UKGTR Season 4 Endurance Academy - Monza (GP) - Jan 28

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Top Gear's back on tonight! We can't watch it! Don't have a DVD/Video recorder! noooooooooooooooo

It'll be repeated later in the week.

[will16v]

god - i blew the goddam MC12's engine on lap 9 after stringing a few PB's for myself - ah well...

Gotta say thanks to Truetom for the courteous driving - thanks m8 

Well done to all that entered, and all that managed to finish 

[John]

Well what can i say.
But another pointless race from me.
Just when you think things are going well.
All my own doing as usual.

Anyway got off to a cracking start.
Got the drop on Dave on the rolling start.i couldn't believe my luck when i flew past him.
Putting me right behind Adam.
Adam made a mistake which let me through.
At that point i was thinking this cant be happening.making 2 places in 1 lap.
When usually Ive lost 2 places in a lap.
That put me behind Luke who was pulling away from the rest as usually.
With another Porsche in front of him.
Forgive me but i cant remember his name.

Then it happened again.
I couldn't believe it,I'd closed them gap on Luke and was all over him.
No one was more surprised as me.
I seemed to be a hell of a lot faster.
And i think he was feeling the pressure for a bit as i was right up his arse trying to get round him.
He resorted to weaving down the straights so i couldn't catch his slip stream.
Which i found amusing.
Then it happened.
We came to the big chicane and i was virtually touching him all the way through.
My heart was pounding at that point.
Trouble is,because i was that close,i had no visability of the track.
And turned into the last left hander a bit to early.And put my tyre on the grass.
Spinning me down the track and into the wall.
Gutted.
Had to go to pits for repairs and came out last.
54 seconds behind the next position.
anyway,after 10laps i had got it down to 30.
Then went off again.
Give up after that.

Consistency is letting me down,and i dont really think i can cut in this league.
So before the next race,i am seriously going to consider retiring.
I think my 1st 2 races were just a fluke.

so concrates to the winners,well done lads.

[will16v]

Don't be so hasty m8 - stick with it, some of these guys have been simracing for a long time.
I have been simracing for about 18 months, and only in the last 6 months, am finding consistency, and getting the set ups right.

[Munkez]

Martin what a fantastic battle we had going for a while, shame I snatched into 1st going into the second lesmo... would have made for a tight finish!!
BUT, shouldnt have been in that position in the first place, am I right in saying the pit crew empty your tank before putting more fuel in?? my boys also filled me back up to the brim  all 26 gallons/litre's (not sure)..... need to practice these pitstops more, lost Soooooooo much time time there!

any tips?
1 more question, was there enough fuel in 1 tank to make the whole race?

Munk

[picnic]

Replay and Provisional Results

[Kerr]

Well done winners.

A very uneventful race for me. I was worried about engine blowing so thought lengthening the gear ratio's would help reliability, big mistake. Every corner I seemed to be revving far too low and end up with poor acceleration.

Never had time to develop a good race set up and it showed. Ran the first half with medium on the front and hard on the rear. Car understeered very badly then snap to oversteer, especially turning left? A few mistakes and almost a big one, spun in front of Nug on lap 10 and nearly had a high speed collision, how did you miss me?

Changed at pit stop to soft up front and medium on the back and it was slightly better. I tested the car for a few laps earlier and tyre temps seemed fine, but for some reason they were only ranging from 70-80 after the race. I guess that will be why the car handled so badly.

 Must say I did not think Monza was a patch on Silverstone or Donington. I thought that I was racing myself for long periods of time. Never seen anyone.


 At least another race under my belt and I know what I have to alter to improve here. Can't see me getting near you out there Freq, you were in a class of your own out there.

[Jeffrey]

Unofficial Lapchart

[picnic]

Mixed race here, no where near my qually time I did Tuesday for the spint race so started 3rd from last. Fortuneately for me I found I could outbrake Martin's Beamer so got one place and proceeded to close down on Don and Adam in their Legends. They were having their own squable and Adam went wide and my TVR setup seemed to have better top speed than Don's. With the aid of the draft it was an easy pass Then is was pretty stagnent. I got a couple of second gap over Don but couldn't grow it any more and the car in front was taking 0.5 sec off me most laps.

I ran a long stint again and swapped to soft tyres for the last fe laps. Came out from the pits about 9 secs behing Nev. Nev was NGT pole man so I never thought I'd catch him, and indeed I didn't he waited for me and let me have a 10 sec lead Thanks

I then proceeded to set my fastest race laps, and infact go quicker than my qually time  but Nev took a second out of me each time. Was starting to get worried when I realised that I wasn't going to do 42 laps and that baring accidents I have enough of a gap to sneak home. Managed to get back third in the championship again after my Donnington debarcle. 2 rounds to go and all to fight for.

Congratulations to the podiums and the GT/G2 guys for being patient when passing, thanks.

[cej]

Wow,what a race. Best finishing position for me so far 

Only complaint I have is the pace on the warm-up lap was ridiculous , I was struggling to keep up, and then the cars in front didn't let off the limiter until the finishing line    Maybe I've misunderstood the rules 

Anyways: got away pretty well, but then almost lost everything into the first chicane as one of the cars in front blew up and covered me in smoke so it was almost impossible to see anything     never seen an engine blow up that early in a race before. Must've been a Ferrari 

Running with 1-4 wing I knew I might be even more off pace than usual ,so tried to stay consistent . Couple of guys ran off the track and gained some positions. According to my GTR2 PD I was not using as much fuel as expected and my tyres were not up to temp. Decided to pit 1 lap early. Finished with 4 litres left,so almost blew that one   

At the end of the race I could see 4th closing in really fast on me. Then FreQ was behind me and at first I thought it was him    Sorry,man. Had to cross the finishing line to find out it wasn't you 

Made a couple of silly mistakes overtaking and could see 4th in the rear view mirror with 1 lap to go. About 3 seconds between us at the end. Phew    My heart was beating at 200 beats/min at the end there. Getting to old for this stuff 

But a great race, I was surprised that there wasn't more crashes.

[cej]

Consistency is letting me down,and i dont really think i can cut in this league.
So before the next race,i am seriously going to consider retiring.
I think my 1st 2 races were just a fluke.

so concrates to the winners,well done lads.

Don't give up. If you just keep trying eventually it'll come.   

[Joss]

Only complaint I have is the pace on the warm-up lap was ridiculous , I was struggling to keep up, and then the cars in front didn't let off the limiter until the finishing line    Maybe I've misunderstood the rules 

This would be a big mess up on my part. I thought I needed to run a speed on the straights of about 100mph....just checked and it's 75 mph. All my fault. Really sorry if I caused problems for anyone With Nug all over me, I thought I was going too slow! Never had pole before and it showed - wish I'd started 2nd now! The first couple of laps I couldn't concentrate properly because I thought I'd messed it up. Going to watch the replay now and crossing my fingers nobody got punted.

[EdamSpeed]

Odd race for me, that one. Started well, got ahead of Brian after realising he had some problems in the acceleration department, then plodded steadily on, getting past Nug when he made a mistake at the Variante Ascari. Was up to second at this point, and was breaking away from 3rd place. Then it all went a little pear shaped!

I had my customary mid-race lapse in concentration, and seemingly couldn't get the 2nd chicane right at all. Apologies for the NGTs who I was overtaking when I spun! What a pillock I was.

Lost ground to Nug and cej. Had a good little battle with cej, who let me through after a short while, but I gave the place back after another stupid spin at the 2nd chicane.

At the pitstops, I decided to pit really early, as I wanted some good tyres for a fightback, so I stopped on lap 20, figuring I'd put 100 litres in and just cruise at the end. This seemed to work pretty well, as I got back past cej at the stop, and was closing on 2nd place Nug for a short time. Sadly, Nug's race ended in a firey blowup, and so I was back to 2nd - not quick enough by any margin to catch Freq (Lambo alien ), but quick enough to pull away from cej in 3rd.

Good little race, all in all. Again, sorry to the NGTs if I got in the way with my 'antics'

[Nevski]

Should have won that one really - the BiTurbo is in a different league at Monza to all the other NGTs. Got pole comfortably without even doing a fully committed lap. Was a bit nervous in the first few laps as I only had about 15 minutes practice with the BiTurbo prior to the race. Luke was certainly keeping me honest, and it was about lap 7 before I really settled down and started to pull away at about 0.7 seconds per lap.

Pitted on lap 20 with a lead of 10 seconds, and should have been home and dry really, because I had fully fuelled the car before the race. So, I only needed an extra 6 laps of fuel and new tires at the pit stop. What I didn't realise is that the pit crew takes your fuel request as the absolute amount of fuel you want in the tank, not the amount to add. Bit silly really, but that is how it is. So, since I already had 13 laps of fuel still in the tank, they didn't add anything and I rejoined with only enough fuel to make it to lap 33. 

Stayed out until a couple of  laps after Luke pitted, just to see what might have been - sure enough I had a 30 second lead at that point. Had I taken fuel at the stop it might have been only 25 though 

Pitted in for my splash and dash with 9 laps to go. Turned out to be more of a dribble and dither though. Overshot the pit box first and had to reverse, then spent 10 seconds fumbling with the keyboard to deselect tires, which I didn't want to change. There really should be an option to choose whether you want tires or not before you pit, not only while you are stationary and the clock is ticking. So the car ended up being stationary for another 30 seconds.

Came out 4th or 5th in class and the gap was 22 seconds to the next guy with 9 laps left. I started taking risks, and set 4 consecutive fastest laps to close the gap to 9 seconds with 4 laps to go. Then I lost the back end on the kerb exiting the 2nd chicane, and the car spun into the sand and lodged itself parallel with the track. Another 20 seconds went begging there and then before I got going again, so my disaster was complete.

Still, now I know how cocked up the pit stop system is, I will be ready next time. 

Jeez, nascar sims were doing a far better job 8 years ago....

Congrats to Freq and Luke, both great drives.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Got the drop on Dave on the rolling start.i couldn't believe my luck when i flew past him.

I couldn't believe it either! I was convinced you must've jumped the start but when I saw the replay I realised you must just've had a much shorted first gear than me. After that you were disappearing up the road until...

And turned into the last left hander a bit to early.And put my tyre on the grass.
Spinning me down the track and into the wall.

Luckily I was just far enough behind to pick the correct side to go past, and you did the right thing and stood on the anchors until the world stopped moving.

After Adam and Nev also chucked themselves off the road I just had to try and make an impression on Luke ahead and stop Darren behind getting within striking distance.

After about 20 laps my tyres were starting to go so I did enough to stay out until Darren pitted and then pitted myself. Flapped about getting the ignition off and wasted a second or two. The fuel seemed to take forever to go in and with hindsight I put far too much in, probably 15l too much. Better too much than too little though! Finally the fuel was in, the tyres were changed and I growled back out with the intention of doing a few fast laps to try and get track position on Luke when he finally stopped.

I couldn't do enough though and had to watch as he exited still ahead of me. It was good to be able to match his pace but the championship gap continues to shrink and I need two good finishes in the final two rounds or it could yet go all Pete Tong.

Had two sticky moments getting lapped by FreQ, the first when I hesitantly tried to let him by into Lesmo 2 and then got my braking wrong and we ended up with an akward "after you, no, after you" moment, but it worked out okay. Then again on the final lap, just when I was finally starting to catch Luke he came to lap me again and that took away any final slim chance to catch him - though he'd got past Munkez so probably not.