UKGPL Season 22 (2011-2012) GT - Imola - Dec 4

[Nigel Smith]

Mine was like that at the start!
 

[Cookie]

Allways fun to read the mechanical report afterwards... I think my car looked something like this at the  end...

Next time I would avoid this 13 

[Podkrecony_Ziutek]

We were way to fast for a rolling start plus that weird slowing down afther Rivazza. That's not how rolling start should look like.

As for my race.  I decided to take it easy, find my pace and stick to it. Everything was going great until around lap 25. When changing gears from 3rd to 4th I've made mistake and for fraction of a second I was on neutral. That was enough to blow my engine. Afther my SnG I was trying to catch guys in front of me, but I lost my concentration, plus being lapped didn't help

[Cookie]

We were way to fast for a rolling start plus that weird slowing down afther Rivazza. That's not how rolling start should look like.

I confirm 1000%

I would not have had this pain in the ass Porky, who made me sweat, till I could not see anything with this sweat in my eyes burning...
When going wide in Tosa, kissing the armco, I damaged my front suspension.
So my car got a little unpredictable under braking and in fast corners 
Arriving Tamburello a little too fast, normally no problem over the green, Sky just parked there...
Avoiding a big crash I spun and Fulvio gained my place 

[clouds]

It seems you have had one of "Wacky Races". Who was Dick Dastardly ?

[1967driver]

I saw the replay and i apologize again with Al, i assume the responsibility of the incident at start that will be subject to moderation.
I have only one thing to say: i enjoyed this race, but in last laps i was mentally very tired.
Driving in relax for one hour is fine, but this is not true with a deamon attached to tail for almost all the time, i think that less laps was a better choice to fit 50 minutes.
I felt like an elephant hounded by a mouse, and, at the end, the rat have eating the pachyderm ... 

[FullMetalGasket]

That was a great battle Alex 

Looking at laptimes it seems I was faster for most of the race, but on the rare occaisions I managed to pass you my efforts kept being ruined by a problem with the brakes in Aqua minirale.
In common with a fairly well documented issue in the GT mod the Porsche would randomly lock it's front brakes and hurl me onto the grass on the outside of the turn - always allowing you to retake the position 

I was getting very frustrated at myself and the Porsche as we neared the end of the race, and realised that while you seemed to be getting slightly slower (Or I was speeding up, not sure which yet) you were none the less going to defend as hard as you possibly good till the end 

That final battle into Tosa was proper skin of the teeth - How you managed to nearly match my braking and not hit me I don't know, but I guess you didn't quite make it as you ran slightly wide at the corner exit.
Fantastic effort at re-taking me though 

I enjoyed that race, other than the brake issue the Porsche was great fun 
Welldone podium types and finishers!

[blito]

Oddly enough I really enjoyed that too, although my comparative lack of pace was a bit of a problem. I had tweaked the MKII1s setup to the point where it was a very easy to control car... provided I didn't want to press on a bit! When I did try to up the pace whilst holding off Rainier, I found that my soft setup was punishing the front right tyre, especially though Tamburello which of course was leading top braking problems at Tosa which is how Rainier eventually managed to squeeze by.  Mostly for me it was a cruise to a finish to try blag some points... I had two spins through braking issues  ( one due to a red hot front tyre and the other to a dopey headed Blito driving on the grass whilst letting team-mate Doni lap him) ...
On the whole I feel like I'm making progress with my driving of these cars but its just a pity the results aren't showing that....

[Phil Thornton]

On the whole I feel like I'm making progress with my driving of these cars but its just a pity the results aren't showing that....

Unfortunately Team Green are propping up the table.  We are not a long way behind though, a couple of good results and we'll leapfrog a few teams 

[Al Heller]

Total disaster for me as my race was effectively over before it even started. Got rather thrown when Doni didn't floor it out of the final corner & several of us who'd already started motoring had to stand on the brakes. As we approached the startline the field ahead of me bunched up again but behind others were going full pelt & the next thing I knew I received a Godzilla-sized shove that sent me careering across the track & into the barriers. (No problem Alex - these things happen). A comedy of errors then followed as I rejoined rather gingerly only to be immediately collected by another car & launched into orbit. After flipping end-over-end several times, amazingly I landed the right way up & seemingly intact (if a tad disorientated) so proceeded up the track only to wonder what the pit complex was doing at the end of the straight... aaargh wrong way! I decided to try & pit next lap to see if I could serve a penalty to get rid of the black flag & thought I may as well reset in case of damage too. Stopped the following lap for the stop & go at my pit box but GPL was having none of it & insisted I was still disqualified. Carried on regardless but with Prib disabled by my DQ I had no idea where I was or who I was racing. Shame, as I was enjoying the Mirage & think I could have been quite competitive with my laptimes. Tailed Alex & FMG at the end & enjoyed watching their epic fight but tried not to get too involved as I wasn't even sure if I should still be on track. Congrats to the podium boys & bad luck to Doni - looked like you were all having a great scrap from the replay.  

[Samb]

After the misery of Spa, this race provided a refreshing tonic for me  . The first half of the race involved me try to pass Doni, whilst defending against Juha. Sadly I caught Jason at the wrong time while trying to lap him and our contact pitched me into a half spin, losing out to the leading trio. It was then I put on a charge, and surprisingly not going off the road given my on track record of late  .

It look about 5 laps to catch Clive, who lost the back end at Rivazza, allowing me through. With Doni and Juha battling hard, I was able to catch up. Soon after Doni lost it on the bump just after the start finish straight. Bad luck there Doni, you really had driven superbly up to that point, much to my annoyance earlier on  .

So, I was up to 2nd although catching and passing Juha was another matter. We were roughly equal on pace in the same machinery and there was really very little chance of overtaking. I gave it a shot though and was oh-so-close behind when the flag dropped, a lap too early.

Congrats to Juha for a fine win and to Doni and Clive for making things interesting for so long.

[EvilClive]

I thought that I had covered just about everything in the rules for rolling starts on the race announcement.  

If everyone drove as it was intended to read, Sam, Juha and myself ( and anyone else!) could have passed Doni after the exit of Rivazza. Unfortunately Doni appeared to think that racing started when he crossed the S/F line, Sam was too much of a gentleman to exploit that mistake, Juha was wrongfooted by Sam's slowdown and I found my road blocked by 3 cars!!
It appears that just about everyone behind was also caught out by this rolling roadblock which caused a few "incidents" further down the field.

In future GT race announcements I will make it plain that racing starts after the last (proper) corner on the rolling lap AND I will name the corner, because there just might have been confusion at Imola between Rivazza and that slight right hand curve before the S/F line.

Once the race got going the battle at the front was intense.

Doni was obviously quick from his pole position in his Ferrari and both Sam and Juha had their Lolas fired up. I was happy to sit and watch in 4th place whilst team Godzilla's Mk2B's were not far behind. Slowly the front 4 cars drew away from the chasing pack and it became very clear that we all had similar pace. Making a pass was going to require a mistake from the guy in front and no-one seemed  very keen to be that generous.
Sam pressured Doni at every opportunity but Doni refused to yield. Juha stayed close and I kept a "safe" distance in case they all got too "touchy/feely" in front. Sam eventually spun out and Juha immediately took his place to pressure Doni. It was about this point that I lost a little concentration ( something that continued to be a problem for me for the rest of the race!!) and allowed a wheel to get onto thet green tarmac. A half spin dropped me back and gave me a wake up call, so I quickly closed the gap back to Juha over the next few laps only to relax as soon as I was within slipstream range and go wide again  
Sam was closing all the time because of my errors and Juha and Doni were creeping away.
Sm got past after another dumb move on my part and after I passed a stricken Doni I found myself in a surprising 3rd spot with loads of time back to the Godzilla MK2B and only about 8 laps to go.
Well it should have been easy from there to the flag, but I tried to make it as difficult as possible for myself by having 2 or 3 more minor offs and allowing Godzilla and a recovering Doni to get right onto my tail with 3 laps to go.
I just managed to prod my last remaining brain cell into life to keep the car on the road and claim a better place than I deserved.
Grats to Juha and Sam who were very quick, hard luck Doni who lost the top step with a single mistake.

Big grats to my teammate FMG for bringing the Porker home in a great 6th spot and thereby lifting Hiki Waza to the top of the team rankings  

[BadBlood]

I wouldn't get too comfy up there Clive or I may forget to re-map you to Hiki Waza GT and Tim's points would go to Black Night....  

Al completed 34 laps and was less than a second behind FMG. That lifts him to 13th and the results have been adjusted accordingly. If anyone believes this to be wrong, please let me know.

[Doni Yourth]

A Lola sweep of the podium!  Grats to Juha, Sam and Clive for fine performances.

A bitter pill for me to swallow after having held the lead for so long only to get a little anxious and make a dubious move over the bump that sent me spinning.  Cost Team Green a bunch of points.  Ah, well...

Some great and memorable racing action featured for the first 2/3 of this event as first I had to fend off Sam then Juha.  On the 24th lap, I got a good pass thru the Tamburello but Juha got an even better one to get position on me and prevent me from taking my preferred line into Tosa.  There, I held low so as not to collide with the Lola but that left the door open for Juha to out-gun me on the following straight and the run to the Piratella.  I see by the replay that I could have squeaked ahead going around Tosa but with such a limited rear view in GPL in general and the GT Mod in particular, better to play it safe.

Several laps later, after spooling up the Ferrari to stay in touch with the fleet Lola, I saw a chance to really close as we negotiated some lapped traffic.  I had several mph in hand as we crossed the S/F line and I hoped to get a look to the left as we ran down to the Tamburello.  Unfortunately, I neglected to pay due respect to the bump in the left-hand kink just passed the S/F line and this unbalanced the car a ton.  A wild trip into the grass and my chances spun away.

I recovered to chase Mark's Ford but he was fast and precise and I wasn't about to bungle again.

As for the start, well, a startline shunt didn't help matters, did it?  I felt that the pace I set on the lap was good and holding a steady pace coming off the Rivazza is the thing to do to allow the field to close up.  I don't understand why it was felt that I should have been on it just after the exit to the Rivazza; that's near on a full kilometer from the S/F line and the starter.  I have to confess to not paying too much attention to the instructions for our rolling starts but I've done enough in real-life..from pole position...to know how to conduct this sort of thing.  I'm indeed sorry to all whom were compromised.  I'm relieved to read that Clive will set strict parameters in the future races to avoid a repetition of the grief.

[jhalli]

was comfortable with the track and car,  i have raced Imola few times before and it was good help to get pace. On rolling lap i was pleased not to get on pole postition as im not good starter    .Iwas a bit confused about Doni's slow last corner but i was so shock that i didnt even think to pass him. Good and very close racing top 4 drivers ,Evil was keeping some more distance to our trio but was controlling good pace, i think he thought someone will crash on top  . Our trio battle was exciting and we all waited to someone to make mistakes, but no one didnt make one,unfortunately Sam's Lola touched Jason Blito car and dropped back from the pack,i was gain to 2nd place chasing Doni's Ferrari. Evil did have bad moment on Rivazza , i think he was too close to me on entering Rivazza and have to make an corrected move to avoid crash to me and slided to the grass. Few 2-3 laps later i did have good close slipstream on Tamburello and make success pass on slow left hander, i think Doni did have too long 2nd gear there and was slow speed out of that corner.   Last 10 laps i was cruising to the finish line, Sam was behind but in safe distance to not interrupt my driving, only in finish line there was only 0,1 seconds cap .

Good racing good track, thanks all!   its looking now way better on Team championship table, but we need more points !

cya on Mosport !