Today our community interviewee is a good driver. One of the best of the community so far, one of our young hopes for the PitCrew Works Team, which he joined when it was just created. Let’s go through Jakub Majewski’s resume, already filled with impressive achievements.
Let’s start with the basics. Jakub, who are you?
Hello readers, SuperGT veacue here, also known as Jakub. I’ve come to terms with the fact that my nickname is too obscure and everyone just uses the real name instead, even though I’ve had it for a good 7 years now. Which is approximately a third of my life as I’m 21 years old – that’s a weird way to think about it. I live in central Poland, in fact, because of the pandemic I moved back from Łódź to my home village.
Most days I just waste my time in front of the PC, but don’t we all? Aside from jumping into the sim or the occasional mouse-and-keyboard game, watching videos about retro computers and consoles or cooking are the usual suspects. I love cooking myself and whenever I’m not feeling lazy I try to make something new and tasty for myself and my family. Obviously, nothing beats grandma’s Sunday dinner, though. I’m also a music lover and can’t go a day without listening to something. If anyone’s looking to go to a DnB festival after the virus is dealt with, hit me up. I used to make music myself but writer’s block came one day and didn’t really go away. Maybe I should try picking it up again in the break between Seasons 3 and 4?
On those days when I do work, I work in broadcasting, most often as an on-screen graphics operator, sometimes as a video editor, sometimes as a graphic designer, sometimes something completely different. Man of many mediocre skills.
When and how did you start simracing?
Does Colin McRae Rally 2 count as a sim? (Yes.) Because that was probably my first “serious” racing game, among many off-brand F1-lookalikes and arcades such as GeneRally and Trackmania. Started off on a keyboard, as one does, and then moved to a Saitek R220 bungee cord wheel.
Using that, I started sim racing for real in the spring of 2014. I found, can’t quite remember how or why, simracing.pl – a polish forum/community dedicated to, as you can probably guess, virtual cars. Intrigued and encouraged by the lovely people there, I ordered a boxed copy of the original rFactor. Had I known what I was about to jump into, I wouldn’t hesitate as much as I did to spend those first 20 PLN (4 GBP, but you know how it is when you’re 15 years old).
I joined their beginner league called “rFactor Level0”. I’m fairly sure my first ever online race was at Donington, in a Renault Megane Trophy. I crashed. A lot. Great fun has been had in that and a few other leagues I was part of over at SRPL. In the meantime, the old wheel started acting up, so I bought my trusty Logitech DFGT. It was worth a good few months of savings at that point, but you can probably imagine my absolute elation when I first felt force feedback.
Afterward, I had a few years on and off sim racing as I lived in a dorm while attending high school. Barely any space for a desktop PC, let alone a wheel and pedals. The itch disappeared for a while but came back in full force around 2 years ago. I got F1 2017, then Assetto Corsa, then the rest was just a slow descent into madness… Currently, the only mainstream road racing sims I don’t own are Automobilista 1 and 2.
I should probably use iRenting more, said every iRenting user ever.
What’s your sim rig made of?
Wood, mostly, and some metal to hold the wood together. Thanks to a pair of awesome friends of mine who designed and helped me build a rig from scratch, I now have a beautiful pine abomination standing in my room. The seat is a spare that was originally meant for a BMW wagon, I can’t remember which model exactly. Decently comfortable, needs a pillow for lower back support, though. In terms of hardware, the upgrade bug got the better of me and despite the DFGT still being in working order (after 6 years, having bought it used as well, just a testament to the longevity of these), I treated myself to a Fanatec Clubsport Wheelbase V2.5 with the Formula V2 and BMW GT2 rims, and CSL Elite LC pedals. Three 23” 1080p monitors provide the visuals, although I’m extremely excited for my HP Reverb G2 VR headset to ship at the end of November, hopefully.
I’ve heard the tale, but all our readers have not. Please tell the story of Jakub getting acquainted with the team and joining ThePitCrew!
The first PitCrew member who I’ve met and interacted with was Alisa Long, we were racing together in ACR in March of this year. I randomly joined one of her streams she was practicing for the first season of TPC-WEC. Got introduced to Chris “Mach” Schelfthout, who was also in the chat, as the “NSX alien”. It turned out that Mach was, in fact, the organizer of that championship. I was interested in joining, so I got a discord link from them and the rest is history.
As you said, history. You’ve raced many events with this community. Obviously, you’ve had many good results. What would you consider your greatest achievement before Season 3 started?
I have a few that I’d like to highlight for different reasons.
My fondest memory is probably the fight against Owen Jones in the final race of TPC-WEC at Silverstone which lasted until the very end, resulting in this photo-finish.
The first real feeling of satisfaction with a result came when I finally won a race in Season 2 of the MX-5 Championship against the absolute alien that was Alex Ball, also at Silverstone, in Race 2 that night. After the first 7 races of the season going to Alex with pretty much no competition, it felt really nice to get on the top step.
The greatest achievement would probably be winning the Season 2 Tatuus Championship, and with 2 races to spare. The competition was tough at times, especially with Andreas Vestergaard coming forth in the latter half of the season and claiming 4th overall having only started 3 races. I never really liked driving open-wheelers before that and it was definitely a great introduction to that style of car that now pays dividends in the current seasons of the RSS F3.
That donut attempt was really bad, wow.
Now, season 3. What a scoreboard. You almost won it all! At least on Double Dash Thursdays, you ended up winning both series. Did you expect an overall win in those, considering how tight the races were?
Definitely not! I was trying hard to catch up to Zheng Ting Lim in the F3 series and it just so happened that in the last race he made a few mistakes which allowed me to do just that. I always say that I’m in it for great racing and not necessarily outright wins, so I definitely would’ve preferred to have a direct battle for the championship but I’m happy with the end result.
The MX-5 series win was completely unexpected as that was just my wind-down race every Thursday after the F3s. Obviously, I still tried my best but I didn’t think I’d stand a chance against the likes of Moundir Dandani over the whole season. And yet I did beat him by a single point in the end.
It’s a cool feeling to have won both of those, although it did come as a bit of a surprise for sure.
Would you say the ballast system helped you in the last MX5 rounds to get ahead of Moundir Dandani?
No, obviously I would’ve been faster anyway. (His smile is tainted with irony). In all seriousness, I think it did help a little, especially at Road Atlanta where Moundir’s fastest lap was only 0.1s slower than mine, despite him having 20kg more ballast at that point. But me winning both races there made our ballasts almost equal coming into the last round at Vallelunga and the final result was mostly due to Moundir getting tangled up in incidents.
I’m a fan of this system and I think beginner leagues should continue using it.
You finished 2nd in the British GT3 league. Despite having the same amount of race wins (2) as Ramarra, he took that crown away from you. What do you think made the difference between you two?
Ramarra’s natural consistency is insane. He does not practice, does not like the car, and yet he can immediately put in strong laps when it comes to the race itself. Comparing that to myself, where I can get quite fast quickly on a new track or in a new car, but it takes me a good amount of practice to get consistent in doing those lap times. If I do not get enough practice in, I then make mistakes during races and it definitely showed in this championship.
Anyway, congratulations on those awesome results. What are your plans for Season 4, Jakub?
Thank you! I’m planning to continue in the RSS F3 series, as well as dip my toes into ACC with some GT4 sprint action. The BTCC is also looking quite interesting, I enjoy racing FWD cars, and yet another amazing Black Cat Autosports livery that Alisa is cooking up for that might just make me join.
Any wish for the future of ThePitCrew, whether it’d be for you, the community or the Works Team?
One each, okay?
For me, to have more equal competitors. While all our drivers are amazing people, the spread in pace can make some races boring. Shoutout to Zheng and Andreas, but wouldn’t it be amazing if there were 10 of us, not 3? Or 2, because sometimes Zheng’s just untouchable. Like I said before, I’d rather have a great race for P8 than drive around in circles and come P2.
For the community, to grow. We’re on a great trajectory already, interest in the ACC fundurance races is through the roof and almost every day I see people asking about Season 4. It’s a double-edged sword though, as it means more work for Terry. I’m sure he wants the community to grow as well but soon we’ll need more staff.
For the Works Team to finally start taking part in events and show the best racing TPC has to offer to the rest of the world!
Shares wishes, here, Jakub. You mentioned earlier in this interview that you have various skills in media creation such as video editing. Don’t you have plans to contribute to ThePitCrew’s communication needs? That would also take some workload off Terry’s shoulders!
I did make a few event posters previously but recently there hasn’t really been a need for things my skills could be of use in, or at least Terry didn’t bother asking me for help. I’ve been planning to make a promo video or a teaser of some sort for a while now, so something like that might see the light of day sometime in the near future. I’m always happy to contribute to ThePitCrew in any way I can.
Finally, now that !fishing season 1 is over, I personally have collected a Pokemon card, a large amount of very inappropriate objects, a tremendous pile of gold stuff and a 812 PitCash worth catch. What’s your fondest memory of !fishing with the PoundCrew?
Did you tape that Pokemon card to your Pokemon McLaren GT4 as a talisman? Congratulations on winning that championship by the way, whatever you did you made it work (Flattery won’t do, sir, especially not sarcastic flattery). Fondest memory? Probably me !fishing up a good catch, you trying to !steal it and getting rekt instead 🙂
Also I think we have to stop !fishing so much, Zheng’s !Fish Racing Team has enough funding as it is. Gamble instead! Don’t actually gamble, kids.
Less !fishing, more RACING! I will leave it at that, and thank you very much Jakub for this top-notch interview. See you on track for Season 4 in your Mercedes AMG GT4 on Mondays, RSS F3 on Thursdays, and maybe the BTCC Black Cat Autosports liveried surprise on Wednesdays! If you want to be our next interviewee, you can add a comment below.
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