UKGTL Season 20 1983 European Touring Cars - Nürburgring - Aug 5

[Daz9]

Same as Clive, I had not turned a wheel in the Alfa, so took it in the hope it would be quite well balanced around the Nords lap, both for handling and top speed. This is also by far my favourite version of Nords, so felt more comfortable here than last week in the Elan.

The car surprised me. Lots and lots of grip, and very friendly handling characteristics that made it easy to drive, meant that I found it easy to push quite hard. Even then, the laptime in quali surprised me.....I have not driven the other cars in the class yet, but would recommend anyone that hasn't tried this car to give it a whirl. Any pace that I had felt more down to the inherent speed in the car as opposed to me being uber fast to be honest. It was nice to be able to lap well though, not been doing that for the last few weeks due to spinning off more than staying on....

Took pole, then jumped away quickly at the start in the hope of making a gap on the cars that would be better in the twisty bits, which worked out as hoped. Was just a case of keeping concentration and rhythm at that point, and making sure the pitstop didn't go wrong of course. Was happy to see the finish line, had just about run out of energy after racing home from work to go online.....

As always with Nords, grats to all that saw the finish line, always a tough challenge around here whichever version is being used.

[Geoffers]

Went with the Renault here, with all the corners the track really played to its strengths, although it does struggle a bit on the long straight.

Qualified 2nd & hoped to stay there, but Dan's Rover had other ideas on lap one, & despite trying to make my little car as wide as possible on the straight bits, I could not keep him behind. At Breidscheid Dan spun & came back across the track right in front of me & I could not avoid T-boning him, this dropped me to 7th. Eventually got back up to 3rd at the end of lap 4 when I pitted, lost some places in the pits as I decided to change tyres as well as refuel.

After stopping I was in 6th place, caught & passed Dimitar on lap 5. On lap 6 I came across Erling recovering from a moment & slipstreamed past on the long straight & finally on the last lap managed to reel in Hristo & again used the slipstream to nick 3rd at the flag.

Congrats to Daz & Clive.