SimRacing.org.uk

Season 31 Works Trophy – Round 2 –  Monaco

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1967 season, the UKGPL season will take place on 10 of the 11 original circuits. Round 2 starts the European season & probably the most iconic of F1 circuits, on the streets on Monte Carlo. Facilities such as the paddock, pit boxes, fences and grandstands are usually temporary and removed soon after the race is over but in modern times the pits, race control and main grandstands are sometimes permanently constructed in the area. Since the track surface is originally planned for normal speeds, race drivers often find street circuits bumpy and lacking grip. Run-off areas may be non-existent, which makes driving mistakes more expensive than in purpose-built circuits. Hardly passing places, so please be patient.

Race List = iGOR
Server = UKGPL_9
IP = see iGOR
Race date = Sunday 26-02-2017
Time = 21:00 UK time (21:00 GMT)
Track = Papyrus Original
Race length = 33 Laps (50 minutes)
Variant = 1967
60fps patch used   = 60fpsV2newmod
Damage Model = Intermediate
Qualifying time = 30-45 minutes

Replays Available here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/Replays/Archive/Season31/Grads_Works/)

Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (http://simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=589&theme=6)

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.  

This Season we don't have a Red Zone. Moderating will be on reported incidents only. If you haven't received a PM about an incident before the link below the results table is removed, you can be sure that you will not appear in the moderator's report.

The chassis token system is explained on the Works standings page. Please ensure you choose a chassis that is within your budget, which can be seen by hovering the mouse over your points total in the standings.

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

Password: see above (#post_event_password)

Got further than I thought starting from back round Gasworks hairpin and avoiding the chaos. Unfortunately the chicane (so often my undoing) did my rear left wheel.

Monaco. Crashed. What's new?  ;).

If you ever have it free, turn up in Monaco on the first Saturday in December. It's France's national charity day (for UK people it's like Children in Need). Alongside the pits/pool area there's lots going on - a fair for the little ones, and deals like cheap helicopter rides over Monaco etc. Relevant to you lot is the fact that some of the local millionaires bring down their Ferraris and sit in a tent and drink tea. For around €50 they will leave the tent and take you for 1 lap of the GP circuit, with all proceeds to charity. If you are feeling flush there is an Enzo too. However it isn't worth his while firing it up for just one lap, so for €200 you get the lap, a tour of the shopping areas, and then he flings it up the hill away from the principality at a rate of knots. I did learn that I am too tall to ever bother buying one, so that's one problem sorted :-)

As for tonight, mostly very well played by all on lap 1, I was expecting more carnage. Ronnie (I think) had a little moment ahead of me and I had to stop for him to recover, but nothing too serious. I had a similar experience with someone else later on, and then I broke my suspension about half way through the race. I could still drive a few seconds off my best time, but 10/12 laps from the end Marco lost it and collected me, game over... still it was fun, and I finally got the Honda green in GPL rank..which was all I was hoping for tonight!

  My tokens???

I have to agree with arf arf arf about lap 1, well played all :)
When we settled in around casino I thought to myself, cool, the race is on :D & tried to settle into a rhythm. 33 laps is a lot to keep out of the barriers. I came across a couple of accidents & managed to negotiate them cleanly. Pelle had a few incidents ahead of me  & was clearly quicker behind me, we swapped position a few times, well Pelle kept re-passing me but also once due to a wee tap from me. sorry Pelle :(
Apart from that incident it was a really clean race, one little scuff at tabac near the end, so pleased with that plus a new pb in training which was nice.
Satisfying to get to the end of a race here, I've not done that often.

When I allowed myself to pay a bit more attention to where I was in the race, I was surprised to see p2 & with a comfortable 20s gap to Doni (I thought, maybe it was Dean all along!) & I knew I was being to get sloppy & tired.... managed to bring it home with only the tabac scuff, so :D

It's always a race of attrition at Monaco, Tim was simply too quick for me to catch. Grats to Tim & all finishers (well deserved), thanks admins.
See you in the dunes ... for the 49's debut  :-\

I'm waiting for the race reaplay to post on my short race !

Should work now ;)

Well, first off commiserations to Tris. At first in the race I thought it was purely lag induced, on watching the replay I see it was a combination of a mistake by Pelle and GPL over-doing the impact (any other sim would have resulted in no more than a half spin).
Luckily for me although I was gaining on the 2 leaders at this point I was far enough back to avoid being trapped behind Tristan's upside-down Brabham, so I took to the pavement and scarpered before the Gendarmes could arrive.

From there on if you look at the results you could believe I had it easy - the reality was far from the truth, at least from in my cockpit.
My setup was on something of a knife edge for Ocanom, for short bursts it was capable of low 1:26's, maybe even high 1:25's if I got all green sectors but at that pace the left rear would start to melt after 4 or 5 laps (Prib showed an easy pole had I held a lap together).
The entire race was spent concentrating on putting in consistent and accurate laps that avoided too much sliding about but also managed to match Pelle/Sam/Roo's times behind me.
Luckily all 3 proved to be inconsistent - I haven't watched the replay in enough detail to see if that was due to battles or mistakes but it allowed me to take it much more easily than otherwise. I think I was averaging mid to low 1:27's for most of the race with one unintended mid 1:26 around the halfway mark followed by the fastest lap when I decided to open up a bit in the final 3.
In theory the last lap should have been my quickest but the tyres were already too hot to actually grip for that lap, this meant I was much slower than the effort I put in should have justified. I race with tyre temps turned off as I think they're distracting but only getting 2.5 laps before meltdown suggests I was running very near the limit for most of the race!

As said it's a shame about Tris being taken out, I was curious to see if I was the only one at the front to be having tyre temp issues - and if my tactic of driving slightly slower in the race would pay off should the leaders press hard throughout..

Congrats to Roo and Dean for 2nd and 3rd, as well as to all finishers. Bad luck to the DQ's, Esp Sam who was managing some fantastic lap times in his boat  ;D

Congrats Tim, Roo, and Dean! Tim must have been in the right frame of mind and ready for some action.

It wasn't my day! Some days are good and some are bad. This one was a bad day for me to be racing. I couldn't concentrate well. I questioned whether I should race at all. By the end of qualifying, I felt I could drive good enough that I wasn't an excessive danger to the other drivers. That didn't mean I wouldn't make mistakes though. :) I was surprised to get pole position. I think Tristan is a little faster than me and I assumed he's much better with a Brabham than I am. Being .5 seconds off my best and thinking I should be able to improve my fastest lap time, made me think there was no way I'd get pole position at the time I set.

Things went down hill quickly. Too much throttle out of Virage del a Gare resulting in a spin, forced me to sit while the entire field passed. Putting myself in a position where I'd be required to do a lot of passing didn't bode well for a place like Monaco. I felt a little bad for the drivers I'd soon be trying to pass. The last thing they really needed was me trying to move back through the field. I was lucky that every car I caught appeared to yield to me at some point. I wondered if Andreas would or not. I didn't expect that he would but after a lap of me tailing him, I guess he decided to make things easier on himself. I got a little impatient with Syd and tried to pass when I wasn't sure it was possible. I was sure I could wait to brake later than Syd so he'd likely be fine. But waiting so long to brake assured I wouldn't be fine. A nasty crash at Tabac ended my day quickly. I'm glad Syd cleared my Brabham.

It appears I shouldn't have driven so much at Road America the day before. I think I burned myself out Saturday. A good night of sleep probably would have helped too. I hope I can get my act together soon.

Take care guys. I hope to see you next time.

I was purposely running low tyre pressures to prevent the tyres from over heating, maybe a little too low with hindsight, but I felt I could push hard for extended periods without suffering a loss of grip. Sadly I just wasn't quick enough & was more focused on actually finishing rather than out 'n' out pace ;)

My apologies to Arf, I am sorry to have ruined his race, it was impossible for me to avoid the impact......

Grats to the podium and to all those who finished.

I was never expecting to challenge for a podium place using the BRM, but I was hoping to survive the race with a little luck. As always at Monaco, the first lap is somewhere to be extremely cautious as anyone else's incident can quickly become yours!

The early laps went well and then a few of the front runners dropped out for various reasons and I found myself tailing my old mate Doni in his Honda. For lap after lap I looked for a way around that car, but although I knew absolutely that I could go faster Doni refused to make a big enough error to give me a chance....great driving Doni  :thumbup1: :thumbup1:

At this point I would like to pass on my top tip #137...when racing at Monaco do not sneeze when going through the tunnel!! It was so violent that I clipped a kerb and spun the car giving the concrete wall a hefty whack, which did nothing for the already marginal handling of the green beast. After a few more laps and increased frequency of contact with barriers and walls I finally managed to rip a wheel off!!
The only consolation was that I had passed the 50% distance  :-\

I trialed low pressures in practice on Saturday, all it gave me was 300+ degree, underinflated tyres!

Big Grats FullMG :thumbup1: roo & DLogan :thumbup2: ...& grats to anyone lucky as unfortunate.

1st, Big sry to Tris...a great race where it still went very wrong, I still don't understand how I came so close & that GPL thought you should tilt. I tried my best to turn you around again, but could not move you...shame & really sorry.

NP roo, but I didn't know you were there. I had a spin & made room for Sam? (BRM)...& got a shock you were there, luckily it ended only in a spin & not tilt ;D
Unfortunate I forgot to save my own replay, but if you see the server replay after you hit me...you're here...you are gone...& again, at one point I thought you had disco...but hey you're back, just like in the good old days of Vroc :sweatdrop:

The connection gets better after a few laps & can get past, Thx...but Sam has a crash in the chicane after the tunnel & I'm down for the count in countless spin, roo is more fortunate past Sam, but I'm behind roo Again, LOL

Later in my struggle to get up in front again, I push my McHonda too much & it says...time for a smoke. Hope I gave room for everyone so I was not in the way.
A day that could have ended much better because...my race setup was really good, close to perfect...drove as Scalextric.
The only drawback, my ears were slightly damaged by a 45 laps race at Mosport Rain just before this race.

Thank you all for a 'fun' day at Monaco  :surrender:

OOPS, forgot this from server replay: Report (http://www.gpl1967.dk/GPL/Replays/UKGPL/Replay/S31_Monaco/index.html)  ;)

How did I manage to finish the race with all these problems? :)

Leader of the race starts lap 15
22m30.740s
Syd Drake - spotters reporting:
minor problems with left front tire.
minor problems with left front suspension.

Leader of the race starts lap 18
26m38.740s
Syd Drake - spotters reporting:
medium problems with right front suspension.

27m10.740s
Syd Drake - spotters reporting:
minor problems with right rear tire.
severe problems with right front suspension.

Leader of the race starts lap 21
30m54.740s
Syd Drake - spotters reporting:
medium problems with left front tire.
severe problems with left front suspension.
the car has an engine problem.

Lap 15 clipped the barriers, lap 18 clipped the barriers, lap 21 full blown spin coming out of the chicane, fortunately only hit the hail bales, so it was only a severe problem with left front suspension, not a ripped wheel :).
Before lap 21 I had a good time driving behind and ahead of Dean, and behind Doni and Clive. No place to overtake, and we were driving nose to tail quite often, 3-4 cars, and no contact, well done all. After lap 21 I was almost 2 seconds a lap slower, so best I could do was try to keep up with Doni and Dean. Dean went away after finally managing to get past Doni, but I stayed respectably close to Doni until the end.

Sorry for the late filing, chaps.  I've been dickin' about with an android TV box of late and trying to get a handle on it.  Much potential but some pitfalls as well.

Congratulations, Tim!  You did what was required here.  Survive!  :)

Nice job by Roo for that P2 slot.  Dean's P3 rather cheap and nothing to be proud of.

Bit of a laffer for me as, frankly, I wasn't terribly enthused about this round.  Perhaps the daunting prospect of keeping off the barriers for 33 laps had something to do with that.  It's a trial for sure.

I was quite surprised to qualify as far up on the grid as I did since I was more or less just arsing about.  I selected the Honda as a first time use at this venue not believing for an instant that I'd start P10.  A set from Estoril served as a baseline and I didn't even bother with using 5th gear.  It handled quite well but I was far from giving it an honest go.

Knowing full well that survival is the strat to follow, I picked up spots in the early going by being careful.  With JonnyO being shunted off by Dean on Lap01 and the traffic jam that developed behind him, I had to skip over the sidewalk to avoid getting involved and bounced up to P7.  Only seconds later, I came across a Brabham facing the wrong way.  Poor Greg.  Pole and a tiny slip ruined his day.  Bad luck, amigo.  Up to P6 by the end of Lap01.  Joke.

My NET connection was mis-behaving somewhat with the bars fluctuating over the early laps and all ahead and behind disappeared for a short time.  It's a bit of a shock when the signal stabilizes to find someone planted on your tail from out of nowhere.  :)  Bob gave chase in his Cooper and was clearly superior over a lap but what can you do here to pass?  You just gotta wait and pray for a break.  I was quite happy to just put it on cruise control and lap well off potential pace.

Not long before Bob clipped the bales exiting the chicane and he was done.  Clive took up the challenge to pass but again, it was all down to my making a mistake or being tagged.  Neither was happening, thankfully, and as the laps reeled off, more fallers vaulted me up to P4 by half distance.  A spin by Clive had his chances fade and Syd took up position off my tail.  For many a lap, Syd sized me up but had the misfortune to brush the bales exiting the chicane and spin down to P6.  Dean then parked himself on my tail and searched for a way past but with no success as P4 became P3 when Pelle's engine went off-song.  I say Dean had no success in wangling a pass.  At least until he dive-bombed an attempt on Lap28 with one of those 'I'm throwing all my chips into the pot and praying for an ace' at Tabac that had him carom off the barriers.  I'm astonished that he didn't have the entire right side pruned off.  If I hadn't have checked up, I would have been involved.

I just cruised the last handful of laps to score a most unexpected P4.

Rather belated mod report now published.