TSA F1 2012 Championship Round-Up – Week 2

It’s time for all the news from the second week of racing in the TSA F1 Championship, brought to you in association with the lovely folks from Elgato Gaming, creators of the Game Capture HD box, and Insert Coin Clothing, makers of many a t-shirt and hoodie based on popular game franchises.

Unfortunately, the commentating team are running a bit behind once more with their videos, but if you’d like to catch up on what happened last week, there are now videos embedded in last week’s post for the two Monday races. Australia can be found directly here, whilst Malaysia is here.

Lets crack on!

First up was Sunday’s race around Canada, and here I hand over to Jambo:

Qualifying in Montreal started off with the roads being dry, however as we set out on our quick laps the rain was already at the hairpin. This led to a rush of activity as everyone attempted to set their laptimes before it got too wet. Personally I had an absolute mare with very slow traffic blocking me on each of my quick laps! Lee was the first to strike, with a low 1:20 to put him at the top in the tricky conditions, which at the time were only getting worse. Would this initial laptime keep Lee at the top?

Fortunately for many, the rain eased off and the slicks were they tyres of choice once more. CarBoyCam was took advantage of this, dropping the times into the 1:19s, leading to a flurry of laptimes coming in. Once conditions had fully improved, Chuggy’s last minute lap jumped up to 1st with a high 15, but this was bettered by Death_in_Flamez just after the session timer finished.

Chuggy struck back, having crossed the line before the timer had reached zero, and was able to improve to a 14.5, moving the goalposts considerably. Tomjakes also found time at the very end moving up to second. Death_in_Flamez eventually ended up in third with Keaneplay finishing a strong fourth. I was 5th and alongside me on the third row would be Lee.

We join tomjakes for his onboard video of the race:

Thankfully race day was fully dry in Canada, a first for the Sunday Championship. As the lights went out Chuggy made a great start to lead into turn one, which was relatively tidy all around. Lee managed to pass me out of turn 2, whilst Keaneplay lost the back end. CarBoyCam had a few issues with cars ghosting and skipping around which slowed him down as well.

At the hairpin Death_in_Flamez attempted a pass on Tomjakes which led to Tom spinning and DiF slowing to let him past. This in turn caused a few scary moments, as the following cars had to dive to the inside to miss the very slow moving Mercedes! All of this let Lee up to second and myself up to third with CarBoyCam close behind.

On lap four Chuggy made a slight mistake on the run to to the hairpin allowing Lee to pull alongside and take the lead, holding off Chuggy’s attempt to repass off on the rest of the lap. Behind, Tomjakes had recovered and passed CarBoyCam for 4th place, and at this point I thought things would settle down. That was not to last very long!

Chuggy had a big slide out of the final chicane and put the car into the barriers, breaking his front wing. This closed up the pack behind him and Tomjakes was able to capitalise on a mistake from me, and begin to chase down Lee. Following the pitstops CarBoyCam and myself were together again, unfortunately a spin from me broke my front wing, and following the pitstop I had dropped well back from the fight.

At the front Lee held off Tom comfortably, ending up the winner by over five seconds, CarBoyCam had a mostly drama free race to 3rd with Chuggy coming in 4th. I was 5th with Death_in_Flamez a tidy 6th place.

Monday’s visit to Canada was fraught with connection issues that had many of us banging heads on walls and desks before we finally managed to get underway! Even then it was sad to see Sitorimon get disconnected just a few minutes into the qualifying session. In the overcast conditions it was AshGraham that came out on top, with James_m2603 alongside him and Manorhowze in 3rd.

We join Manorhowze for his video:

Miraculously everyone seemed to get through the first few corners just fine, THL snatching 3rd from Manor out of turn 2 as the jockeying for position was laced with a hint of self-preservation. This lasted through much of the first lap, but the tricky hairpin caught one or two unawares, and the final chicane saw THL spin out, only to be collected by Manorhowze for a big smash. Similarly, James got it wrong through turn 1 and span out, letting me up into 2nd place and Stanley up into 3rd.

I kept Ash down to a three second gap for a few laps before I committed my own error, spinning out of the chicane and rejoining behind Stanley and the battling Colin and Deadpool. Then further disaster struck as Freezebug got disconnected and the hosting duties migrated. Lag became a big issue for those fighting closely for position, as we came to the pit stop window.

Ash pitted from the lead on lap 7, whilst the next five cars carried on. THL was the next one in, and a handful of other. Most stuck to the basic plan of dropping in on lap 8. It all played nicely back into Manorhowze’s hands, as he had stormed up through the field after having had to pit for a new front wing, and handily took the lead.

Unfortunately for him, he’d made a mistake whilst picking tyres, and still had another stop to make just about managing to hold onto second place ahead of Stanley when he came out on lap 11. Stanley had been looking in his mirrors all race, always preparing himself for a struggle for a few laps, but never really getting to that as they erred behind. Eventually it was THL, also on a bit of a recovery drive, who managed to overhaul him for third.

Back at the front, though, Manorhowze was charging down Ash, whittling away at his 10 second lead, but just not quite managing to make it as Ash crossed the finish line first. Manor was second, THL third and Stanley fourth. ColinBarr was just a couple seconds behind Stanley in 5th, with Heedbaw in a well deserved 6th a few seconds further back.

Head over to page 2 for the championship tables.

The next stops are Silverstone and Austin. 5 laps each, half points. Bring it on.