News

madlopt (Megarace Team): "The race didn't go too well — I lost time in the pits, then ten laps from the finish I damaged my right front tyre and crawled through the closing laps very slowly. Without that I'd surely have made the podium. At Long Beach it'll be hard to stop TILL, but I'm second in the standings and I need at least a podium — and that's what I'll be fighting for."

Riskoff (Russian Racing Team): "For the first two rounds I defended the team's honour alone, against two rivals from Desperados Indycar Racing Team. That balance of power was about to even out, because from this race GF2 (Yuri Rudnev) was joining the team — and, secretly, AP-Racing. Of course, the arrival of new drivers at Russian Racing Team didn't pass without incident. A certain Alex Ishutin (Alexander Ishutin) expressed a wish to race for us. Remembering how the last new recruit ended for my old team Unreal Racing, I gave him a gentle test, which he almost passed. So he was accepted into the team, which further increased our chances of winning the teams' championship.

So — four drivers against three, on a track no one had learned yet. The local Lausitzring record was initially just under 228 mph. GF2 immediately took the bull by the horns and ran a lap at 229 mph. On the phone we began sharing experience and, without stepping away from the till, experimenting with setups, spurring each other on and testing the theories on track right away. Two hours of phone calls later I set a new championship record of 232.996 mph. That was my ceiling, which GF2 promised to beat. And he did, literally the next day (233 flat)! And later, when after the race I found he'd saved his qualifying result incorrectly, he improved it even more: 233.3! And that — on a keyboard! Astonishing.

An oddity happened with the aforementioned Alexander Ishutin. After registering him for the team, I wrote him a very long letter about setups, a few secrets and race tactics. After that he went quiet and stopped answering. And he never made it to the start of the race. I hope he'll get back in touch eventually — after all, he has my e-mail.

I've already mentioned AP-Racing's secret entry. In short, right up to the last moment even he didn't know for sure whether he'd race. But three days before the end of the race week I finally made him install Indycar 2 on his Windows 2000 without sound, and on Saturday I brought him the driver he needed. Anton got up to speed very quickly and, with a little more time, would certainly have gone faster still. His race didn't quite come together (the lack of practice told). In the end, with two (!) spins, he finished not far behind GF2's already-known race time. Well done!

And as for me? First I experimented with race strategy, weighing whether to run the 61-lap race with one pit stop (but full tanks) or two (only slightly emptier). I settled on the second option, because in practice the two-stop result proved faster, even despite more offs. I didn't bother much with qualifying, knowing I couldn't out-qualify GF2 — and my qualifying setup differed quite radically from Yuri's. The car was twitchier but gave more freedom through the corners. Given how the race would play out, I didn't spend long on the race setup either. I just barely added to the wings and dropped the tyre pressures. After a few laps on a full tank I was completely happy with it and never changed it afterwards.

Now we come to the title of this tale. What does Schumacher have to do with it? Well, first, the Lausitzring is in Germany. And second, the number of backmarkers I lapped in this race more than covered all those I'd lapped across the five previous years of my sim-racing career. And these backmarkers were a very unpleasant factor, periodically affecting the restarts. Oh, how many nose cones, wings and suspensions were broken against them. Our team even devised whole strategies for getting past these computer kamikazes. And, thank the gods, in the end each of us managed a run that landed within the set time targets.

The result was surprising and at the same time a great joy for our team. Russian Racing Team set another championship record, taking the entire podium: I finished first, GF2 second, AP-Racing third. Our team moved into the championship lead — and so did I, in the drivers' standings. Though, in fairness, our main rival TILL13 missed this round for some reason, which made our life a great deal easier.

So, we have an excellent reason to celebrate and a week's holiday. I hope this rest, together with the positive emotions, will help us perform just as well at the next round, on the 'Long Beach' street circuit."