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Season 27 Professionals Trophy - Round 1 - Reims

Welcome to the Season 27 Professionals Trophy.

The opening round of the Season 27 championship for the Professionals will be in Reims (France).

Reims is basically several long straights with a couple of hairpins and a few cornfields. Catching a tow is what this track is about. It normally produces close racing.
Reims-Gueux was first established in 1926 on the public roads between the small French villages of Thillois and Gueux. The circuit had two very long straights between the towns, and teams strove to maximize straight-line speed of their cars; many slipstream battles ensued. Race organizers actually felled trees and demolished old houses in order to make the circuit even quicker. International racing came with the first official Formula One event occurring in 1950, the inaugural year of the Formula One world championship. The circuit layout was shortened and changed in 1952 to bypass the town

The full time drivers can start to practice as soon as the server is available.  Reserve drivers can also join as soon as the server becomes available but must leave the server with 35 minutes of qualifying left, for a total of 5 minutes; this will allow any remaining full timers to join.  If there is enough space on the grid, the reserve drivers will be able to rejoin when there are 30 mins of qualifying left.  

Please restrict chat to pit messages including at the end of the race until ALL drivers still racing have crossed the line.




Race List = IGOR
Server = UKGPL_8
IP address = TBA
Race date = Tuesday 22-07-2014
Time = 21:00 UK time (21:00 GMT)
Track = Reims (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/Tracks/Reims/)
Race length = 22 laps
Variant = 1965
Damage Model = Pro
Qualifying time = minimum of 30 minutes

Password see above (#post_event_password)
Replay will be here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/Replays/Archive/Season27/Pros/)

Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page
The red zone will be fully moderated for lap 1 only. For this race, the red zone extends to the hairpin at the bottom of Lap 1.
 Other moderation will be on reported incidents only.


GLA

Hi Folks :)   ...... I am IN ... :-*

Sorry for the first lap chaos guys  :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:

I thought this was going to be a fun race, but I screwed that idea up for everyone by selecting neutral at T4 instead of 1st gear on the shifter.  Apologies to Uli who had no chance to avoid a car that stopped on the apex and to all of those who got mixed up behind him.

I'm going to find a small dark hole to crawl into now.  :surrender:

Had a good setup, pumped up the tires to camouflage the BT11's lack of topspeed compared to some other chassis', the only problem was braking. It needed to be very smoothly otherwise I would lose the car....did use 1st gear only for the start.

Quali was a bit messy, in my best lap sector 2 and 4 were plain bad, but gained almost 2s in sector 1 and 3 by the draft...prib said 11.35 or so...but Uli's said 10.9 I think!  ;D

Start was great with my 1st gear, and easily took the lead from P3. Then Clive started already to close in towards Virage de Muizon, but something went wrong with him, cheer up mate! From then on I was able to break the draft with Raoni, and build up a buffer, and gradually was able to extend the lead despite some way faster laps by the opposition due to the draft...only had clean air and my 13.56 in the last lap was respectable I think :) Was a bit boring and hard to keep focus, lost it once under braking and just could save it, resulting in my only 15ish lap...for the rest 14s and later some 13s...

Thanks for racing and personally it's great to start off where I finished last season, at P1! :) Well done Axel and Doni, nice finish. Noticed Doni charged up gradually driving with the brain and that's a well deserved podium spot! Fast lap as well :) Commiserations to those who had bad luck...

Grats Robert! WD!

But was a lucky win, if Clive hadn't messed the hairpin...

AND
You missed a superb battle of 5-6 cars with only superlative racing!
Thanks to Ray, Arf, Raoni, Uli and Doni :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

And yes Doni had a great tactic to keep in save distance!
But not in the last lap when I lifted to the last corner he passed me and so lost the sprint to the finish line...  ;D ;D ;D

Inever can find the speed of the ferrari, my best speed was 271km/h.... :o....Ican't even take the split stream of the others cars, and all the others cars can catch me too easely......so I prefer stop the race

cu next one :-\

well done Robert and podium.......

Was lucky to get something of a draft in qualifying, but could not get one on low fuel. Got caught up in Clive's evil tactic of allowing Robert to escape, then spent a few laps dicing and trying to say in the draft. I get the feeling my acceleration was hindered by something, because people were moving quicker than I were, even in the same chassis.

Then I binned it at the first hairpin on lap 11. Just 3 more miles... :(

Congratulation to Robert on a run-away win!  Great job.  :)

Cookie, you devil!  You roped me in, did you?  Ah, I should have known.  Grats, amigo!

Quite pleased to come away with a podium here.  To be sure, I profited from the misfortune of others but thought I could be competitive just the same thanks to the slipstream.

I must consider myself fortunate to some degree as in checking via GPLRA later from the server replay cap, I logged the following in the Mechanical Report...

1m58.050s
 Doni65 - spotters reporting:
minor problems with right front tire.
minor problems with right front suspension.

2m06.050s
 Doni65 - spotters reporting:
minor problems with left front tire.
minor problems with left rear tire.
severe problems with left front suspension.
minor problems with left rear suspension.

23m18.050s
 Doni65 - spotters reporting:
medium problems with left rear suspension.

The Lap01 fracau put me back to dead last coming off Muzon and at that point, I thought my chances had virtually evaporated for a good placing.  But there was a long way to go and if things broke my way, I still might be in for a good score.

I slowly managed to row up the field and Cookie is quite right when he mentions above that I played it rather cagey in tagging along and not getting too racey til the closing frames.

The only regret of the event was my collision with Rocket Ronnie coming off Thilois on Lap10.  Ra had overshot and took the escape road up ahead.  I saw Ronnie coming up on the inside lane under braking and intentionally left the inside lane open for him.  He drew alongside in the right-hand lane on the exit and even slipped by for the position but I was in line with the cars ahead for the tow.  My BT11 was accelerating in the left lane when we suddenly had contact and we both were off.  Luckily, I had just a brush with the left-side barrier and was able to continue with only a small loss of time.  Sadly, Ronnie, after putting up a slendid drive in the little BT7, spun out of contention.  Later, his 16V Climax grenaded.  Too bad indeed but at least he scored on the day.

The final laps were quite exciting as just ahead, Cookie, Uli and Ra battled mightily.  I just sat back and watched the fun.  I was afraid that all the jousting would come to a terrible conclusion and sure enough, it did on Lap21.  Uli and Ra collided with Uli stuck fast and Ra seriously delayed.  That set the stage for the last lap duel between myself and Cookie.  I knew that in taking the lead at Thilois was opening myself up to a last pass on the run to the flag but as I recall Michael Waltrip of NASCAR saying many years ago re the last lap of the Daytona 500, the guy behind has to get it right.  And Cookie did by 0.082s.


All in all, quite a fun meet.  :)

I thought I'd try the 65's, not expecting to be at the sharp end. In qualy I had a great tow behind Clive who was also being towed to his pole lap. I certainly would have been in with a quick lap if I hadn't spluttered out of the last corner - out of fuel. So I started near the back, so far back that I saw a movement and moved off, stopped when I saw the cars in front still still and then saw the green flag drop. Reims has an odd pitboard position, so I had the pit in message for a jumped start before the end of the first lap. So I stopped at my stall and waited 30 seconds. I've never seen that happen before. Dean was behind me on the grid and moved when I moved, so was in the same situation. We then had our own fun slipstreaming battle for a number of laps about a minute behind everyone else. Dean got stuck in the cornfield - I would have waited if you could continue - and later my engine went (valve apparently). I then could watch the very enjoyable battle for 2nd, but grats go to Robert.

Yeah it was a good scrap trying to hang onto you guys.

Shame about the contact Doni. I must have been dreaming if I thought my BT7 was gonna pull away from you enough to get back over to the left safely. Sorry If I squeezed you as I attempted to get the tow for myself. Once I lost contact I had no draft to aid me and was helpless as Clive began to close me down. Then I made it easy for him when I forgot the BT7 has six gears and was hammering along in 5th on max revs when she exploded.

Grats to Robert, Axl and Doni on a fine start to the season.

PS Full grats to Uli on winning the Pro championship last season.

Thanks Axel, you're right ;) Great racing behind me I noticed on prib and watching replay! Great job getting back to P2, smart and gritty drive teamie! :)


Sorry to hear Tristan, was your throttle calibrated correctly, like you didn't have 100% full throttle or so? Otherwise it could be too low tirepressures and too tall final gear, but knowing you I don't think so...normally Ferrari and BRM have potentially the best topspeeds as far I have experienced (GPL Setup Manager is not fully accurate in showing potential topspeeds IMO)...hope you figure out what is/was wrong!


Could be too tall gearings, too low tirepressures (at fast tracks I always pump them up, to 24-26psi cold pressure, for less rolling resistance), or even high toe settings (in theory, not sure if it's modelled) will give more rolling resistance...


Impressive Doni, especially with that sort of damage! Great drive, and not only thanks to the tow! ;)


Noticed it in the replay at the start. You move when the green flag came out, and Dean reacts to you. So you guys couldn't see the green flag/flagman!?


Ouch, very good showing in the BT7 nevertheless Ray, respect! :)

Congratulation to Robert, Axel and especially Doni for your fastest lap and your cool and clever race.

Was great to be back on the track with you all. Fine that Tris is in again and my new Teammate – a hard challenge even when it starts with some probs, sure you managed them soon …

Robert in the BT11 – will be fine and very competitive, I drove the BT11 in 2009 and thus won the GPL Racers Championship!
My pribu times in Reims (fine track!): 10,8 with slipstream, 13,0 without! With a 2:13.17 I managed a new pers. Laprecord  :) in practice.

Respect for Ronnie's decision and his fantastic performance in the BT7!!!
And THX for your congrats, it was an honor to follow you.

My start was well but unfortunately Clive had this mishap - you all know it – or was it the team order?  ;) SRY, big thanks to the lousy damage model of GPL so nothing happens - except – Robert was up and away ...

What a shame to lose my car shortly before finishing! Really stupid – SRY Raoni, my fault - fortunately only I was deservedly out of the race ...
THX all fighters for the close duels during my whole race, was big fun!

I‘m in holidays now, so I am only back again in MC.
Have big fun in Adelaide!

Thanks Uli, chose the BT11 because I did want to drive something different, also considered BRM. I think BT11 is pretty allround and able to do well at any track, starting to understand 65 mod better now than half year ago since I was new to it...

Sorry you had trouble early on and later on, winning is nice but it gives more satsfaction when you beat your fellow competitors on merit. I have too many wins picked up due to others bad luck, and I'm getting more rusty in close racing...

Have a great holiday Uli!

Mod report published.