UKGTR Season 5 Endurance Clubmen - Estoril (GP) - Apr 29

[Kerr]

Well done class winners.

A poor race by me. Suffered horrendous understeer the whole race. My tyre temps were only 73 left front and 68 right and that was medium tyres! Don't know why they were so far out. Held second up to the pit stop and was 2 secs ahead of Picnic. After the stops found myself 18secs down on picnic. I thought I made good stop and no real time loss out outlap.

Found myself all by myself after pit stop with no chance of catching to the two ahead. I just fought with my car at a reasonable pace to keep 3rd. Could not do anymore with the car performing so poorly.

I will have to find 0.04 of a sec in qualifying. That's twice Backo has pipped me by 0.03 of a second

[pribeiro]

Sorry to hear that Tom

This race was fun because the Viper Coupe, its fun to drive
2/3 of race i had a cool fight with SBG, the other 1/3 with Mo
Every exit corners, using 2nd or 3rd gear, were fun, spinning tires
and balancing with the steer
But even with med/hard tires, they only give good handling for 10 laps,
after that, the fun is higher
Viper Coupe is a great car melting tires and evaporating fuel
but in a sprint race, should be cool, because i was in 1st (G3) cars
and 12th overall when i pit, after 48 mnts.

Congrats to Backo, Lincescom and Paul968
Well done to all
Cheers

[picnic]

Replay and Provisional Results

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Was thoroughly enjoying the race - sure I could have had that pesky Gymer(honest, guv). Then had ANOTHER lost connection. This is the 4th race in a row that I have lost the connection(2GTR2 and 2 GTL). Have no idea what's happening.

:'(  I was really having to work hard just to stay ahead - was really disappointed when you vanished. When it happens to me it's usually because my ADSL connection has cycled to a slower speed - does your modem/router have a log of events?

Had a vey exciting race - early on with TinMan and Jure, later with Drumbstick, who was destroying me on pace but eventually blew his Lambo's engine giving me 5th back. Also tried to put Jonzo under some pressure when I came out just behind him after my stop and before his, but despite him locking wheels everywhere couldn't get close enough to have a bash at unlapping myself. After that I had no chance of getting 4th, but had to keep pushing because Jure was homing in on me to the tune of nearly 2s a lap! From 30s behind after his stop he was only 5 behind at the end. Shocking!

Big thanks to all the GT2, GTC and GT3 cars - I was pretty forceful with a lot of you simply because I always seemed to have someone just ahead of ust behind. Thanks chaps.

Not sure how I feel about 5th - I thoroughly enjoyed the race but my teammate has a massive speed advantage over me and I still don't seem to be getting to grips properly with the GT1 cars.

[Adam Parle]

That was tiring more than anything ..... after an atrocious start and a little bodywork re-modeling I picked up some pace through the first third of the race - had a tought time keeping up with Nick.  Made a few cock-ups to let him open up what I thought was an unassailable gap ...... until the pit stop  when he got distracted by one of the Legends pit girls and let me infront.

After the pit stop it was a question of how quickly the leading GT2's would get me ..... and not long was the answer.  Didn't really try to fight them off .... as there was no way I would keep them behind me.

Made a few cockups in the final third of the race, but kept it together and stayed ahead of my fellow Legends Vertigo driving teammate Pops - tough luck with the beaching Pops, you had the GTC race in the bag.  But as you say, Legends 1-2 does the GTC champ nicely.  4th and 5th in the GT2/GTC class keeps thing ticking over.

Am thoroughly knackered now ..... time to sleep I think....

[picnic]

Great race for me, was really not looking forward to what the changeable weather was going to throw at us when I saw light rain at Underground Weather. Lucky for me I was late in and need some food before I raced and it had dried up although track temp was well down on the sprint last Tuesday.

Qual'ed 4th but the car felt inconsistent compared with the sprint, those pesky temps again I suspect. Each session got a bit warmer and the car was ok in the race, tyre temps were all a bit down but that helps them last.

Managed to sneak 3rd on the first lap when Mark ran wide with his cold brakes/tyres and could stay with Brian K. For some reason I was expecting Brian to do a long first stint and decided to pit, mortified to see Brian pull into the pits in front of me. Lucky for me I was not filling up too much and had no aero / damage to repair and got out before Brian. Amazed the gap was as big as it turned out but not complaining

When I can out Backo, yet to stop, steamed passed me on my cold tyres to put me a lap down. But he pitted a couple of laps later and to my surprise came out straight in front of me a lap later. I managed to stay with him, I think me in his mirrors was slowing him down. Once we got split lapping some the slower cars he just knuckled down and disappear in to the distance. Well done mate.

Chuffed to bits with a 2nd

Sadly I'm going to miss the next round :'( So battle will be resumed in 4 weeks.

[popabawa]

First off apologies to pops for the punt into the hairpin, got caught out a bit as you were slower having let the GT past, was locked up and did just enough to turn you round, however felt less guilty when you got me on the last lap.

Thanks for the apology Nick. It wasn't much contact but it took ages for me to re-join the track, I was having problems getting out of the gravel and it was in a really dangerous place so I was trying to be really careful.

Pretty good race though, I was really happy to qualify in GTC/GT2 2nd place then lucky at the start to build a bit of lead with mistakes from other drivers so I was able to take it a bit easy to keep the tyres in good shape, I still had reasonable grip over the last past of the race to pip you Nick, I kept praying for another lap!

The GT2's finally got revenge, there was no chance for the Vertigo's to keep up at this track.

Nice work by the majority of the GT1's although there's a couple of you guys that are still being a bit overly aggressive

Thanks to the Masters for turning up in the GT3's

[Mark J]

Reasonably quiet race for me with no on-track action at all, other than the first few laps chasing the guys just ahead. I ran wide on turn 4 with cold brakes and that allowed Picnic to steal through and take 3rd from me. Stayed on his heels for a few laps but then stupidly outbraked myself up at Parabolica interior and he gained a 7 second gap over me.
I then had no one near me for the majority of the race whilst i ran a lonely 4th. After my stop i came out 14 secs behind the guy in front and finished the race about 3.5 seconds behind Kerr, finishing 4th.
I should be happy with that but felt i had a podium chance tonight but 2 or 3 silly little errors running slightly wide and some traffic hold ups cost me the 3rd place.
Backmarkers were (mostly) very good in feathering off and moving aside whereas a few obstinately stayed where they were costing valuable seconds through the complexes, but not easy to get off line in some parts of this track and everyone is having their own race.

Congrats to the podium guys in all classes  

[lincescom]

 Nice race  

 The first part was really difficult with Munkez always close ( grate drive mate).
 In the second part I was trying to keep my self focus and trying to get close to Munkez, for a final     but some how he had a spin in turn one and I found my self in the First place  

  
 Congrats to Backo and Paul968

 Cheers

[Munkez]

Nice race 

 The first part was really difficult with Munkez always close ( grate drive mate).
 In the second part I was trying to keep my self focus and trying to get close to Munkez, for a final     but some how he had a spin in turn one and I found my self in the First place 

 
 Congrats to Backo and Paul968

 Cheers

Yeah, was great fun, thought i was a little quicker through all the bends just couldn't get a run on you on the straights.... did try to go round the outside of you through parabolica interior which even had me worried, but just couldn't get the grip! new it would all come down to the all important pitstop
A little disappointed to have spun the way i did in curva 1, but hey live and learn i suppose, good drive and congrats on the win!

[BACKO]

I really enjoyed race in Estoril,I love this track.Qualification. and race I made without big  mistakes , pole position  in qualification.  surprised  ,wasn't my best time at all!, and then I took the race easy ,I was expecting from Kerr very close racing but I won from start to finish!!! .Such a shame that I won't be available  for next races,because I'm going on holiday for two weeks.Thx for nice race and Siya soon on tracks!!!

[ginsters sponsored]

Nice battle with PR up to 1st stop, I see more of you than my Mrs at the moment . Afterwards my pedals starting playing up, with the accelerator stuck on in the braking zones . After three run offs decided to call it a day as I was a danger to anyone close. Shame.

Sorry to Adam for tap early on, I did wait for you and I dont think you lost to much time.

[Jeffrey]

Unofficial Lapchart

[Adam Parle]

Sorry to Adam for tap early on, I did wait for you and I dont think you lost to much time.

No probs, wasn't the biggest of impacts, just pushed me wide.  Took my time and made sure the damage wasn't repaired when I pitted .....  so the stop took a little longer than I wanted, but 6.5secs isn't too bad!  Gotta love the Vertigo for being able to get away with that (when you're not oggling the pit girls - Nick ).

[Jeffrey]

Small damage is repaired while the tyres are changed, so if there is only a few sec of damage, it's a good thing to repair it, as it will be done beofre the tyres are done and aero damage can cost you alot in the long run.