UKGPL Season 23 (2012) Works Trophy (67) - Zandvoort (1948-72) - Sep 2

[Hristo Itchov]

A tiring race as usual on this track. I couldn't quite do a perfect lap in Qualifying and thus ended up 2nd on the grid, but was expecting to be able to challenge Attilio during the race, although tires were always going to be an issue, especially with a car as heavy as the Honda.

I dropped the revs too much at the start, but managed to keep 2nd on the run down to T1, then saw Attilio go off on time and reacted by taking the inside line, avoiding any carnage that happened soon after. Much to my surprise Attilio had continued and was in 2nd place, just 4 seconds back, so there was no time to relax.

The car was handling really well early on and once Attilio had his off, the gap increased over 10 seconds, just in time for my tire issues. The issues were bigger than expected though and that resulted into a full spin, costing me 9-10 seconds. The gap was back down to 5-6 seconds, but the car handling improved enough for me to start doing some fast consistent laps that helped me increase my lead.

I had 2 offs at T1 but without losing too much time, maybe 1-2 seconds at most, but then right at the end of the race, with a gap of around 15 seconds over 2nd place, the tires were really on fire apparently, and it was next to impossible to put the power down, so I was fortunate enough that the race was about to end. It turned out I had fuel for 12 more laps, so that probably played a role, but overall I'm not sure I could have dealt with Attilio had he not spun at T1 after the start.

Grats to all who finished this exhausting race!

[Ronniepeterson]

Congrats to the podium of Hristo, Art and Pod.

Considering the mindless violence at T1 this race was very enjoyable.  Having survived the worst of the mayhem I was just about to set off in second place after Hristo when Art came back for seconds and spun me round in his haste to catch Hristo himself. Such is life so I got my head down and tried to make up a few positions.  Clive was a sitting duck down the straight, with his Honda seemingly underpowered. Having got into third a spin gave Pod the spot and try as I could he would not be caught. More of a concern now was Arf who was clearly faster. He should have got me before the end but must have made a mistake which gave me the breathing space to hang on for fourth spot.

Zandvoort is weird. I don't like the track but always enjoy the racing here? Yeah I don't understand that either. See you all at the next round.

[Artiglietti]

Having survived the worst of the mayhem I was just about to set off in second place after Hristo when Art came back for seconds and spun me round in his haste to catch Hristo himself. Such is life so I got my head down and tried to make up a few positions. 

Surely so, Ronnie, I came after you and spun you to take back second place  . I was in a haste to get out of there of course, but truth is had you kept a straight line instead of cutting across the track, you wouldnt have spun yourself by hitting the front of my car. I couldnt have avoided you erven if I had had the time to actually brake or steer. I can tell you couldnt see I was there, still dont lay the blame at my doorstep, if on anyone, that one is frankly on you. I would suggest people flick to other driver's cockpit view when watching replays, at least before posting their comments on here.

[Hristo Itchov]

Strange, I posted a report and it did not appear. All the writing for nothing!

Well, I won't repeat all again, but just want to say it's been a very tough race, with Art having the upper hand in Qualifying, although I never quite managed to put in a really clean lap. The start was not so good as my revs dropped down, but with Art doing his half spin at T1 and everyone else behind me getting tangled up with him, I was handed over the lead. Much to my surprise it was still Art in 2nd when I got the pitboard information, just 4 seconds behind.

From there on it was pushing on the limit all the way, but as expected, the tires played their role. I had 2 offs at T1 and one major spin on the exit of the long right-hander in the middle of the lap, losing 9-10 seconds in the process. Fortunately for me Art also had some issues so the gap kept fluctuating between 5 and 15 seconds. Near the end the rear tires were so hot that I could hardly put the power down at all, so I lost a lot of time there, but then the chequered flag took care of everything. Turned out I had fuel for 12 laps more, so that must have been a factor as well, but I don't think I would have had an answer for Art had he not lost the lead early on.

Grats to all finishers, it's been a tough race here as usual!

[Ronniepeterson]

Having survived the worst of the mayhem I was just about to set off in second place after Hristo when Art came back for seconds and spun me round in his haste to catch Hristo himself. Such is life so I got my head down and tried to make up a few positions.  

Surely so, Ronnie, I came after you and spun you to take back second place   . I was in a haste to get out of there of course, but truth is had you kept a straight line instead of cutting across the track, you wouldnt have spun yourself by hitting the front of my car. I couldnt have avoided you erven if I had had the time to actually brake or steer. I can tell you couldnt see I was there, still dont lay the blame at my doorstep, if on anyone, that one is frankly on you. I would suggest people flick to other driver's cockpit view when watching replays, at least before posting their comments on here.

I have looked at it from several views and I have to disagree with you. You messed up and then you messed up again, in my opinion. But you still drove a great race to finish second. Let the mods decide if they choose to look at it. Personally I have moved on from this one. No hard feelings on my part.

[Cookie]

The server replay is here

[Hristo Itchov]

The server replay is here

You must be reading my mind, I was just going to ask for it! 

[Hristo Itchov]

Having survived the worst of the mayhem I was just about to set off in second place after Hristo when Art came back for seconds and spun me round in his haste to catch Hristo himself. Such is life so I got my head down and tried to make up a few positions.  

Surely so, Ronnie, I came after you and spun you to take back second place   . I was in a haste to get out of there of course, but truth is had you kept a straight line instead of cutting across the track, you wouldnt have spun yourself by hitting the front of my car. I couldnt have avoided you erven if I had had the time to actually brake or steer. I can tell you couldnt see I was there, still dont lay the blame at my doorstep, if on anyone, that one is frankly on you. I would suggest people flick to other driver's cockpit view when watching replays, at least before posting their comments on here.

I have looked at it from several views and I have to disagree with you. You messed up and then you messed up again, in my opinion. But you still drove a great race to finish second. Let the mods decide if they choose to look at it. Personally I have moved on from this one. No hard feelings on my part.

If you are talking about the contact between you and Art on the exit of T1 after the start, IMO it was a racing incident. Art's fault was losing traction under acceleration and although he caught that on time, it still positioned him a bit closer to the right. Your fault was accelerating diagonally across the track disregarding Art could still be overlapping you on the left.

[Artiglietti]

Having survived the worst of the mayhem I was just about to set off in second place after Hristo when Art came back for seconds and spun me round in his haste to catch Hristo himself. Such is life so I got my head down and tried to make up a few positions.  

Surely so, Ronnie, I came after you and spun you to take back second place   . I was in a haste to get out of there of course, but truth is had you kept a straight line instead of cutting across the track, you wouldnt have spun yourself by hitting the front of my car. I couldnt have avoided you erven if I had had the time to actually brake or steer. I can tell you couldnt see I was there, still dont lay the blame at my doorstep, if on anyone, that one is frankly on you. I would suggest people flick to other driver's cockpit view when watching replays, at least before posting their comments on here.

I have looked at it from several views and I have to disagree with you. You messed up and then you messed up again, in my opinion. But you still drove a great race to finish second. Let the mods decide if they choose to look at it. Personally I have moved on from this one. No hard feelings on my part.

Well, I hadnt even registered this thing before you mentioned it in your comment, so no, no hard feelings  . As for the mods, they will certainly look into this, especially now you took such a good care to highlight it . Still, I would be surprised if you managed to scrape another place through this, I hit the gas when you havent entered my field of view  (it can be seen by the rev counter), when you do, I am still catching the car trying to go straight at minimum revs and we collide because you are cutting across, otherwise the contact wouldnt have happened. All of that happens in one single second, so I would need to be given a convincing alternative behaviour to adopt in that kind of time frame, you know for future instances of similar situations  . Take it easy Ronnie, see you at the next one.

[Ronniepeterson]

To H and Art.

Art spun at turn 1, it could happen to anyone. But, he has brought the entire field, bar yourself, to a standstill, some permanently!!! Bearing in mind the guidelines on etiquette, he could wait and let the remaining cars through before recovering and rejoining the race, some people would.

"Rejoining the race
When rejoining the race after an incident or having left the track, rejoining drivers should stay off the racing line and give way to faster cars until they are fully up to speed. Rejoining drivers should not attempt to keep anyone behind them until they are fully up to speed. Any driver who rejoins a race and, owing to negligence, causes another car to crash or take severe avoiding action, will be penalised."

But he decides not to and instead sets off in pursuit of you no matter what or who happens to be in his way. To suggest that I got in Art's way and spun myself around... maybe I should report myself LOL. 

I hardly mentioned the incident in my original post compared to your original forum comment. I have not reported any incident and have no intention of doing so. As you pointed out yourself, the mods will probably look at this because it was a lap 1/ turn 1 incident, not my decision. My comment of  "when Art came back for seconds and spun me round in his haste to catch Hristo himself. Such is life so I got my head down and tried to make up a few positions." is hardly a cry for a gain in position at your expense.

As for your comments on "scraping places and take it easy, they could be interpreted as arrogant and condescending so I will ignore them.

[Hristo Itchov]

The rules about rejoining is if you have went off the track. Obviously Art didn't and he's not obliged to just wait until everyone passes him. I don't know what kind of etiquette you demand about this, but it's not in the rules and since we're racing in a championship, not just for fun, you don't have to let anyone through out of guilt if you don't want to. It's not like he caused the accident on purpose, he just made a mistake and spun in T1. What happened afterwards was not 100% his fault though.

It was a simple racing incident where one driver loses control and the other assumes the road is clear. I don't see how you can dismiss your fault in what happened just like that.

[Ronniepeterson]

In my opinion and how I interpret the guidelines, you don't have to be off track to rejoin a race! Last words on this one guys, I at least really have moved on.

[Hristo Itchov]

In my opinion and how I interpret the guidelines, you don't have to be off track to rejoin a race! Last words on this one guys, I at least really have moved on.

What is meant by rejoining a race then, I'm puzzled by your interpretation. If you're still on the track and especially if you're pointing in the right direction, what do you do, let everyone through before you accelerate? Move off track? Seriously, no logic at all...

[Artiglietti]

Lol, rather timely late afternoon forum check, you are all here  !

Ronnie, you seem to be ignoring a lot of my post, including, rather conveniently, the description of what actually happened (in a nutshell, when I see you are cutting across me, it is late to do anything about it..). Maybe your problem is with what I did in the second before that? As I assume you are not suggesting I should have sat in the middle of the track whilst I kept being kicked from behind, I am kindly left with the option of taking to the grass and wait for the field to go by. Can you give me one single example of someone actually doing that?  Because I have been rammed out, wiped off on a straight, involved in other people's accidents more than once in my racing, and not one single time I have seen the guy at guilt (?) slowing down to hand back a position. I dont expect that, and, actually, the rules even discourage it, suggesting to get on with your racing on safety grounds. 

Besides, the bits of the rules you are quoting apply in this case to pretty much the entire field, as they all have been involved in an incident and are trying to rejoin. This of course includes you, why havent you taken care to assess no one was there when you cut across the track to take the racing line  ?

As Hristo said, this is obviously a racing incident between two drivers scampering away from a massive mayhem, unaware of each other presence until it is too late. Of all the people involved, you are the only one being anal about this incident, which in the end hasnt even damaged your car or your race results. That is maybe why I can sound condescending. Arrogant, me? Never 

[Ross Neilson]

Sorry for the incorrect replay link, I've fixed that now. Thanks to Axel for helping out on that one.