Smiles all round

Despite still hating virtual racing, I excitedly checked the driver line up as soon as it came out, but was then immediately disappointed that Lundgaard wasn’t in. Who would rival his enthusiasm and love for the game? 

Rather excitingly though Davide Valsecchi was taking part and all I wanted was a direct live stream of just him. This didn’t happen and it was a travesty. 

So without Lundgaard or Valsecchi to watch, I opted to follow Louis Delétraz, Callum Ilott and Arthur Leclerc. This turned out to be a terrible choice, as it was sad times all round and definitely not fun for anyone involved. 

Zhou vs. Leclerc

Qualifying was once again a one-lap shootout, which we didn’t see and some people got their laps deleted for not observing the ridiculously strict track limits (I think. It was impossible to keep up to be honest). Arthur Leclerc was predictably on pole with Zhou in second. 

Ilott had opted for the alternative strategy, which he said he was finding stressful. He also hated his brakes and his tyres, and later, after spinning, the game itself. Instead of struggling alone with his strategy he should have used his Twitch chat as his race engineer like Delétraz did, “Can you tell me who ahead has pitted?” Twitch chat dutifully obliged. 

There was some lovely team work from Ilott, despite not having a team to tell him to do that, as he let Zhou (his virtual team mate as well as real life 2020 one) past. Zhou was on a different strategy and it’s fair to say it was going a lot better for him than for Ilott. 

Things were also going well for Leclerc, who was on his way to keeping his 100% win record in virtual F2 racing until he got hit by Zhou, either caused by terrible driving or by a terrible internet connection. Leclerc then got a three-second time penalty, because everyone got those, and then had a particularly impressive game failure as his car broke despite damage being turned off in the game settings. He was well happy as you could imagine. 

So Zhou won, everyone got time penalties and Markelov dropped out of the race after losing his connection.

Delétraz vs. Nato 

Louis Delétraz jumped into the lead at the start of the Sprint Race, while Leclerc jumped from 18th to 9th in the first few corners, avoiding the mid-field “bumper cars” that Ilott had to endure. 

It was all going well for Delétraz in the five-lap race, until WEC driver Norman Nato crashed into him on the last lap. Nato then drove off down the road taking the win for himself. Delétraz was “a bit pissed off actually” and looked like he was imminently about to quit online racing, while Nato was a bit sheepish, saying he made a “stupid mistake”. 

It was happy times all round and everyone is really excited about the next round in Monaco, which won’t be carnage at all.