UKGTL Season 23 World Touring Car Trophy - Mexico City - Oct 30

[Erling G-P]

An interesting race with some potential, but as usual it proved impossible to beat the odds in the end.   Hated the track profoundly when I did the initial practice in the Sierra; all those 1st gear corners...  Helped considerably once I swapped to the Beemer & Merc instead, but will never be a favorite (unsurprisingly, as Tilke apparently was allowed to spoil this track as well..)

By mistake I did most of qual on race fuel.  Realized with 4 mins to go, so only just time enough for draining the tank and put in one timed lap. Surprisingly it was enough to snatch pole from the claws of Daz; not often that happens      Good start, only just hanging on to the lead before T1.  Kept it for a few laps, but my advantage in the tighter corners & exits wasn't enough to offset the massive on-power advantage of Daz' Holden, and soon he flew past down the straight.  Tried to maintain the pressure for a few laps, but as he eased away, my tactics changed.  Now trying to be as smooth as possible, to conserve the tyres.  Doing a no-change stop was my only chance of reclaiming the lead, providing of course that Daz would change tyres.

That he did, and I inherited the lead. Did my stop for fuel at the end of L22.  After one more lap, with 7 to go, the gap was 10 secs.  That was never going to be enough on my worn tyres, and Daz appeared in the mirrors after a few more laps. With 2-3 remaining, he once more sailed past on the straight.  So very close, but again it was disappointingly impossible to change the given-in-advance result.  At least it sounded like Daz had to work a little for it this time; guess that's the most we can hope to achieve... 

Grats to Daz on another one, and to Fulvio on completing the podium!   Commiserations to Clive & Paul for their early exits.

[EvilClive]

Grats to the podium and the finishers.
yep an early exit for me, sorry guys.
I had what I thought was a decent car and setup to go "pit free". But, in the last few laps of Quali my wheel started giving violent spike inputs. Down the long straight I would get 2 or 3 full FF kicks to max left or max right, with a continuous vibration like running over the rumble strips  I had to grip the wheel very tightly to avoid being thrown off the track.
Needless to say, that also kicked in around the rest of the lap too. With no time to check the hardware I started the race and hoped for the best. The "best" was not so good, despite pulling a gap on Fulvio and Tony Two steering spikes on corner entry generated 2 cut track warnings and then, anticipating one that never happened, I forced the car across the white line for a 3rd!! 
SnG dropped me way back, but maybe I could reel the field in and capitalise on no pitstop?   The computer said "NO" and yet another spike kicked me over the kerb and another SnG!!

I was sure to be a hazard when Erling and Daz came around fulfilling their lapping duties, so I parked it and went to look for a large hammer and a crowbar.

It transpires that a small switch on my T300 wheel which is used to convert from Xbox to PS4( and PC) had got moved and presumably that was the issue, as last nights Can Am race over at UKGPL was problem free.

[Daz9]

As Erling states, this was interesting stuff, although I was far less sure of the result than him by the sounds of it. First time that I can recall doing this layout, and given I have not watched F1 for a number of years now some of the sections were a bit of a surprise, but overall I quite enjoyed the layout.

Firstly, I went as hard as I could in quali, and was satisfied to have any gap on P2, thinking of how that might work in the race. That was then wiped off, as Erling pulled out a fab lap to take pole, hmm...

Ok, well, 1st gear had felt a little short, but I found it could be lengthened. Thinking that might give me the extra length in that gear for the nadgery stuff, I was sat on the grid not quite convinced of how the car may launch, but fairly sure I could outdrag the Merc to the first turn given how long a run it was. Nope, Erling seemed to get a proper launch off the line, whereas I did generate some wheelspin in first, then change to 2nd without seeming to make a dent, and I could not do anything other than draw alongside knowing I would be beaten to the corner on the brakes.

Plan number B then.

Knowing Erling would go long as the tank on the Merc is quite big, it was just a question of whether I would have to change tyres or not, and whether I could force him to use more fuel and tyre than he really wanted. From behind, all I could do was apply pressure for the first few laps, his speed was too great for me to get close enough on the straights to go through. But, as the fuel load started to go, my car got lighter and a bit quicker, and I did close in and move past. At this point I had 2 choices. Go hell for leather, and be certain to change tyres for sure, or try to ease the wear rate, which up till now had been pretty bad but not catastrophic. I ended up pretty much doing neither, the gap I had pulled wasn't very big, and the tyres were wearing too fast to not change them. Low 53s was the best I could manage, and the car was slowly going slower lap by lap.

I did have an ace up my sleeve. On lap 18 I pitted. I didn't want to leave it too long as I wanted to give myself enough time to catch Erling, knowing for sure his pit visit would not involve tyres. But, crucially my visit would only involve a very short fill of fuel, as I had started with full tanks and had around 8 laps of fuel left when I pitted, so my stop would be reasonably quick as I only needed to add a 5 laps or so of fuel along with the new tyres that were required.

Short fill done, and in a lighter car than I had started the race with, and on new rubber, I was now doing low 52s. When I left the pits the gap was massive, 66 seconds I think, but I had given myself 11 laps to chase him down. Every lap from that point was on my limit, knowing that was what was needed to catch the flying Merc.

As Erling said, he left the pits with around a 10 second lead, but I was taking 1.5 seconds or so, and there were still 7 laps to do. I was also banking on his car going slower not faster due to the worn tyres...

It was a relief to get in the the tow and pass more than any sense of triumph I can assure you. The Holden is quite friendly to drive, not really got any bad manners at all, but that was really warm work at the wheel!

Grats to Erling, great race pace in the Merc!