UKGTR Season 6 Lower Sprint - Monza (GP) - Sep 18

[psuedo]

Nightmare race for me.

Got away ok and was happily following Eddie M untill my back end just snapped under breaking into turn 1. Think my car somehow avoided making contact with other cars, but it did 'kiss' the armco front on. 1 1/2 laps later I exited the pits after a totally new front end was fitted.  

Caught another armco a little later when getting a couple of wheels on the grass allowing lapping cars past causing another trip to the pits for a puncture.

I would have quit at this point...no umphh left to carry on but I saw that my two teamies had left early so stuck around to the end.

Think I'll be glad to see the back of this track.

Grats to winners and podiums.

[Munkez]

Left early due to being beached!
After spinning at seconda variante lost postion from ninth down to 16th, then a caught ossie and had a good tussle with him for a bit then span at seconda variante again getting a rear left puncture in the process, tried to limp back to the pits, but the rear end stepped out somewhat at ascari putting me deep in the gravel and just couldnt get out  :'(
SHOULD have really got a wee bit more practice in!

Munk

[mo]

Monza being the home of Ferrari it was great to see lots of 360s high up the grid, proving that the ballasting is working imo. Cant remember the last time I saw so many fezzas

Nice but uneventful race for me, cant remember the last race I won. Managed to pull out a bit of a gap over the first lap which I was glad of later on. Noticed Baracus come up through the field in my mirrors and looked to be flying. Baracus was just a couple of secs behind for the whole race. We had identical pace and I remember the gap being 3.1 secs exactly for about 5 laps - amazing! Nice driving btw. I made a couple of small mistakes here and there and the gap fluctuated a bit but always settled back to about 2 secs. Always felt under pressure though...tense stuff.

Grats to Ruskus and the podiums.

Erm - looking at the results my ballast is showing as -20kg for the driver?  As I finished 3rd in class at Valencia shouldn't that be a positive value?

[EDIT] Or is that a typo?  I was slower than I was offline by a good second - and I could have sworn it looked right in game?

I was 0kg in game (after missing the first race) and the results show me as -20kg too. If its a mistake can I use it for the next race?

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

What does teh red weights mean in results?

Erm - looking at the results my ballast is showing as -20kg for the driver?  As I finished 3rd in class at Valencia shouldn't that be a positive value?
[EDIT] Or is that a typo?  I was slower than I was offline by a good second - and I could have sworn it looked right in game?

I'm pretty sure the weights were right in the game - I'll investigate tomorrow but I suspect that the import process has simply written the wrong weights in - if so it's not a big deal to fix them. The red ones are ones where the expected ballasts don't appear to match the recorded ballast.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Yep, as I suspected the import process was wrongifying the ballasts, all fixed now.

[Adam Parle]

Cheers Dave.

[baracus250gt]

That was a cool nearly race-long chase of Mo!! Wicked stuff.

Started 4th and got passed Paul R at the 1st chicane by pulling a bit of a Lewis on Raikonnen (but not from that far back, and I didn't lock my brakes ;P ) which felt a nice on the limit move. Then defaulted by TT when he went wide into gravel through Curva Grande (I think) and the case was on.

I think I didn't push hard enough from the start coz I had taken a different race setup (very diff from Q setup) and had not driven it for ages so was still finding the limit without going over it and easing myself into it. If I could have kept up with my own best race lap I may have caught Mo, but I was too consistent for my own good - trouble being it was consistently 0.6 slower then my 1.50.0 race lap!!

We were so evenly matched but also both making small mistakes that they gap remained between 2 and 3.6 seconds but it was very entertaining! Nice running Mo

[Rob Bywater "Kerb Crawlers"]

Really enjoyed that. Quallied at the back of the grid, as per usual, but then had only one minor off at Ascari (fortunately had enough speed to plough thru the gravel and not lose too much time!). Again concentrated on consistency (thats my seasons watchword if you havent already noticed  ) and managed to come home 17th, 8th in class. I saw Paul968 was struggling, and new Eddie was doing well in front, so with 10 mins left decided to take it a little easier and make sure I scored - no chance of changing positions as I was 16 secs behind car in front, and 36 secs in front of chasing car. Thing is tho, I tended to make more errors when driving "relaxed" as oppose to when Im pushing - maybe my attitude had slightly changed, I dunno!

After 2 races this is already my most successful season (mmm... thats how well Ive done previously!!)

Congrats to Mo, Ruskus and podiums.

Cheers

Rob

[John Kingham]

Rob, totally agree on the whole relaxed = more errors thing.  That's why I struggle sometimes toward the end of a 40 minute race as driving at the limit for that long makes the old brain ache, but relaxing too far makes the mind wander.  There's a fine line in there somewhere for those that can find it.

[Adam Parle]

Yep - I'm in agreement as well - last night was a triumph of concentration for me.  With a couple of seconds gap in front and behind it would have been only too easy to lose focus and meet a barrier at speed.  That said I was pretty relaxed - but I think that a rock-steady setup helped, no brown trouser inducing tendancies  in it.

[Truetom]

That means your wing was too high. 

TT

[mo]

Why what wing were you running TT?

edit, forgot to mention our little battle at the start of the race    You were absolutely flying in the opening laps and kept me under some serious pressure.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Yep - I'm in agreement as well - last night was a triumph of concentration for me.

Nail... head... hit...

For me I need something, almost anything, to focus myself. Last night it was the Moslers ahead, then the knowledge that Shark was on softs and might just start to struggle late in the race. No looking at lap times, doing fuel calculations in my head, looking at the gap to the car behind. Just 100% concentration on hitting every apex and getting on the gas as early as possible.

[Rob Bywater "Kerb Crawlers"]

Yep - I'm in agreement as well - last night was a triumph of concentration for me.

Nail... head... hit...

No looking at lap times, doing fuel calculations in my head, looking at the gap to the car behind.

Oohh yes, that definitely can affect me - especially if I see someone closing on me, I start thinking how close they`re getting instead of concentrating on what I should be doing, and before you know it Ive spun and the gap is closed!!

Cheers

Rob

[Truetom]

Why what wing were you running TT?

1/1, mo.    Otherwise I couldn't stay as close to you and Barracus. Also, Mark McClean would be chewing at my  on the straights.    As it was, his Porsche could catch up only if towed in my slipstream, but not fast enough to overtake. He then closed the gap again through the corners. Now I know how Shark felt when I was chasing him around Valencia in his high torqued Viper.   

TT