was infront of him when he flew past all the others on the start. Even though I focused alot on my race and wasn't quite up there race wise I saw that he was setting new fastest laps pretty often and even on the wet tyres even if it was Intermediate conditions and everyone had pitted except him.

I'm also new around here but I do think that you have a valid point and I agree everything that you have stated. I think we need to hear from his POV aswell but it seems really suspicious indeed.


EDIT: Just saw that he posted his POV at the same time as I posted this. Ignore this post.

 

[CrystalCatcha]

Thank you for giving your input Nick, i want to be clear that this wasn't a personal attack or made in a hostile manner, but simply wanted to highlight the issue as no one else seemed to have bothered yet. Now i guess we will wait and see what the stewards say.

All the best

 

[Racesimkid]

Yeah I'm not offended by any way, just wanted to set everything straight and make everything clear. Just telling my point of the story.

Enjoy your weekend!

 

[jeromef1]

We are already discussing with the organisers of the series regarding that issue.

Nick, thanks a lot for the explication and good initiative to reinstall the game and keep it as default.

Let's see how it goes for the next race