UKGTR Season 4 Sprint NGT Masters - Monza (GP) - Jan 23

[popabawa]

Easily my best result of the season, 9th

Had a shocking first half of the race, it took me a while to get up to my pace and made a couple of silly mistakes, one to let Shark through after I'd slipped past him. Dammit 

Drove a pretty solid second half of the race, fighting off challenges from Flybri and Paulo (I think) before I finally managed to get in touch with Paul968, PaulW & Shark right at the end, another couple of laps there would have been really interesting as I don't thing the Paul's had much in the way of tyres left!

Great race, I'm so happy to finally put some points on the board 

[Simon Gymer]

That was another great race. I may actually start liking Monza soon. Had another good battle with PaulH in his Porker. My TVR was absolutely flying down the straights, was a complete shock. Gizmo says it has a really lo drag co-efficient, or some such mumbo jumbo.  It was a little slow on the drive out but once it got going the top speed just kept climbing and climbing. Was very good passing Paul's 911 quite a few times. Those 911s need a lesson in speed occasionally!  Ran same wing as I did on the M3 (1-3) and it had a higher top speed than the BMW by 2mph (173mph).

I think I qualified 17th and finished 6th. Was a really good race car, but a few tenth in qually meant I was nearer the tail end than the front end to start off.

Thanks to Picnic for the setup. Tweaked a bit, but base is pretty similar.

I think our first "big" team points for Team Shark Junior in this division as Leuven finished just ahead of me in his 911 which should push us past the Kerb Crawlers I think. Well done Leuven and nice win Jeff.

P.S. Was some oddities with the server at times. About 2 laps from the end all the cars dissappeared for about 4 seconds and then reappeared.

[RS]

Well I am glad I practiced for that, what a disaster. Couldn't get near a decent time in qually, ended up 9th or 10th or something, started race that was going ok 6th, 7th keeping up with the guys then I thought the car felt awful, real slidy, then looked at tyre temps (120 Degrees) on the rear, I 'd left softs on, well by about lap ten car had massive oversteer into every corner making the tyres hot, so I thought I would pit in, then proceeded to fill the car back up to 69 litres, went out only to be lapped by my team mate........ And to top it all I turned down a night out drinking with my mates from work to compete.... What an idiot !! 

[BigG]

Well that was fun, How close was that qually session. Good Stuff. So a poor time and I was 21st! LOL Average start but keep thing clean. Saw a small crash at the first chicane and gained 3-4 places so was happy with that. But now dreading some of the Aliens on my arse, after MY place! Made a few mistakes but was otherwise ok to bring it home 12th. So some more little points gained.

Good racing guys and Grats to the Podium. 

[Jeffrey]

Qualification was amazing. I thought a 1:48 would be good, but many others were doing them . Finally got 2nd, great lap James!

The start of the race was tough. I had to brake very early because of the BiT infront of me, so that surprised CJ a few times behind me (sorry, I couldn't brake later ). The BiT was impossible to overtake, at the straight it would fly away, creating a gap which was to big to outbrake.

At some point James made a small mistake at Variante Ascari and I was on his outside. We both lost massive speed because of that and CJ and Rat were right behind us. Flying towards Parabolica with the 4 of us .

The 2nd half of the race, after passing James, I had CJ behind me. He was faster and would have overtaken me, but he wanted to share his splitter with a hot chick after Ascari. I saw her too, and was thinking of doing the same a few times .

Great result for Team Shark junior 

[CeeJay]

Typical Monza for me, either make or break
Drove mostly in anger being frustrated over the Porsches (specially the biturbos) speed, I could take the RSRs draft but when I pulled out of slipstream it just zoomed off .

Anyway after halfway point it was finally down to me and Jeffrey. Was clear that he was starting to struggle alot in the faster turns, was alrdy defending inside lines. Think I got abit too eager, followed him very close out of Ascari but clipped the curb and sent the car flying into the wall. Should prolly have been more patience since was still 7 laps to go at that time and I was clearly faster everywhere expect on the straits, so couldve been some intense last laps me think 

[PaulW]

Good fun- I do love a nice fast circuit and Bi-Turbo combo. Nice to see the car get a 2nd and 3rd in other hands too

I had a more sensible wing set-up than with the endurance race and was rewarded with more pace. Quallied 10th and finished 7th in the end which is pretty gratifying after a torrid season. The rears were absolutely cooked by the end and I had a stupid spin on the penultimate late to let Shark past into 6th.

Apologies to Jon for the contact at Parabolica- I could see you behind but with a "21" over your head which was very confusing- couldn't decide if it was a game error and your were actually racing me or you were the fastest back marker I'd ever seen  I expected you to have a bit more speed in the corner after passing me, safe in the knowledge that the BT is the slowest thing on the track in the corners, but caught you up as we exited.

[PaulW]

Have you changed to the Shark Junior team now Shark? I thought your car was red, or have I got the skins mixed up..

[picnic]

Replay and Provisional Results are available

[Radius]

lol that biturbo is something else...i though id give it a whirl this race and i was happy to be close to James as he's well used to the car by now.

ahh good battles there and happy with 2nd as i forgot to set fronts to softs (that Ive been practicing with) before race start and the medium fronts were not nice at all...but 1st few laps went good fighting with those bloody alien types again and the lap pace was pretty even between us 4!!

So my car only really felt pushable with 6 laps to go lol so i could consolidate my position no problem after that.

Again very mature and professional driving and VERY MUCH ON THE LIMIT!!!! 

[Jeffrey]

Unofficial Lapchart

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

P.S. Was some oddities with the server at times. About 2 laps from the end all the cars dissappeared for about 4 seconds and then reappeared.

Same thing happened to the Academy server - I assumed it was the Masters writing its replay but perhaps not.

[JonM_uk]

NP's Paul. It was a very strange bug I think. My lap count was on 1 all the time But I wasn't getting any blue flags when passing people but I guess that's because the whole thing(lcd) wasn't working for me, except the fuel. With hindsight I probably should've just pressed esc on the start grid to avoid any confusion. I see I didn't post any official laps or lap time either, Must've been invisible to the server or something Guess I can chalk this one down to experience

[Jimmie]

NP's Paul. It was a very strange bug I think. My lap count was on 1 all the time But I wasn't getting any blue flags when passing people but I guess that's because the whole thing(lcd) wasn't working for me, except the fuel. With hindsight I probably should've just pressed esc on the start grid to avoid any confusion. I see I didn't post any official laps or lap time either, Must've been invisible to the server or something Guess I can chalk this one down to experience

When you drove past me after my off track moment, you had #23 next to your name, I was like wtf?! am I that far behind, but then I saw the numbers of other players and they were 15 and 16
I also saw the blue flag waving when chasing you for a moment, very odd bug indeed!

[Mark J]

I had Jan disapearing and reapearing in front of me at one point, and JonM appeared behind me after about 3 laps with 22nd? above him...dont know where he came from  

Had a shockingly bad race, no idea whats going wrong with my setups between off and online. Yesterday i was pumping in regular 1:50's and 51's with full 45min fuel and today i cant go any faster than a mid 1:52..wtf

Got involved in someone else's crash down at 1st chicane and ended up in a 4 car crash as other cars joined the melee, ...wheres the yellow flags when you need them

Made crazy amateur errors of going off at Parabolica twice  , though one of those was because i got transfixed watching Mark Mc in front of me just about stop himself doing it..so i showed him how its done in the process

I have not left Monza a happy chappy after 2 bad races there this week  :'(

Congrats to my teamies on their splendid results..hurrah !