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SIM RACING DRIVER JIMMY MANSI BLOG #10

Our contributing sim racing driver Jimmy Mansi continues with his blog, lets catch up and check out #10.

Jimmy Mansi keeps the community posted on his sim racing events here at simrace247, our contributing sim racing driver is back in the driving seat with official races and more.

Hey all,

It’s been a while since putting a blog together and this is purely down to burnout and my personal feelings towards competitive sim racing recently. It’s not secret there has been and still are some underlying issues with ACC and these setup exploits. None of this has sat well with me which is why I decided to remove myself from all GT3 competitive racing. To be completely honest, I was beginning to feel a little lost with it all and was not enjoying my time (aside from working with the rookies in oNiD). There have been quite a few updates with ACC, some BOP changes on the cars and further handling/physics amendments. With these and not wanting to sit down and dedicate my time to get on top of it all, I haven’t really had much ‘fun’.

Anyway, enough of the misery.. I’m back racing again and the enjoyment is coming back. For the first time, I am competing in a GT4 Championship.. A single spec (Porsche Cayman GT4) series and the racing is hugely entertaining and fun. The Championship is part of oNiD Racing and sponsored by our very own simrace247.

ACC | oNiD Racing | GT4 Single Spec Porsche Cayman Championship | R1 Kyalami

Q – P4

Race one – P1
Race two – P22

There’s going to be a lot of this as the season goes on but, first time driving a GT4 at Kyalami, a track I love in the GT3’s and it was equally as fun but much more challenging in the GT4’s. Heavy braking is something the Cayman does not like and straight away in practice I was finding my rear locking and the rear swapping ends on me. I realised very quickly that trail braking in these cars is a must if you want to control the car and with that, maintaining good corner speed and keeping the revs up made a huge difference. Completely different to driving the GT3’s but this is why I have gone for this championship, as I needed something to interest me and something new to learn!

Qualifying was ok but I couldn’t get my optimum lap in. I know I had another 0.3 in hand but just could not string it together and ended up P4 on an incredibly tight front two rows. In to race one and there was carnage at T1. Contact between a few cars further back sent someone out of control, across the grass into T1. Fortunately I was on the outside and whilst receiving quite the whack and almost spinning, I got away with only 6 seconds of damage. Annoyingly, this had given P1 and P2 a three second advantage over me and I thought with the damage that maybe P3 was going to be the best I could manage. After a few laps, I started to close in on the front two and with them starting to battle, the gap came down very quickly. Going into the final turn, P2 misjudged his car placement and braked on the grass causing him to lose the car and head straight into P1. This was a complete gift and one I wasn’t going to let slip. I went into P1 and focused on my race pace. It turns out my race pace was on par with the pole time in qualifying and I started to gap the field. In the end I won the race by over 10 seconds and felt much more comfortable with the car.

Going into race two, I knew I had a good car/setup and could battle with the front guys, if we got away cleanly. The start was much better, I took P3 around the outside of T1 and was quickly on the back of the front two. Second lap in the race and P2 made a mistake, I went for the inside and had the run, as well as the corner but he wasn’t willing to give it up. If you know Kyalami, you know cheetah.. And you know cheetah is not a corner you go into two wide. I couldn’t judge the space and hit the sausage kerb on the inside, which sent me out wide, causing contact and resulting in me spinning. The entire field was behind us, close as it was only the second lap and I was hit numerous times. With over three minutes of damage, I returned to the garage for repairs. By the end of this, I was two laps down on the entire field and purely went out to gain more knowledge of the car and with a glimmer of hope I could maybe have some fortune from someone else’s incident but, this didn’t happen. A real shame as I could have had a very strong start to the series and most likely, be leading the championship.

ACC | QRT Gaming | A Quantum Safari (90min Special Event) | Kyalami

Q – P1
R – P2

Back to Kyalami on Saturday and back in the Aston Martin V8 GT3. As mentioned earlier, I love Kyalami and saw this event come up thanks to Ben22Racing so I decided to join him.

I managed to steal pole position on my final lap by 0.032, which felt great and also made me realise how much I had missed driving the AMV8. On to the race and we had a really clean start. P2 was in the new Audi Evo II and had a great launch but I managed to hold on around the outside of T1. Then it was thirty minutes of defending, battling and having some fantastic close racing. P1 to P4 were covered by less than two seconds and having gone heavy with the fuel at the start, I knew if I could keep them behind, I would have a good shot at winning the race. Sadly this was not to be with sixty minutes of the race left, P3 made a huge mistake, missing his braking point and while I was trying to go around the outside of a lapped car, piled into the back of me and sent me spinning into the gravel.

Fortunately, we had built a large gap to the rest of the field and I was able to come back on in P4 and with only 5 seconds of damage was straight back to matching my race pace. However, at this point, P1 and P2 were over seven seconds ahead. I also need to add that P3 did wait for me and give the position back which was greatly appreciated and a nice sign of respect.

Further into the race, the clouds gathered and the rain came. My plan was to do all ninety minutes of the race on one set of tires (something a majority of the field had clearly planned on doing). With the rain not heavy enough to warrant the time lost in the pits and with it drying up again before the end of the race most of us stuck it out on the slicks and it was difficult! Coming down the mineshaft I lost the car and took a heavy hit into the wall. I had to pit immediately and thought I had lost my podium at this point. I came out in P12 with some still having to make a pitstop for fuel. At this point, I thought a top ten was going to be the best I could manage; however, the track started to dry and those who had switched to wet tires were suddenly in a lot of trouble. I quickly got back into P5 and was closing in on P2 to P4. Behind Ben was flying, lapping 0.7 a lap faster than me as he had changed on to fresh tires and was feeling much more confident in his car. I couldn’t afford a mistake and needed to pass the cars ahead quickly. I managed this but even then, the gap to Ben had come down from eight seconds to less than four.

He got caught battling with P3 and P5 towards the end of the race which allowed me to gap them enough to hold on to P2. After my own crash, I didn’t think I could finish on the podium but to come away with a P2 in my first competitive GT3 race in a while felt really good and props to Ben who managed to stick it out and finish P3!

This week I have the second round of the oNiD GT4 series and our second rookies season is underway so watch out for updates on that!

Take care all and see you on the track. Thanks for reading and check me out on @JimboMansi_46

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Darren Buckner

Darren Buckner

Darren became a member of Simrace247 in January 2021 and has been a valuable addition to the platform ever since. He began his journey as an Editor and has progressed to the position of Editor in Chief, owing to his unwavering commitment and hard work. With his profound interest in motorsport and gaming, Darren is passionate about sharing news and exceptional content with like-minded people worldwide.View Author posts