More great sim racing blogs from Jimmy Mansi. This week we catch up with all his sim racing events and more in blog #4
Jimmy Mansi our sponsored sim racing driver here at simrace247.com returns for his weekly sim racing blog. Giving us all the details of his racing shenanigans of the past week and more, let’s stay up to date on the most recent events.
Before we jump straight into Jimmy’s blog, oNiD Racing who Jimmy races with has partnered with us for league promotion and more.
Good morning, afternoon or evening..
It’s blog time, which means it’s time to summarise my week of racing. This week was a mixed bag, as you’ll see below!
ACC |League Partners oNiD Racing Multiclass European Super Series | R4 Spa
Q – P1
R – DNF
There’s one thing I detest more than not finishing races, and that’s having someone else finish that race for me. I had the pace for a win this week, I love Spa and always enjoy racing there. Sadly, this week’s race was ruined by someone far too eager to make a pass when there wasn’t space.
After being fastest in practice and then taking pole by 0.3, I knew I was in good shape for the race. I got away cleanly (after a red flag in the first attempt) and quickly built a lead of around 3 seconds over P2 & P3. Then I hit the GT4’s and boy did I hit them at the wrong places in the track, every lap. Quickly my lead went down from 3 seconds to 1.
Coming out of the bus stop chicane, P2 got close (but never alongside). We had a GT4 on the left, going in to T1 which is a sharp right handed hairpin. I held the position in the middle of the track to defend and before the braking zone, shifted slightly to the left to get a better entry for the corner.
As I braked, P2 didn’t, instead, he tried to swing right and make a lunge. Due to him being on my bumper, there was never going to be space or time to pull this off.
The inevitable happened and I was sent into the wall full speed. A head on collision left me with over 2 minutes of damage and also required a tow. I decided to retire the car as at this point, my race was done. It made no sense, whatever he was attempting was always going to end badly.
If you know Spa, you know after T1 you have Eau Rouge and Radillion, which leads on to the Kemel Straight, a perfect and safe place to make a pass.
I was disappointed with this, there could have been a great battle for the win. It’s great to be quick on this game but if you lack race craft and just general knowledge, it’s a recipe for disaster.
ACC | @ACRracing GT3 Earth Tour | S10 | R4 Barcelona
Q – P2
R – P1
Wednesday night and it was back with Actrollvision and the Earth Tour. I’ve not done much competitive racing around Barcelona, maybe it’s one of the tracks that doesn’t get used enough in leagues.
I got my head down with practice as it was the first time I had used the Aston Martin here. I started off, 1:45, then 1:44.. just broke into the 1:43’s and was relatively pleased with this pace. Made a few changes on the car and went for another run.. 1:43.2 (I blew a 43.0 in a previous run but the pace was there)
All practice had been in dry conditions, I had the setup but had seen a rival in the sessions who seemed to have a couple of tenths on me. He was a bit further behind in the championship so, had he finished ahead of me, as long as I came home P2, all was not lost.
Barcelona isn’t a track that the Aston favors, it’s certainly a stronger track for cars like the Audi, McLaren, or Ferrari so I knew I had a challenge on my hands.
We come to race day, the server loads up, I enter the practice and am hit by the weather.. it’s raining, but it’s not heavy. I have no wet setup, no idea of tyre pressures and 15 minutes to figure this all out. I adjusted my dry setup, stuck some wets on and went out.
On the very last lap of the practice (my only clean lap) I put it on P1 for the session. Barcelona may not be a track the Aston gets on with, but I enjoy racing in the rain.. I instantly thought ‘if the race is wet, I’ve got a chance of P1’.
On to qualifying and guess what.. dry but a very green track with no grip. Whatever I did, I could not get a lap in. Stuck behind slower cars, tyres not up to temperature and struggling with the lack of grip.
40 seconds left in the session, I cross the line.. I’m sat 17/26 at this point and everything seemed to be going wrong. I started my final qualifying lap, I had a clear track and one shot to get it right. The lap wasn’t the best but it was enough to put me P2 albeit it 0.4 off pole.
This doesn’t happen often but I was shaking after Q. The thought of starting towards the back with what T1 and T2 are like here was not something I wanted to experience.
On to the race and guess what.. rain, again much like practice it wasn’t heavy to start but it was going to get heavier as the race went on. I adjusted the setup again, tyre pressures were an uneducated guess and off we went.
I got a good launch from the green lights and slotted in behind P1 (who I could see was struggling) I held position for the first lap and coming into the final chicane, set up the car to have a good run down the straight and make a pass in to T1. The phrase ‘I love it when a plan comes together’ was all I could hear once I made the move.
I moved up to P1 and had great pace, although my tyres quickly started to overheat. Wet tyres like to be sat around 30.5Psi.. mine were between 32 and 31 all the way around and glowing a lovely yellow/orange.
Somehow, I was still pulling on the field and the gap was up to 4 seconds. The heavier rain came at the perfect time, the tyres started to cool and pressures returned closer to normal. With this, I was able to pull another 5 seconds on P2 before the pit stop.
I came in at exactly halfway point, adjusted the pressures to where they needed to be, refueled and with a fresh set of boots, set about getting straight back into my groove. The pace was strong from the off, I was quickly back up to P3, close to P2 who still had not pitted.
P1 pitted, but he didn’t change his tyres, just refueled.. he came out 6 seconds ahead of me.. I knew I could reel him in, I was on fresh tyres and within one lap, had taken 1.8 seconds out of him. Within 2 laps, I was on the back of him. Out of the final corner I set up for a pass, had a great run, moved out of the slipstream and took him in to T1.
The rest of the race was about concentrating on myself and no one else, passing the lapped cars calmly, taking my time, and get the car to the end. I did just that, took the win by 8.5 seconds and with results working massively in my favour, I have a 62 point lead in the championship after 4 rounds (where my lowest finishing position has been P2)
So, a DNF to a win. The P1 really lifted my mood after a difficult race on Sunday evening but these things happen and it’s how we react to them that matters. I was angry at the time and as much as I still do not understand this person’s thought process, by Monday morning I was fine and focused on getting the maximum in ACR.
This week I have some lovely new Fanatec V3 pedals arriving so will be fitting them Sunday evening. Sadly this means I will miss oNiD this week but will be back racing on Wednesday in R5 of ACR at Monza.
Like always, keep up to date with my goings on through twitter @JimboMansi_46 and thanks for reading my blog.
Have a great week on and off the track!
