SimRacing.org.uk

Endurance Championship Division 1 - Season 1, Round 9 at Estoril

Date: Sunday 6th November

Practice 1: 8:30pm (30 mins)
Qual 2: 9:00pm (30 mins)
Warmup: 9:30pm (2 mins)
Race: 9:32pm (60 mins)

Cars allowed: Any. (Seat Toledo will not be eligable for points.)
Weather: Random (via dual-dice throw and sophisticated weather table ;))

Notes:
(1) Please try to arrive at least 15 minutes prior to qualifying, during Practice 1.
(2) Server Password has been emailed to those registered racers for each championship. Please contact a member of the admin team to get the password if you are registered and have forgotten or not received the password. It will not be given out in the GTR chatroom as that is a public place. The password wont change for the season unless there are security concerns.
(3) See  UKGTR Season 1 Info (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&group=1) for general Season 1 info.
(4) Please make sure you are fully aware of the UKGTR Rules (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?pid=7)

More NGT class questions: Is the Seat Toledo classified as a NGT car?.

Jakob

The cars not in their native classes are all shown on the series home page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&group=7) - the Toledo is too fast for NGT (and too slow for GT) so it's in G2 and not eligible for points.

Hmmm, not looking forward to this one, hate this track  :(

100 L in Saleen shows 55 minutes. Does lowering the rev limiter help to lower fuel usage? Can I gain 5 minutes this way?

Say yes and yes, please!  ;D

Well it will decrease your fuel usage, whether it'll show up in the garage is another matter. Certainly, if I concentrate on it, I can get very good fuel usage, there are a few spots on Estoril where you could make up a bit with minimal loos of time, the last few chicanes and last corner and the second-third corner spring to mind, it will of course cost you time tho.

You could also consider lengthening the gears slightly and/or short shifting. If you short shift but leave the rev limit alone you'll have something in reserve for that "must do" overtake.

Don't forget the first lap is at low speed so you can save a couple of mins fuel on the formation lap by driving conservatively.

Then again do you really want to drive the Saleen on mediums for an hour? or hards at all?

Mediums do last for about 45 minutes in Estoril (rear, fronts are fine for 60). I'm still not sure. I can get a good fuel usage, like you said, Fozz, if I drive alone and in peace. I'm not sure about it if I have to tussle for a position. Then I'll have to drive on the edge. But there are only two good overtaking spots in Estoril so you got a point again, Fozz, I can drive all the rest of the track more easily. I really don't know. Are other GT cars better in fuel matter or will all have to pit?

Good point about the first lap, Shark - definitely worth considering and trying, thanks.

Dave - good point about shortshifting. I just don't trust myself - I allways go for the reds, and even that's not enough. Even if I conciously shift sooner, when I'm in a duel, I forget all about it - and I'm in reds again.  ;D

WE haven't had much rain yet, that could well be a factor tonight!
Don.

Shhhh, we don't want to pre-empt it.

Hmm I'm actually sort of hoping for rain, I "seem" to be competitive in the wet  :)

Doh! I was scouring through the rules and regulations, but never looked at the front page!.
I'm really struggling with this track. For some reason I've never raced on it, even when I was racing in MARA and I can remember the last time I've spun off so many times.
 I'm slowly getting the Mosler to behave roughly as I want and will be taking that over the Vertigo (Whilst great for the sweeping turns at Oscher,it's just too slow in a straight line).

Jakob

Well Tom, gl if you try to go the distance on 1 set of boots. Man thats a ballsy move, my tyres look good after 30 mins, but degrade quite quickly after 40mins, must be heat build up on wear. So I'm going to 3 stop on softs front n rear.

Nooooo. I don't normally mind rain, but i just spent the day at Brands Hatch watching the truck racing (*chuckle*) and it was windy and wet and miserable so I don't want any rain online please!

Well then, just make sure the dice falls right...  ;)

I decided for 1 stop.

3 stops, ha! I'd like to see that. And don't forget to refuel each time!  :P

praccy server up

Well my race was nicely ruined for me on about lap 3.
Don ???

Well lost connection in the end but had some fun while it lasted.

Getting better slowely.

Cheers,

codsworth

I got punted off twice tonight, once by a lapping (impatient) GT car then by a backmarker being lapped  :(
I'm sure he just left his braking too late or panicked cos me and a GT car just passed him, so no problem...thats racing.
Problem was it was at the end of the start/finish straight so i was well and truly nubbed into the gravel. Would have taken me about a minute to get out of there so i retired. :(
Was running 4th of NGT with a fresh set of boots on too :'(
Ho hum, see you chaps at the next meet.  ;)

had a good battle with J Schmidt(spelling?) for the first 20 mins or so, he was quicker but made more mistakes. until he pitted (I didn't need to). After that I was in no-mans-land for the rest of the race really, till the end where I realised Locutos was catching FAST and I'd have to hold him off for 2 laps or so, unfortunately while I was doing the maths, I forgot about my braking point, stupid n00b error. Ah well another podium (3rd again) so its still OK.

Good race. Satisfying race and a good tussle with JonM near the end, but boy was that hard work.

I had left my brake duct on 3 from qualifying and sure enough after 15 mins of each of my race stints the brakes were overheating and I was finding it very difficult to get the car stopped for some of the corners especially T1. I had to adjust my driving by braking a bit earlier in a couple of places. Very cool modelling that, it really did feel like real life brake fade.

As usual I gained a few seconds in the pits with a well drilled pit stop and about 3/4 way through JonM made a mistake ahead of me and I passed him then we had an excellent tussle where I tried in vein to keep his faster (and better braking) Lister behind me. Confusion with a back marker gave Jon the opportunity into T1 and he took it, but he was slow out of T1 and through T2/2a and I took him back into T3. Great stuff. A few laps later and Jon had me on the start finish straight into braking into T1 and that was that. Brakes were a real problem and I wasn't going to contest outbraking into T1 with fading brakes. Well played Jon.

Well done Blaz on the win, I'm amazed that you managed Mediums the whole race and no pit stop. No chance of doing that in the Lambo as the fuel consumption is silly.

Had solid quali (3rd).
In T1, Truetom jumped on 3rd, tryed to pass him back and i touched him (sorry), than i was following Shark, spin on pass atempt, was 4th and i was closing Rich, after 35 min i decided not to pit, start to drive easy to finnish. My 1st in enduro. Thx.

Nightmare race, sorry Jonzo i thought you were gonna let me through on the left hander but i should have waited, really sorry mate!   Dont know who i hit going through the kink but the car was invisible nothing i could do. Finally i was break tested by Jerama or what ever his name is about two laps from the end, no need buddy! but as they say what goes around comes around.

Hmmm, strange race for me, I hate that track, never been able to any sort of decent lap times or consistancy. Quallified well down the order about 19th i think and decided to just drive well within my limits tonight and see what happened. Was really surprised to find that apart from one little error ( selecting neutral by mistake then spinning when trying to get back into 3rd  >:( ) about 5 laps from the end I didn't have any dramas at all. So all in all, on a circuit I don't like I'm fairly pleased with the result

Bit of a lonley race for me in the BMW, qualed in 18th and finished 12th, 1st in class which is always nice.
Good to see 4 Pro Eco drivers on the track tonight, makes a nice change having been the only driver for such a long time.

Hate Estoril :(

Tried to go non-stop.  No problem on fuel, but the tyres went off big-time after 45mins.  I used hard rears and medium fronts, but the rears seem to be the first to go  :o  so from a nice balance at the start I finished at a crawl with an oversteering monster!

Spun 3 times when the rear decided to lock up on a downshift.

Need to think again about setups, this is just not working  >:(

had a decent run in qually and the race.
Make a few mistakes but was expecting that tbh, After I pitted and the race panned out I could see it was going to be tough to catch the leader as it looked like he might not be stopping, so I prayed that he would and when he didn't I decided I had to go for it, this probably would've been a good plan at any other track but at estoril I find it hard to find the limit. The off happened soon enough and that put me behind Shark, thought I might have burned out me tyres but they seemed to be undamaged from the off. Really enjoyed the racing with Shark it was the first time that I'd diced with someone for a while  ;D Glad to have finished 2nd in the end  :)
12 points difference in the champ with just Monza left. So close  :o should be a great showdown, looking forward to the battle  :)
Don't know where truetom finished the race in the GT class but if it's 7th or I think the Team Championship for Ze penguins is wrapped up, But We'll have wait and see....
Big Congrats to Blaz and Matjaz on thier 1 stopper winners, Zelo dobro   ;)  Great driving on a track that seems to eat up my best setup's. 8) 8) 8)

Got a PB out of racing here this week 25.8 but couldn't manage that in quali.

Not so great start which I think is caused by pole going really slow over start/finsih line - you can go whenever you want you know even out of last turn full throttle only can't overtake before start finsih.. bunching up like causes chaos.

Cause of strange start I was in 5th, there's always one that flies through in T1.

Had a good run with you Blaz and Shark.. Blaz spun it but kept up, then you pitted Shark and then I pitted with about 15mins to go. Pit crew fixed damage that didn't exist and I forgot to fill can up for first stint so extra fuel cost me a position maybe two.

It was always going to be tricky for me on this track: I just couldnt get it smooth enough to do the whole race on one set of tyres. I tried using hard for the rears, but found that after 1/2 hour they became worse than the mediums , so only option was to pit.
 Formation lap seemed wonky and far faster than normal and at turn 3 after the start, there was a pile-up, picking off Matjas.
 I was following Fozz closely had a couple of sniffs, but got the doors slammed hard once and braketested another, so had to use a GT car passing to get past him. I was then slowly pulling away, before losing it at the chicane, a place where I was normally reasonably safe (And this track has thrown me off lots!).
 I lost concentration after that and never got a steady string of laps together. Pitting put me far behind, but I hoped for mistakes up front. They did happen, but I wasnt anywhere near close enough to even see it.
Mysteriously, I had to go for a Splash'n'Dash with 6 minutes to go. I do set up my pitstops for it just in case, but it still puzzled me a bit, as I thought I had it well covered and pitted halfway through on time. At that stage I was 20 seconds behind and had a minute to the following car, so it didn't really matter.
 I enjoyed driving the Mosler, though and hope to use it again at Monza.

Jakob

"No driver shall accelerate at the end of the formation lap until the leader crosses the start line.
The leader should maintain a steady pace out of the last corner until reaching the start line. Each following driver should only accelerate when the driver ahead does."

Eggs, sucking and all that   ;D

Well a good race for me, although seeing Fozz not stop did put the pressure on, went to pit at half distance with a 27 sec gap on 3rd, came out 20 secs behind then span on cold tyres in turn 3, ahhhh. Then it was a case of head down and run qual laps every lap, was running 1:41:5-8 consistently and started catching the guys in front nicely. Was 3 secs behind fozz with 3 laps to go and started to think about where to pass him when I saw him lock up at end of start/finish and go straight on into trap. Thats one less thing to worry about I thought as I now seemed to have a fuel problem. 2nd place was a good reward for the effort I spent with MOTEC. Finally decided to try and use the thing, and the result was a whacking 4secs a lap faster in race set up and a 1:40:9 qual. Now to Magny on Tuesday, lets see if I can get a good set up for that.

Replay and provisional results now available :)

Yeah not a bad result 3rd as I only lost 8 points to you, but I know Monza is not my strongest track and not really looking forward to it as I don't really like racing there. I've seen how quick you were at Monza in the GT Sprint race and I'm not going to get anywhere near that but if I can just finish a place behind you then I can still just do it! Should be a good end to the championship and whoever wins will be a worthy champion.

Ze Insane Penguins have now got an unsurmountable lead in the team championship so well done on that victory you dastardly penguins!

Fozz and Matjaz are only 25 points apart in NGT so still the championship to play for there and the NGT team championship is very close, any one of 3 teams can still win it!

Finally well done to Greg on the G3 championship, a late surge has wrapped that one up as well as Pro-Eco winning the G3 team championship.

I've joined the server after the practice race with my Morgan at Nordschleife so I was a bit rusty for the first couple of laps. Eventually I've found a good pace and did a sub 1:40. which was enough for a pole position in my class. Pace lap was waaay to fast and then everything stopped at the start/finish straight which resulted in my very bad start. Locutos had a great slipstream and I also went a bit deep in the first corner so I had to give a spot to Locutos at the corner exit. At T3 there was a pill up in front of me and I also had Fozzmeister touching my rear just enough to send me in the direction of the Truetom's yellow Sallen that was standing there facing the wrong direction and trying to recover from the sand. I crashed quite hard and was afraid my splitter was damaged but luckily that was not the case so I was able to get back and still had a nice pace.

Then came the interesting part when I had to fight myself through the field and conserve my tyres at the same time as I was on a 0 stop strategy. Eventually I managed to regain my lead and the rest was just back to normal trying not to spin and giving room to the leading GT cars. I've chosen a soft front and medium rear which was a perfect combination so I still had a very driveable car at the end of the race despite not stooping. Taking hard rear tyres would have been a mistake as they would never reach the optimal temperature resulting in greater sliding and greater tyre wear.

Lol, yeah, if Matjaz doesn't turn up the championship will be mine!

Went to Estoril without a setup for the 550. Used practice and qualifying to try to get a proper setup for the race, built from my Saleen setup. Aimed mainly to tyre performance and for some time was aiming to go for a fuel tank, but thought I could be stretching the rope a bit and backed to 1 pit stop.
Qualified 6th but in the first lap got a little touch on the rear at Curva 3 corner and droped to 11th.
Lost an awful amount of time trying to pass the NGT cars. After all they were indeed a place ahead and there was no reason what so ever fro them to open the door.
The same happened with 1 or 2 GT (also fighting for a direct place with them) where I had to wait for the starting/finish straight to be able to pass them.
The car was feeling splendid and the tyres were performing very well, until I reached 6th behind Rich and Mike.
We stayed close together for a couple of laps until Mike had a little spin at Gancho corner, allowing Rich and me to pass him. I taken 4th from Rich just after, in the starting straight, and made all I could to close the gap to 3rd, but I didn’t had enough time to get to Shark.
In the last laps I was able to cut the gap to Shark in half but 4th was be best I could get.
Hoping to have a better performance in Monza, a track where I can be particularly fast in longer stints.

Congrats to Blaz for a fantastic driving lesson to us all. ;)

Good man Luis, glad that you and most of you GT'ers give us nGT'ers some respect.
Don.

Oops, that reminds me: Apologies to Jon. As I wasn't sure if there was still GT cars behind me after the lap1 pileup and I got no blue flag warning,  as you approached me,I wasn't especially nice first time you lapped me.

Jakob

And help your team leader to win the championship?  :P ;D

Never brake tested you, was agressive in my defense tho,


True but it was not an overtaking move, you were just on the outside in the gaggle of cars at the start. At least that's how its recorded in my brain at present, though I could be wrong.

Okay, before things escalate, there are a couple of instances already in this thread of people sailing very, very close to the wind in terms of discussing incidents in a manner which is incompatible with the rules.

Please either take these discussions to PMs or submit an official incident report. If I see the discussions continue I'll have to get my wet haddock out and do some slapping. :o You have been warned! :P

Congrats Greg on G3 championship. Nice 1 mate.

Thanks mate, first honours for the team :-)
Always good to get a championship win under our belts.
Wonder if I can catch Ginsters in the div2 Champ ?

No worries Jackob  ;D Sometimes it happens  ;)


I kept the speed at 75 mph at all times when possible. Can't see I can do anymore or less  ???

Congrats to the rest of Ze insane penguins for team Champ... Wonder how TYF will reward us for bringing glory to ZIP? It's been a while since we've heard from him now.


Yep, gonna be a close one whatever happens. Also close for 3rd place in the champ between Truetom and Mike W, good luck to all  ;)

Hi guys I think Jameera was in the Yellow Ferrari 360 in front of me with a BM , we were having a good dice for lots of the race . However whenever I follow him I always screw my tyres up and can not stay with him. But all in all it was a good race. Apologies to the morgan that hit me in the front after I span at the chicane hope it was not to much of a handicap. cheers gerald

No i don't think you did Jon. Sitting behind you in 2nd pos it felt like a quick lap, but whenever I looked down at the speedo it was nigh on 75mph so just the speed we like it. I think it maybe that Estoril feels quick at that speed, probably more so for the NGTs and G3s as some of the corners in a GT can be done at 75mph easy in a GT but not in the other cars?

The rules say the leader should aim for a target speed of around 75mph (120km/h) on the straights. Looks like Jon was going quite fast through the tight corners as well which spread out the field to much. I think it would be wise to slow down through those tight corners to bring the pack together for a nice start.


Never said it was an overtaking move and your record in the brain is wrong. I shall prescript you a "Replay" medicine. ;)  :)

Good point.

I guess we'll know for next time...Well maybe the div2 lads can take heed.  On tracks where there's plenty of tight bends we could have a quick chat before race and just say to chill it a little bit more before the start finish straight. Dunno myself  :-\
Catch ya'll later anyways

I remember struggling very hard to keep up with the NGT runners during the pace lap in a Season 0 race at Estoril when I took the Vertigo.

Yes, I miss the big Thief, ehm, Tyf, also.  ;)