Moderator's Report
SUMMARY
Axel "Cookie" Koch completes a hattrick in the first race of the season starting from Pole, leading all laps and setting the fastest lap. Despite going wide at La Source, needing a reset late race, Axel wins in dominant style with the Honda. Congratulations. Dave Rainier finishes 2nd in a Brabham and Billy Nobrakes completes the podium in an Eagle, also despite both needing a reset. Michael Turner finishes 4th and Dave Curtis -who had an engine problem almost whole race- was the last finisher 1 lap down. Francesco Molteni was the last points scorer in 6th as he retired after completing 8 laps.
The Red Zone was clean, well done, Walter disconnected sadly. There were some reported incidents and infractions of the rules.
IMPORTANT: can you all please use the correct (server) replay time formats when submitting incidents in the future. With incorrect and incomplete times it's hard for me to find the incidents. Please use the time format like 00m00s as an example...
Martin "Maddog" reports that Bastian Grupp sets times in two different chassis' in qualifying. Bastian stated he wasn't aware of the rule.
Server replay time: 0h02m14s
Bastian reported he felt he was blocked and Fran was unaware of any wrongdoing.
Bastian has more momentum out of Malmedy on Lap 1 following Francesco. Fran slightly moves to the middle at the straight after, that catches out Bastian who has to lift. Seconds later towards Masta, at 2m18s Bastian makes a move and has the slightest of overlap. Francesco moves over to claim the racing line without regard of Bastian at 2m27s. Bastian has again to lift to avoid a collision, and misses the line at Masta kink and spins. On a sidenote, in the aftermath also Fabio hits Bastian, Fabio was loose exiting Masta and couldn't avoid him. Michael Turner also spins out of Masta towards Bastian.
There was no contact between Fran and Bastian so the only rule that covers it is Blocking and Weaving.
This is covered in bullet points 5 and 6 under general at https://www.ukgpl.com/index.php/rules/etiquette. There is a link to some screen shots Phil has put in for this season describing what overlap is.
Consider bullet point 5 "Blocking is not allowed, but defensive driving is allowed. If a driver moves off the racing line before the car behind attempts to overtake, this is defensive driving. If they move off the racing line after the car behind has started to move across to overtake, this is blocking. If a driver is driving defensively they may move off the line and back onto it only once per straight/section."
One of the reasons for this rule is to prevent weaving in an effort to stop a following car slipstreaming. Hence the statement "If a driver is driving defensively they may move off the line and back onto it only once per straight/section".
The key to this, is on the approach to Masta, who moved first? If Fran moved first, it was defensive driving and hence he did nothing wrong because he only "moved off the line and back onto it once". If not it is blocking "If they move off the racing line after the car behind has started to move across to overtake, this is blocking".
Bastian makes his move at 2m18s. This was a long time before Fran makes his move 9s later at 2m27. So Fran did block Bastian.
The penalty guidelines are at https://www.ukgpl.com/index.php/rules/blocking_weaving (read the definitions in the first paragraph especially the "5 car lengths")
Did Bastian have a chance to change his line once he was blocked? The moderators don't think so, there was no time to try to overtake Fran on the inside so:
Francesco - Simple Blocking/Weaving: Penalty 1 Place: The blocking driver changed his line ONCE in RESPONSE to the following car's movement and AFTER the following car was committed to his line. No contact is made.
Server replay time: 0h04m58s
Michael Turner did not come to a full stop at his Stop & Go after resetting.
Server replay time: 0h14m12s
Bernie spins out of La Carriere after hitting the grass inside, and spins back on the racing line. Bernie was out of control and him ending up there was rather unfortunate. He tried to recover but ran out of time.
Fran got a very brief yellow flag, but Bernie sitting there was unfortunate, and Fran can't be blamed for hitting Bernie. Racing Incident.