Endurance Championship - Season 2, Round 6, Spa - Apr 2

[maverick]

 

[maverick]

all goes well,and then race start,and all cars disappear,appear again  and disappear, and kept on doing this for a lap and then lost connection.  :'(

[Truetom]

Start was disaster, think leader needs to go a little before s/f.

Yeah, maybe we could say GO from the exit of the last corner before s/f line. 

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Yeah, maybe we could say GO from the exit of the last corner before s/f line. 

That wouldn't work because not everyone has chat turned on.

The rule is pretty clear:

The leader shall not accelerate at the end of the formation lap until they cross the start line. Each following driver should only accelerate when the driver ahead does.
The leader should maintain a steady pace out of the last corner until reaching the start line. Following drivers should attempt to form an orderly, single-file queue behind.

Obviously I don't want to preempt the moderator's ruling, but we've discussed the starting technique to death over the past two seasons and if the accident was caused by somebody going early, the change suggested won't solve it. If we're very lucky, GTR2 will have a proper "green flag, green flag" call and we won't have to worry about it any more.

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results are available

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Replay and provisional results are available

Thanks, Picnic.

ps. Not sure why Gerald had two entries in the Race export but I edited it and imported and it's fine.

[Don]

Just had a look at the replay of the start at Spa and seems like I wasn't the only one who had problems
Not that it helps me(or Dan) of course.

[Mark J]

Not to take anything away from Toms brilliant and sneaky win , but shouldnt we make it a compulsory one stop for the endurance races? I thought that was the reasoning behind making the races that bit longer that people would be forced into making one? for the extra element that it brings into 'endurance'.
 I know its a factor of racing that drivers use different pit stop strategies but seeing that Tom was able to grab a win by not stopping, wont that encourage every else to do the same and we're back to a longer sprint style race?

Like i said this is not a sour grapes moan at all, just a point for discussion, though i'm sure SBG felt as sick as i did after 80 mins of hard racing and seeing Tom triumphantly waiting at the rostrum with a smug grin I didnt even see Tom the entire race and had fought with SBG so hard cos i thought i was on for the class win !

I must also confess that i thought of going for a no-stopper just before the race started but thought 'oh everyone else has to stop too'....D'oh !

[Simon Gymer]

Yes I actually agree, I would like to see 1 stop compulsary. NGTs are a pain because they can go for 90 mins or more without stopping, whereas GT cars can't do 80 mins without stopping. As part of endurance racing it would be nice to make sure everyone has at least one pitstop.

Spa is a quite a special case mind you as the pit lane is so very very long so the time lost in the pits it's extraordinary. Truetom was not one of the top 3 quickest guys in NGT even in qualifying, but take nothing away he did drive an excellent and consistent race.

We could make fuel usage X2 or we could enforce a single stop (although it's a pain to moderate). Moderation might be that unless anyone complains we don't check up on pit stops being made.

Not sure what the general consensus is on mandatory pitstops?

[mo]

Congrats to CJ and TT on class wins and also to SBG on a great pole lap.
It was last minute for me, joining half way through qual. I knew that because I couldn't see the qual times of most drivers, that I would be an invisible car so I waited in the garage until the last possible moment and then promptly crashed on my outlap.
So starting from the back I was slowly making my way through the NGTs until I lost control again on lap2 and nearly took TT off. At that stage I quit and hope I wasn't in the way too much.

Not to take anything away from Toms brilliant and sneaky win , but shouldnt we make it a compulsory one stop for the endurance races? I thought that was the reasoning behind making the races that bit longer that people would be forced into making one? for the extra element that it brings into 'endurance'.

I did a no-stopper at the opener in Barca and it was tight for fuel (3 or 4 litres left at the end). Its not easy either to race on lower grip levels for 80mins and it certainly is not possible on all tracks. Even on the tracks that it is possible its not always quicker than a one-stopper, Oschers or Extoril for instance......

I agree with Shark that Spa is a special case with the length of the pitlane, but I think that the one-stoppers would be quicker at the remaining tracks apart from maybe Monza which usually  seems to finish 10 -15 mins early due to the distance covered.

[ginsters sponsored]

First lets take nothing away from TT, I couldn't drive for that length of time consistently and well.

However, I do agree with Mark and Shark. Stops should be mandatory. For one, I can't see how the battles I have had in recent races would be possible if everyone was trying to conserve tyres/fuel. Conservative driving couldn't make great racing and I wouldn't want to be involved in a procession.

[Zacari]

Grats to CJ and TT for wins, and a very impressive race pace!  I had a pretty quiet race overall apart from the start which wasn’t the greatest I’ve ever seen .  Ran quietly in 6th until being promoted to 5th late in the race,  good stuff from all the NGT boys being very courteous, (though I did make a bit of an arse-up of lapping Shark  )

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I don't really want to introduce a compulsary stop because it then has to be enforced. At most tracks 80 minutes is really pushing it in NGT on both tyres and initial fuel load. Anyone else could've done what TrueTom did.

If and when we do season 3 there's always the option of making the races longer still...

[Simon Gymer]

At most tracks 80 minutes is really pushing it in NGT on both tyres and initial fuel load. Anyone else could've done what TrueTom did.

Only tyres. The F360 has plenty of fuel (don't know about the others) to do 90 mins.

I think we might need to extend some of the race times to 85 mins anyway. Monza, Enna and Spa always finish far too early. Last night there was 5 mins left on the clock? The pace lap is long cause it's a long track so we need to compensate by extending the race time.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

At most tracks 80 minutes is really pushing it in NGT on both tyres and initial fuel load. Anyone else could've done what TrueTom did.

Only tyres. The F360 has plenty of fuel (don't know about the others) to do 90 mins.

I think we might need to extend some of the race times to 85 mins anyway. Monza, Enna and Spa always finish far too early. Last night there was 5 mins left on the clock? The pace lap is long cause it's a long track so we need to compensate by extending the race time.

I didn't mean it couldn't do 80 minutes on a tank, I meant it's a very heavy load early in the race, which puts additional load on the tyres.

We can discuss other changes at the end of the season.