top of the sharts

Another crazy race in the AMF GP3 Series. I survived not one but two barrel roll flipovers to finish 3rd out of 25 runners in Round 2 at Bahrain. Damage was set at 50% but I was still very lucky not to lose any wings or wheels in both incidents. I was the second fastest driver all throughout, had qualified 2nd, and should have finished in the same position as well if I had stayed out of trouble.

Lucas Taraciuk took the victory and was comfortably faster than everyone else. He fought a great hotlap duel on the server against Magyar Janosh in the days leading up to the race. Unfortunately, Magyar Janosh (who set the fastest lap time overall after more than 500 practice laps) did not show up for the event.

A fair result for myself I suppose. You can't expect a clean race when it's just a short Sprint against more than 20 other drivers, most of whom seem to be novices that appear to be using keyboards or game controllers. It is still great fun and quite entertaining, but a lot different from the Endurance battles that I favor.

Race Livestream

Race Results

disappearing polymorphs

image from Magyar Janosh

 AMF GP3 League S1 R1 !!!! - YouTube

Result 250112-3Af - GP3 AMF, Melbourne Park Circuit (01 - AUS - Melbourne '15) - VA SERVER 1 - rFactor - Simresults

I signed up as a wildcard for AMF GP3 Series - Round 1 in Melbourne, thinking it was going to be a simple sprint. The car was easy enough to drive and I also knew the track. I didn't expect that there would be over 30 cars coming in and going out during the event. It was the biggest grid I had ever run with in all my years of online sim racing. 

The Practice session went fine. I was able to put in some good laps and tweak my car's setup. There wasn't much traffic on the track, although there were plenty of joins and leaves, and much chatter. The chatbox was a constant, flickering distraction. By the end of the session, I clocked the 3rd fastest lap.

The Qualifying session was much more frantic. With over 30 cars fighting for a good grid position, there was just no space to do a proper flying lap. I couldn't unleash the pace I had found and qualified in 7th position. I could have been as high up as 2nd, had I been able to replicate my fastest practice lap.

The Race was full-on mayhem. There must have been an incident on every lap; cars spinning, bumping, crashing... and even some lag warps and stuttering. I got punted off early on in the opening lap and fell down to 24th. Mired behind the traffic, I couldn't push and had to carefully weave through the slower cars and avoid the numerous incidents happening all over the track. I recovered to 8th place at the checkered flag.

What a wild and wacky race, it reminded me of when I ran on public servers many years ago. It seemed more like an arcade game mad dash than a league sanctioned event. Maybe there should have been a 107% qualifying time cutoff or maybe an entry limit of only the 20 fastest drivers. Anyway, I enjoyed it, all things considered. Maybe I will try again in the next round of this series.

I was very happy to see good old Tripp on the track again. A long time ago, I was feeling low and was considering quitting all of this when I found Tripp's website and joined his league. It renewed my enthusiasm for competition and kept me going on this racing fantasy adventure.

off thick fire

OEL IMSA GTS1 Series - Six races, all on North American tracks, and four cars are available: the Lister Storm GTL Evo, the Lotus Elise GT1-S, the Nissan R390 GT1, and the Panoz Esperante GTR-1. I choose the Nissan because of its Group C foundation and Japanese origination. It is not the fastest car of the bunch; I think that distinction belongs to the Panoz. My estimation is based on the performance of the AI during offline practice.

True enough, in the test race at Sonoma, I am more than 1 second slower per lap compared to Elia Tartari and Gokhan Kaya who both are running Esperantes. So, it seems I am going to have to find something extra and have a bit of luck to win in this series. It doesn't help that I am not familiar with all the tracks on the calendar. Looks like there are a plenty of intense practice sessions ahead. But I got the number 1 on my car this time around and I am confident and ready for this challenge.