Thanks to an unforeseen and
entirely unavoidable error - I forgot to save - I had to start again from the point just before Alonso passed me before our respective stops.
Events played out much the same - he came out about a second ahead, we came through the field - but in a much more civilised fashion; There was no crazy pass of Webber and Perez at turn 1, and Alonso and I didn't clash at turn 4.
Still had to go all out to stay with him, and he still went off at turn 5, and so I got back to having Senna pace me:
My entire race strategy was based on the fact that, through practice and qualifying, I was consistently half a second quicker than anyone else, despite being on the hard tyre.
But, as we all know, that sometimes doesn't translate to race pace.
Senna was hounding me, lap after lap - my middle sector was enough to compensate for the last sector where he destroyed me - until the point that the McLaren of Button caught up to us and, in one quick pass, stole second.
And now I was scared.
I did not enjoy as much of an advantage through the middle sector against Button, and my failure to realise this was the beginning of the end.
At Interlagos, if a car is faster than me in sector 1, I usually let him through without too much of fight, thinking I'll get him in sector 2.
Not with Button.
Once he was past me, he flew.
And I panicked.
I threw the brake balance forward, and cranked down the differential settings, hoping for outright pace instead of tyre saving.
But that wasn't my undoing.
Pinnacle Game Profiler - the thing that let's me use my Xbox 360 Controller's triggers in GP4 - was.
Being able to operate both brake and throttle at the same time now, I've started overlapping at times where I need some extra pace.
This burns
a lot of fuel which, as Martin Brundle pointed out once when discussing this topic, is OK in Sports Car racing.....not so in F1.
And I was not watching my fuel levels, so intent was I on following Button.
Final lap and, as Button and I caught a backmarker, I thought I was in with a shot.
It was not to be however, and I resigned myself to second place as we finished up the second sector.
Just before the pit entry....and there goes all my power.
I know that all I can do is hold it in as high a gear as I can get and hope for the best.
The best was third, as Hamilton came breezing past.
I plan on putting together a bit of a highlights video and, if people are interested, I can upload my saves for downloading as well; I've got one from just after the two-stop drivers pitted, and the save from just after I crossed the finish line.
EDIT: When I talk about turn 5, I mean turn 6 according to
this picture.
F1 Graphics Swapper ---
Lensdump - Renders and Screenshots ---
GP4 Performance GeneratorEdited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2015 02:07PM by AUS_Doug.