SimRacing.org.uk

UKGPL Season 22 GT Teams Championship
Race 5 Rouen

 The fifth race in the GT team series and we are back to Europe and France. Rouen, well known as anoriginal papyrus track but where braking and handling will be tested.  Porsches might be good on the tighter sections but will struggle against the muscle cars up the long back straight.

 
Please check the Season 22 pages for details (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=335&theme=6) regarding rules and the GT Teams Championship (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=338&theme=6) pages in particular.

Reserve drivers should not join the server until there are only 30 minutes of qualifying left so as to give the FULL TIME drivers chance to join, and drivers are not to go out on track until there are 30 minutes of qualifying left as this helps all drivers join the server successfully.

Please restrict chat to pit messages if necessary, and this includes the end of the race, until all running drivers have completed the necessary laps.

The GT races are run under Int Long rules and there will be full moderation of lap one Red Zone and reported incidents for the rest of the race, however the moderators reserve the right to review any incident. Drivers are reminded that they are limited to ONE Shift-R

Please submit incident reports within a week after the race so that the moderators report may be out before the next race.

Race List = iGOR
Server = T7_2
IP address =62.149.202.168
Race date = 12/02/2011
Time = 21:00 UK time
Track = Rouen
Variant = GT mod
Damage Model = Int
Qualifying time = 30 minutes
Race length = 25 laps
Password: see above (#post_event_password)

There will be rolling starts for all races with full moderation of both the warm-up and first lap.

Guidelines for rolling starts...

The car on pole will lead off the grid and maintain a steady pace for the 1st lap around 175kph
All drivers should form up in single file behind him leaving 3-4 car lengths between each car.
There is NO OVERTAKING on the 1st lap until the exit of the last corner.
It is the reponsibility of the lead car to ensure that all drivers are with him as he approaches the final corner.
Racing and overtaking begin AFTER the exit of the last corner, so you may overtake between the exit of the last corner and the S/F line.

Any driver who loses his position on the rolling lap, by going off, blowing his engine or through contact with another car ( regardless of fault) must rejoin at the back of the field.
Incidents on the rolling lap ( Lap 1) will be fully modded and anyone found to have caused another competitor to lose position through bad driving will be penalised appropriately.
Also, please make sure that you know which car you should be following on the rolling lap, so that you do NOT get out of position.

The teams have been chosen and the cars are polished and ready to go.

TEAMS

GT International Team
Juha Hallikainen, David Rainier, Axel "Cookie"   
Cars                     
Ford Mk2B, Ford Mk2B, Lola T70 MkIII


Team 7
Fulvio Policardi, S2173, Samb
Cars
Lola T70, Mirage M1, Porsche 910


Hiki Waza Racing
EvilClive, Nigel Smith, FMG?
Cars
Porsche 910, Lola, Ford GT40 Mk4


Clark Hill Racing
Al Heller, King Hiro, Bartosz/Vosblod
Cars
Mirage M1, Lola T70, Porsche 910


Team Green
Doni Yourth, Phil Thornton, Jason Blito
Cars
Ferrari, Ford GT40 Mk2B, Porsche 910


Team Godzilla
Alex Barresi, Mark75 Barresi, Badblood   
Cars                     
Ford Mk2B, Ford Mk2B, Ford Mk2B



Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R;group=338;theme=6)

Password: see above (#post_event_password)

T7 server is set to 25 laps Long race and listening on Igor in Console session.
Ciao

Thanks Fulvio

Oh boy... done a few practice laps round Rouen in my MKIIB and I am pretty sure I am gonna be last this time out!  Welcome to understeer city, population (GT)40!!!!

Blast and triple blast!

Trying to drive for a finish and had my team captain bearing down on me - I went right to let him pass on the back straight but so did he :(. By the time I realised it was too late... sorry Mark.

End of race for me.

Slowblood.

BTW - I have NO IDEA how those Barresi's do it. In awe.

Confession time - I wasn't sure if more than 1 shift-R was allowed - just checked & it isn't so looks like a big fat DQ for me, oooops :-[

Just about edged pole from Mark who was working wonders in the GT40. Had a good start & thought I might be able to stretch a lead but Mark had other ideas, reeling me in after several laps & using his superior straightline speed to simply breeze past on the back stretch. I was able to hang on to his tail though & while I was working out where I might pass he collided with Paul & I nipped back into the lead. With about 10 seconds lead over Tim & Mark looking like he may have incurred damage I was feeling rather pleased with myself, but then the Lola engine just popped. The rev counter needle had been a bit wobbly under power since the start so I assume it was a random failure rather than over-revving the damn thing as I geared it pretty conservatively & was changing up well before the red line :'(.

After my reset & pitstop, I had fun catching Sam & even held 3rd briefly until in all the excitement, I broke my number one Rouen rule, rode a kerb & spun fatally into the trees. Apologies for resetting & doing a 2nd stop 'n' go - that'll teach me to read the rules properly. Congrats to Tim & Sam & Mark (who gets commiserations too as he could well have won). Cursing my luck in GT's, but that's racing! 

A very entertaining race from start to finish.  On about lap 3 I managed to get past Fulvio when he went wide trying to get past Evil's Porker.  Then for several laps I had Fulvio's Mirage all over my gearbox whilst I used the Ferrari power to reel in Evil.  Not surprisingly I could gain loads of time on the long straight but Evil would make most of it back up again at the hairpin.  Eventually I got close enough to drive past on the straight, I'm pretty sure I heard some expletives coming from Evil's direction LOL.  I then had to work hard to keep Evil behind but there was no way back for him without me making a mistake.  I duly obliged at the hairpin with about 5 laps to go.  I out braked myself which let Evil and Juha through.  I then tried hard to catch up, getting past Juha when he went wide and then it was Clive's turn to make a mistake.  He did exactly the same as me.  Outbraked himself at the hairpin and I was through.  Juha put me under pressure and got past with a lap to go.  I was ready to have a go drafting past on the last lap but I started to run out of fuel on the drag up the hill and my chance was gone.  Luckily there was nobody on my tail and I cruised to the finish, crossing the line with zero in the tank!

Well done to my team mates for finishing.  We are just about keeping ahead of Clark-Hill!!!

One of these days I will learn what settings actually work on these big GTs ......   I just about got rid of the understeer by the final qualifying run and at last could take that big right hander flat out but the car still handled like a greased pig round the rest of the track! In fact, it was rocking side to side down the straights, like a ship caught sideways in a swell, and all I could do in the race was cruise to the finish. Still, I made it to the flag without needing a S+R and got some points for the team.

Looked at the replay - no wonder Mark went right I was in the middle of the road - awful and cost my team 14 points. Sorry boys, I just can't drive this thing. Hope to be better at Reims.

What're you driving Jason, I can probably send you a setup to give you some ideas.
Can't guarentee it'll suit you mind!

Grats to Tim for taking the win and to Nigel for struggling with that mighty Mk4 to pick up a few good team points ( I think you have served your penance in that car now and can enjoy the Lola and Porsche for the remaining races ;D ).
I had the Porsche for this race and I knew that it would be at a huge disadvantage on the long straights but I hoped that it might regain some time through the tighter corners. In these races it seems there is a race for the GT's and then a race for the Porsches  lol, so I was hoping to be amongst the leading Porkers.

I arrived late for the start of qually, I had just arrived home after a day out ( sorry guys) and jumped straight into a fully race fuelled car for some exploratory laps and was surprised to find that my Adelaide setup felt really good. A few more laps just to fine tune the tyre temps and I was happy, so I dumped some fuel for a few banzai laps and was amazed to get in front of some of the muscle cars on the grid.  ;D

The rolling start was never going to favour the Porsche but I managed to hold on to the tail of a fast car for the first lap until Juha spun off and created a small gap. Although i was pushing as hard as I dared there was no way to overcome the speed differential up that long back straight and eventually Phil's Fezza started to take huge chunks out of my slender lead until he swept past. Despite braking as late as possible and closing the gap at every opportunity I was stuck behind Phil and his Fezza until he made a mistake......which he didn't!!!!
Fulvio threatened to take my place as well but a mistake dropped him back and a recovering Juha showed on Prib. I was using the tow from Phil's Fezza to get as much speed as I could up the long back straight, but it was slowly raising the engine temp in the Porsche as the needle bumped on the stop at top speed. Slowly I could see Juha closing until he too just blew my poor little porker away on the straight and challenged Phil. Then they both outbraked each other and slid wide...woohoo!!!  2 places gained and only about 5 laps to go ;D ;D ;D

But Prib soon showed that they were recovering quickly and closing far too quickly!! I threw caution to the wind and banzai'd the next 2 laps trying to stay ahead but only succeeded in outbraking myself into the hairpin and letting them past. A lap later and I did the same thing trying to stay ahead of Fulvio ::)
It was a hopeless attempt anyway because they would all have easily passed me within the next 2 laps with their speed advantage anyway.... at least that is my excuse for dropping 3 places in the last 2 laps!!

It was another great race for the Gt's and the teams. Although Hiki Wazas are on top of the points table at the moment there are enough races and points for almost any team to take the championship before the end of the season. As we approach the remaining races everyone needs to check that they do not use any car more than they are allowed to  ;) which might make for some interesting grids. ;D

Unfortunately Jason, you are alone during these races so you cannot compare your drive experience with your team mate to decide wich is the better setting to use and...it is not so simple to discover the right settings because these beasts are heavy and they require alot of practice to be driven properly. Porsches are way more simple to learn and to drive than the remaining ones. Probably in Porsche you could have a behavior better than with the car that you have had.

Good race that. I didn't get much practice before this race and as a result had an error stricken quali. I began to finally find my feet half way through the race. Had great battles with Axel, Tim, Mark and Al and was quite lucky to finish 2nd after various clamities.

I keep forgetting how vicious those kerbs are at Rouen. Congrats to Tim for keeping it all together for a fine win. Team 7 aren't that far behind in the constructors  :).

How do you decide when to leave the pits in Qualification?
I look at Pribluda and if there is no car in a range of 5-600 meter behind me I leave...

My Quali was not as good as my training sessions, but I found my place where I could stay.
I kept out of the troubles all the time and had to fight back my position only once when I had this brake lock and did a 540° turn before the hairpin.
Yeah nice fights with Samb and Alex and finaly a lucky 4th  :D

I have thought that you must have a pace around 2:00.00 as you had it some evenings ago! What happened to you m8 ?

Moderation finally published....sorry it took so long guys.  :-\

It 's time of polemic, it seems, and i throw it.
"... the Lola's proving to be the favorite car again. It is a shame that no team has bought the Chapp 2F ..."
And inevitably, the tokens assigned to the cars are not going well, GT is become a Lola Specs Champ (i could have aggregate choosing cars like the others, but you know that much fun !).
Change the assignments in the middle season not, eh? An error of evaluation is normal, but because dragging it to all season?
"... Later in the race Paul is about to be lapped by his Mark and commits the ultimate sin by actually hitting his team mate ..."
False, Mark have did a mistake , not Paul: the foot is not stuck to throttle, he can lift and give the driver in front more time to acquire the situation (especially in a fast corner).
My opinion is that lapped driver must maintain his trajectory, always, merely to facilitate overtaking soon as possible (but always remaining in trajectory, they are also in the race and are entitled to remain there without having to roll out a red carpet to fastest drivers).
I already know that my comments are useless, since the suggestions from the bottom are ignored (UKGPL is not a democratic system, i know, i know ...), but maybe it's time,for all decision-makers, to ask to themselves if the chosen path is the right one; i see there is a drop in attendance in the various leagues noteworthy, especially because there are newcomers to have dropped out (circuits too difficult? rules that penalize them too much compared to fast drivers? they have fun or not ?).
I hope to be off the road and have only fired my daily dose of nonsense: just the time, as always, will be honest and will say if i'm right or not to ring the alarm.

I would second that opinion... Many of the tracks are just not good for inexperienced players to go online racing, but I guess there is a delicate balancing act between keeping the div one aliens happy and being able to attract (and keep) new drivers....
 

Doesn't every division show a dropoff in numbers from the first few rounds - initial enthusiasm on the wane & all that? I'm not at all convinced that we can blame the tracks - GTs this season are using 4 Papyrus circuits + 6 short & relatively straightforward tracks that I would have thought are quick to learn. I mean, tracks like Surfers & Pacific are hardly Schottenring & as for Reims & Carthage... well you might want to arm yourself with a flask of tea & a good book to read for much of the lap! In contrast I remember a few seasons ago when everyone was complaining about going to Monza for the umpteenth time so it is a balancing act but for me the GT selections are pretty good. Car & driver rules could do with some tweaks perhaps, but that's for another debate...

I just realised that GTs isn't showing a dropoff in numbers anyway... full grids (i.e., 17/18 cars) at every race so far & the only blip was 14 cars for the Papyrus original Mosport...

Given the cars being run this season so far I'm hardly suprised the Lola's tend to be the cars ontop - they're this season's top chassis as no-ones forked out on a Chap this time round.
Being suprised at the current results is a bit like being suprised if Hristo re-entered the Grad's and only drove Lotus'  ;)

Although I would be tempted to suggest that as Int damage mutes the T77's reliability issues somewhat it is perhaps undervalued at the moment in points terms  :)