AUSTRALIAN GP - ROUND 1 - 21ST MARCH

TRACK MAP


WHITE LINE & OTHER NOTES

1. NO exceptions. All drivers are expected to keep two wheels between the white lines.
2. Do NOT cross the pit lane blend line when exiting the pits.
3. Please make sure you follow the newly added rule of not being able to use the pit limiter on race starts.
4. Server will be running Melbourne from 12pm GMT, marking the official start of practice for the race.

RACE DETAILS
Wednesday -- Practice day 1 from 12:00pm GMT
Thursday -- Practice day 2
Friday -- Practice day 3
Saturday -- 20:00 GMT -- Qualifying (16:00 Eastern)
Saturday -- 20:30 GMT -- Warmup (16:30 Eastern)
Saturday -- 20:40 GMT -- Race (16:40 Eastern)
Race length -- 37 laps

STEWARDS REPORT

Lap 1, turn 1. S. Kunze brakes too late with the concertina effect into T1, hitting R. Reed-Edwards. S. Kunze spins off the track, R. Reed-Edwards continues S. Kunze - Warning.

Lap 1, turn 3. A. Taylor - brakes too late for T3 and runs into the back of R. Allen, who then goes off the track. No GR applied. A. Taylor - 5 place grid penalty.

Lap 4, turn 3. A. Crane brakes too late for T3, hitting hard into the back of R. Reed-Edwards. This pushes R. Reed-Edwards into the air and into M. Orr, who is forced off the track A. Crane - 10 place grid penalty.

Lap 7, turn 15. I. Mills brakes too late and runs into the back of K. Parkin, turning him around. No GR applied. I. Mills - 5 place grid penalty.

Lap 26, turn 6. M. Orr appears to check up a little. L. McGlade, taking the corner normally, doesn't react at all and runs into the back of him. Due to the nature of reported lag and cars appearing inside each other from the drivers, we've refrained from giving anything harsher on this one.

If there are any incidents you want checked out, please PM me before midnight GMT tonight. We can't pick up absolutely everything that happened.

RACE RESULTS
RACE REPLAY

Adam Hawks announced on the series entry forum topic that he would be absent for Melbourne, if that is to be confirmed, I would like to operate as reserve driver for the #14 Prost GP

Practice is green for Melbourne!

@ Nicolas - OK.

Alright thanks Really looking forward to the official first race

#14 Prost Peugeot is available to reserves.

I'm going to be recording my races and editing them down to highlights!

I'll have the 14 Prost please

My home race.

The car is yours Nicholas. I'll edit the post when I'm at the PC.

#21 Minardi is available to reserves, but DO NOT sign up for it unless you feel you can be safe in the car. We're only 30 minutes away from qualifying.

After an event full start of the race I was happily sitting in 13th( a high finishing place for me) then with one and abit laps to go i put it in the wall coming out of turn 3 and took off my front wing:( . Frustrating but even more motivation to finish well at the next race.

Well, that was something. Started 15th, was in 10th and damage free after the first lap, got up to as high as 9th then someone runs me over from behind sending me back to 13th or so. Get back up to around 9th through pit stops only to again be hit from behind. Carry on and as I'm getting lapped one of the Arrows guys just drives right through me....

Fun. Between that and the clown like first lap I have to say - these driving standards really, really could be improved. (though, I was able to go two wide with a few of you through turn one, so I'm not sure it's a problem for everyone!)

Along the way though did get to have a fun battle with one of the Prost guys and Tero in the Williams, mainly me holding them up on my one stop strategy which uhh - doesn't work.

Also totally screwed my brakes up too, ended up with about 500 F warmer rears by the end of the race than the fronts. Preeetty sure that is a sign of a problem.

Mills has his revenge on me at long last... we're even now Still enjoyed that race despite all the cock-ups. Interlagos will be better.

Empty Box wrote:Carry on and as I'm getting lapped one of the Arrows guys just drives right through me....

That was me, I didn't know where you were going to move and really really didn't expect it there :/ ended up costing me 4th.

Lewis McGlade wrote:

Empty Box wrote:Carry on and as I'm getting lapped one of the Arrows guys just drives right through me....

That was me, I didn't know where you were going to move and really really didn't expect it there :/ ended up costing me 4th.

I didn't move, there was no blue flag at all and you were still a decent distance back. Just all of a sudden there was literally a car in my cockpit. If I were moving, I wouldn't be on the line.

Empty Box wrote:

Lewis McGlade wrote:

Empty Box wrote:Carry on and as I'm getting lapped one of the Arrows guys just drives right through me....

That was me, I didn't know where you were going to move and really really didn't expect it there :/ ended up costing me 4th.

I didn't move, there was no blue flag at all and you were still a decent distance back. Just all of a sudden there was literally a car in my cockpit.

Odd, must have been lag then..... I PM'd you it from my POV.

I got hit a lot in the first few laps. Most of the time it involved me getting hit into someone else. Had some serious aero damage and was running 1+ sec slower laps than I should have been. I ended up finishing around where I qualified, at least.

I also screwed up a few times either trying to pass someone or letting someone by; sorry about that.

Was fun, though. I just hope it goes better next time.

Lewis McGlade wrote:Odd, must have been lag then..... I PM'd you it from my POV.

Mills reported Richard "appearing" in front of him as well. I know Tero said he saw quite a lot of lag at the start too. :/

First of all, and again, a big apology to Matt for the hit under brakes. Just missed my brake marker. Though I'm asking myself what was I thinking at the time and the answer is that I wasn't really. I was pretty pissed off and in a sort of an attack mode instead of driving sensibly.

The start of the race was pretty messy and cars were laggy. I know the game engine is old but I don't remember rF1 ever being this bad with 100-150 pings. I could be wrong. Though contact between cars, as there certainly was a lot of that on the first lap, makes the netcode go a bit crazy. And these cars change direction fast which doesn't help. But at the end of the day I'm quite disappointed by this and kinda reconsidering my participation here as it's just not fun like this.

I made a mistake on one of the early laps and spun and got collected. Rear suspension was damaged both sides but it just made the car better! Then  close to halfway hitting Matt damaged the front wing and that also made the car better! Clearly I know nothing about how to set up this car for going fast

And as Matt said the driving standards are a bit all over the place. Especially the starts and first lap chould be way calmer imo.

But had fun battling with Matt and that one Prost Everything else was kinda shit though

Results and replay added to the first post.

steviejb wrote:Mills reported Richard "appearing" in front of him as well.

Everyone knows, that any car I'm in will for no reason try and kill Mills.

Even if it means scaring the shit out of me as everything freezes for a good couple of seconds

Hopefully, it's in the video.

steviejb wrote:

Lewis McGlade wrote:Odd, must have been lag then..... I PM'd you it from my POV.

Mills reported Richard "appearing" in front of him as well. I know Tero said he saw quite a lot of lag at the start too. :/

This is probably what I was reminded of reading Matt and Lewis' comments. Toward the end of the race a car ahead of me, a Sauber I think, just "flew off" the track at a weird angle and disappeared. Having passed that area and looked at my mirror and saw it appear behind me and infront of Mills.

Got a great start, bit of pushing and shoving going on in the first few corners. Unfortunately I got caught out by Tero spinning in turn 11 on the second lap and had nowhere to go (sorry mate). Bad result for Benetton but still happy to be racing in the series

Looking forward to Brazil!

Watching Jimmy's vid reminded me: I also had the pit request menu popping up automatically a few times. Annoying. What's causing that?

That happens if you have the pit stop strategy set in the setup. If you change it to zero planned stops the pop up won't happen (I forget to set it to zero too......).