City Liga - Round 2 - Highlights

Here's something positive from the last race. Take a short onboard ride with my very own commentary thru the battle with Rapotr's Basti.

City Liga - Round 2

Well, as you could see the track was extremely challenging. With two weeks to spare we had plenty of time exploring every little bit of it and by the end of practice there were three of us standing out. Patrick, Paddi and myself. The rest were slightly off pace. I remember Patrick saying that he hasn't done this much practice for a race in a very long time. Seems like some boundaries were pushed. I had a lot of fun chasing those faster and faster times with you guys.

We had a two shot qualifying in a 15 minute session and I set the pole position time on my first run. Paddi and Patrick were slightly off. I spectated their second run and when I saw that my first City Liga pole position was secured, I used my 2nd shot to get up to speed with race setup. Paddi was 2nd on the grid and Patick only 10th.

Unfortunately for me, my computer completely screwed the things for me. The FPS dropped down under 20ish with the whole grid packed together and with my oversteery race setup, which was necessary  to make tires last the distance, I didn't dare to push the exits. It was really weird and frustrating, because the day before we did a test race with nearly a full grid and things were ok. So, I suddenly found myself all the way down in 6th with decent gaps between each driver and half a race to go. The despair was only emotion I could feel. Instead of fighting for victory I would have a hard time even getting on the podium, with no fault of my own. Of course I would be quicker than the drivers ahead of me, but I could never push too much because of the risky track and the tires which just lasted the race. I'd manage to climb up to 4th only. I collect more points than in Round 1 though, but it's still very disappointing after starting from pole position. Paddi won the race easily and took the lead of championship with Daniel and Patrick completing the podium.

Next couple of races are on standard LFS tracks and I'll be looking to keep my title hopes alive.

Also I'm planning on making a little video with voice commentary of my own from a fight with Basti, this weekend or the next week, when I should have a bit more free time.

Aston International Rev. Introduction

Round 2 of 15th City Liga's season features the longest track of the season. An 8 kilometer long, wide, sportscar track with plently of elevation changes, challenging corners and overtaking possibilities is a very different venue from tight South City Classic, as we're about to see. There are two highly interesting chicanes, which almost narrow down as the one from Round 1, when you get into them and a lot of very fast corners which tend to be very though of front left tire. The car we're using for this round is XR3. It's a XR GTR, with 35% intake restriction which leaves us with 303hp. But don't let it fool you, it's every bit challenging to drive as it's 490hp big brother. The less horsepower reduces XRR's ugly turbo lag and also gives us opportunity to use R2 tires. R2 being a softer compound makes things only more difficult as it heats much faster than R3 and is much colder in the end than R3 as well. The tire goes thru the whole cycle in 25 lap, the race distance, and can only barely last to finish the race.

The track opens with a 1.3km long start/finish straight, followed by one of the trickiest complex of corners on the track, if not the in whole of LFS. Many of us know this corner from various races, including 24h race from a year ago on AS historic rev. The difference is most of us didn't run XRR back then. As you already may know, this car likes to flip and T1/T2/T3 complex chicane with it's high curbs doesn't make things any easier. So, in order to go thru smoothly you have to take a good cut thru T3, just before the apex, where the curb will launch all four wheels of the ground momentarily.

There's a short uphill straight after the chicane with two little sweepers and what you really want to do is just carry the speed all the way thru. T4 is a very cambered left hairpin, followed by a kilometer long straight to finish off sector one. The straight itself goes downhill with two little kinks and then a very steep uphill with another kink. You deferentially want to get the speed out of that corner, as it gives great overtaking possibilities. If you get T4 right, you can get a massive toe down here.

T5 is a very, very long right bend, the fastest corner on track in fact. We're taking it full speed, which is around 230km/h into it, just drop down to 5th thru the middle and touching the inside curb, flick the car to the left for T6 using all of the curb, stay thru the middle for good early entry for T7 and T8, which is also taken flatout. It's a very fun part of the track with all the elevation changes and only when you reach T8, you're dropping just under 200km/h.

The rest of sector two is filled with elevation changes as well. We continue with left T9 and then a sharp downhill left T10 corner, which then goes uphill into a very tricky T11/12. It's tricky because it's at the end of  the hill and it's competently blind. T11 is a small left corner where we brake for T12 which is a fast right corner. As we've already had couple of very fast right corners front left tire tends to heat very much in this one. We're continuing with a short straight into a mid-speed downhill left bend which leads onto the 1.25km long straight to finish sector two. This is the best overtaking opportunity on the track together with s/f straight. There's T14 in middle of it, but maybe only in FZ5 you need to lift there. After T14 there's a steep uphill and if you get in the toe before it, you can have full car in front for T15, something like Turkey's track with DRS.

Sector three opens with insanely quick right corner, the last of those that overload FL tire, where you just dab the brakes, get it back to 5th and you're already looking into T16/17, but you can't see it. The track drops so bad that it's completely blind. You could say it's a fast version of Laguna Seca's Corkscrew. It's taken almost flatout. You just touch the brakes and lift a bit before you're back on power over all of the bumps watching to stay right on the curb, to have clean tires for T18.

T18 is the first in sequence of three hairpins. Approaching speed is the biggest of all the hairpins here and it's the only place where we change down three gears. Mid corner is very bumpy, but there's a nice curb on the exit waiting for you. With this hairpin we finish sector three. T19 is very nice hairpin where the track opens on the exit, so a lot of speed can be taken out and T20 is a tricky hairpin on braking as the track rises a bit thru the middle and the rear end gets slightly unstable, so it's very important to keep the rear at bay there for the lap time and for close battles as well.

From what we have seen so far the competition is fierce. Patrick, CLs bet for champion is showing some great pace around here. It's no wonder really as he's done a 24h of MoE with their XR2 car around Aston and posted the best time for their team. Paddi is expected to be very strong as well. FOX specialists Daniel, Maurizio, Max, Chris and Markus should be very ok with this car too, as it resembles FOX a lot by the cornering and top speeds. But it's heavier, it has a roof though and that makes it feel a lot more like XRT, my favorite car. The restriction has removed the turbo lag and the car can be really pushed to the limits now in it's sports-car version.

You can track the laptimes from the training here.

City Liga - Round 1

One lap quali saw a huge variation in starting grid, compared to prequal times. FOX specialist, WR holder and prequal winner Maurizio qualified only 4th. It was three Germans who are already very experienced with this historic City Liga combo who outqualified him. Daniel took pole position with blistering time of 41.07, followed by Max and Markus. In fifth was Maurizio's teammate Max and in sixth Chris. I qualified solid 7th in front of two Polaks, Dzaban and Piotr. 10th on the grid was Paddi, who is also a specialist for this car, with rather disappointing qualifying for him. City Liga's no1 championship favorite, Patrick, qualified only 17th.

Results - Qualifying

The main race was always going to be very difficult and my targets were to move up a  spot or two, if possible more in case any of the drivers DNFs. However, my goals were struck right at the beggining in the infamous chicane when Max ren a bit wide in front of me and I was destined to make contact with him in that incredibly tight corner. Unfortunately he was spun out and I was down to 13th.

I had a lot of action recovering from there, passing Patrick, Dzaban, Jan-Ole, Schuhti, Piotr and Paddi all the way up to 6th.

Results - Race 1

Daniel had an easy job to victory from pole position as overtaking is extremely difficult on this tight track. Max followed his footsteps to second and Maurizio managed to climb up to final step of the podium after Markus experienced some problems in late stages of the race. Markus himself finished solid 5th, in front of Chris.

As only 16 of 24 drivers finished the first race, we saw top 8 being reversed for second race. So I was in a great position now, 3rd on the grid. Piotr was on pole position and I knew I passed him once, I could pass him again. But second was Paddi, a FOX specialist and from there he would very likely have a strong race, meaning if I don't pass him in first few laps I probably won't at all. So, my targets suddenly risen to a very risky position and I wanted victory. I would make a huge risk thru the chicane on the first lap to try and make a great run out of it, but I wasn't such luck. I clipped the wall very slightly, which trew me into the other wall and then Chris and Markus didn't have a choice but to run into me, spinning me out all the way down to 18th. The risk didn't pay, off but with a 10 round season and a two of the worst rounds being dropped out and this round already being kindof disaster with 6th in race 1, risks were necessary. Good recovery was impossible in second race when couple of laps later I ren into a freak accident between BasTi and KiLl3r fighting viciously over 15th and there was nothing I could really do to avoid it. With a limpy car I finished in poor 13th, as this tough track has taken a toll on a lot of drivers who didn't see the finish line.
Results - Race 2

Paddi went off to take race victory after Piotr made a crucial mistake. Max drove a brilliant race to another second and Markus completed the all round German podium in front of Maurizio and Daniel.

The big winners are obviously championship underdogs who favor this car, Daniel, Max, Markus, Maurizio and Paddi. Ziomm, Patrick, Schuhti, Italian Max and myself will look to forget this round and focus on upcoming GTR challenge in two weeks time.

Points standing

Splitting parts with My3id Gaming and taking on a new challenge

After somewhat over three years I'm splitting parts with My3id Gaming again. I say again, because we've come to mutual understanding it's the best for both of us, just as it was back in 08. I've had a great time with the team and I wish them a lot of good luck in future.

German based City liga has opened their doors to international drivers fully this year. They have been taking guest drivers all thru the years, but with new encouragement they've made this year, they've managed to gather tight competition from all over the world. I've always favoured this type of leagues. Great variety of it all keeps the fun sky high. I guess it stayed with me from the old times and balkanian leagues. My old friends from Cro Team Racing are now also involved with this league and it will be great to see some old friends around. Germany itself has always had some of the best drivers and judging by the prequal results their involvement hasn't declined this year either with seven German drivers in top 15 in prequal. However the top two spots have been taken away from them by Italian Maurizio Naselli and myself. Amazingly top 27 drivers from prequal that was held on two combos which times are then combined, that will make the grid 1, are all inside one second from the leader.

City liga is an old type of the league, where you are taking on a new car with every next round. They've made an equal combination with three open wheeler and three GTR rounds rounded up with four road-car rounds to complete ten rounds. There isn't a certain part of the season where one type of cars is used in repetition, so we're going to see a great variety thru the season and there's also a possibility for a different car from your competitors in four rounds, where you can pick the car from given class of cars.

City tracks are historically dominant configurations used by City liga. Next to South City rounds there are Aston and Kyoto with one round less and ultimately Fern Bay and Blackwood with a round each.

Interestingly City liga doesn't have a regular format of the races. They're different from round to round with some rounds being split up into two sprint races, other lasting an hour and some are even as long as grand prix race. To top off the challenge for everyone the quali format isn't standardized either. More on that with every new round.

City Liga has given me nice intro and a high target in their pre season preview. I hope I'll be able to match it.
"Niki is one of the best league drivers in LfS. In many races and leagues, he showed that he likes to win. He dominated the MoE 24h with his team in January. If Niki takes CityLiga serious, he is a hot aspirant for the title."

Read the full article from City Liga about competition here

The first round is this upcoming Monday evening. We're kicking off with FOX on tight streets of South City's Classic layout and it's infamous chicane. One lap quali, two 44 lap sprint races and a reversed grid of top half of finishers for second race. Sounds like a sweet nightmare to me. I don't particluarly like quali format, the track, or the car. So my targets are going to be realistic for this round. Top 5 and I'm more than happy.

Good luck to everyone, I know I'll need it.


League will be broadcasted and I'm sure organization will post links on LFS Forum in time.
Also, you can always visit City Liga's website for more.

STD Championship Round 1 Highlights

The championship is an old idea renewed by a new organization. mostly all done by Andris Pavars alone. The slowest class of cars called STD consists of XR GT and XF GTI.

XF GTI is a 115hp FWD road-car with the mass of only 940kg.
XR GT is slightly more power-full with140hp engine. It's a RWD road-car, but it's significantly heavier than XFG with it's mass of 1167kg. Both cars are reaching top speeds of about 190 km/h. Obviously XFG looks like an easier car to drive, however most of the drivers opted for the rwd machine including myself as well.

Organization has come up with an interesting format of races. Starting off with a 20minute hardcore qualifying, followed by a 15minute sprint race and a 30minute featuring race with top 8 finishers on reversed grid spots and a mandatory pit stop. To make things even more interesting they've decided to award the best with success ballast to prevent any kind of domination. It will be interesting to see how this works through the season.

I took a nonchalant approach to this championship without too much training as the cars are rather easy to drive. While most of the grid was trying to extract every last tenth out of the car with RHS driver position for this track.

Qualifying
Round 1 was held at Aston's North circuit with reversed layout. For the first time in a while I managed to brake my own PB in official quali session. I was expecting to qualify around 7th, but I found myself in much better position for start, 4th. Joe took pole-position and Joni was 8th.

Sprint race

I was off to a good start. Isaac who was starting right behind me, tried to make an early dive into the T1. The fight with him and Andres from Lanzerote Racing Team was raging all all the way thru the race. The battle was very enjoyable, even though I was defensive for most of the race. Enjoy video highlights from the race.


Featuring race
As the top 8 was reversed, Joni suddenly found himself in pole who finished calm sprint race in 8th.. He kept the lead for most of the race. Joe, who won sprint race without any problems, was making good progress right from the start. On the other hand I made a small mistake going out to the back straight and was immediately under attack from Reno. I tried to hold the outside line for stadium, but the car just slipped away from me, costing me 3 positions. It's a good lesson to get used to car with such a low grip rate, though. The race took a devastating way for me when Matti from Western Wolfs rammed into back off me on braking for T1 and send me into a nasty accident with J.Pecker. The car was undamaged, but I was all the way down to 19th. I recovered to 11th by the end of the race, mostly thru pitstops strategy and got promoted to 10th after Matti got post race penalty.

Results | Standings | Success ballast for round 2

Community year end awards for 2011

For the fifth year annually we started a new season with community awards for previous one. Polls were open for members of community to give their votes for their favorites in plenty of categories for a week. And just as any year about two to three hundred people gave contribution. That's about the amount of us who are very involved with LFS, mostly thru leagues, and therefor can give a good judgement. I'm going to go thru some of the categories real quick and share my views with you.

Team of the year
The most prestigious award of all is the team of the year one. Naturally, since most of the events are team based and just as any year there is a group of people who standout from the rest. This year, that was us, My3id. After four years of commitment we've reached a new level. We won it with 26% edge to previous winners, ineX/LowLandLions. There were those who've pointed out our success in the thread, such as S.Stankevičius "My3id, 'cos they are just the best on the field right now.", K.Ivanov "They show motivation for race, they won gt2ws, simply best." or Cornys "Nice job 3id and congratz!." Very inspiring and for that we thank you guys. But there were those who tried to discredit us, in a rather childish way. Mostly members, ex-members or involved with LLL in some way who couldn't. I guess there are always going to be people who disagree, but I hope for some respect in future from them. After all, we're the first people you're going to meet on track.


Most sportsmanlike team
We're very proud to say that we've got a nomination in this category. We lost it out to Conquest Racing, by only 2%, but LLL didn't even get into the top six teams that got a nominee. The right attitude doesn't go around unnoticed.

Driver of the year
Three of my teammates got nominations among eight drivers for this I guess most prestigious personal award. I guess I haven't been standing out all that much last year with my effort more in the shades of the team. After an equal start from Tomek and Joe, Joe prevailed on top. Who showed his speed thru Apex Cup, GT2 World Series, IGTC, LX Championship and ultimately 24hours of Aston. Congrats Mate.

Hotlapper of the year
Joe won this award with a huge margin over everybody. He used his spare time wisely to beat arrechee, Matti and others. Personally, I like racing more. I like chasing that ultimate laptime myself as well, but that desire shows up when I've got an event on certain combo mostly.

Best league qualifier
I've got a nominee in this category. Seams like my reign of consecutive poles in Rony's events didn't go unnoticed, just as Tomek's GT2WS effort didn't go unnoticed either. He won the award with a bit of margin from myself and then Joe and Jarno. So we've got record four drivers of five nominees here. :)

Most improved driver
Tomek's got a nominee for most improved driver of past year, but he came off only third. Not much to say there. I've expected Joni in this one, but maybe it's too early, perhaps next year.

Most dedicated driver
And a final category where I was nominated for an award. This category went a bit off board, where Indian's plucky driver Ragesh won. I remember his Nations world cup race where he went off so many times we thought he was trying to maw a lawn at commentary box. We joked how he managed not to flip his car for couple of hours when moments later he made it. He was then allowed to go back to race, only to pit on last lap and be disqualified for speeding in pits, which was rather hilarious after everything he went thru. Back then I said this deserves some kind of award and it turns out he got his award, as RLeb pointed out "Ragesh for sure. He's like a cockroach in a nuclear explosion. He just refuses to be eliminated haha."

Best League Racer
And then there is a best league racer. In a way, same award as Driver of the year, but the results were very different. Joe wasn't even nominated in this one and on other hand we had Marius who completely moved to iRacing picking up many votes. spdo's Isaac won this award, even though he won zero titles last years choosing his strategy just to race few races here and there in every league where he can win. Not a very honorable thing if you ask me, but ok, that's his style. Jarno came off second with his reign of single seater titles with Tomek behind him.


So, as you can see. The community likes to play jokes sometimes and it shouldn't be any other way. We're here to have fun, after all.

Visit Community awards forum for more.