UKGTR Season 7 Lower Endurance - Silverstone (GP) - Jan 20

[Jeffrey]

Pictures say more than a 1000 words

[Zacari]

Very happy with 3rd in the Ferrari after a long time out.  I'm not suprised only 1 other chap took the 360 as it's an awkward car, but by the end of the race I was quite at home with it

Quali was 6th, took lots of fuel and meds F+R for the race.  Lap 3 got lumped off at very high speed, but other than that the entire race was incident-free.  I managed to throw it off the road with Pablo persuing me around lap 15, but that was me braking too late   Pitted around half-way and made up alot of time in the pits, came out not far behind Jon.  After his stop for grub and Pribero's pit stop I was clear in 3rd which was fine until the end.

Grats to everyone who had fun

[Joss]

Calmed down a bit now, man that was the best race I've ever had on GTR2 - better than Donnington S4

Q2 was my usual Kerr-confusing tactic; practise for 20 mins on my race setup and then make a qually setup with about 6 minutes to go and hope for the best. I couldn't believe the margin myself!   

Once again I cocked up the start thinking I should wait until the line....except the start and finish line are in different places  Way to go me. Hope that didn't cause any problems. I'm a liability on pole, I hope Jeff gets it next time! 

The race started out close and I slowly eased away from Jeff and Jon. I think I owe an apology to Picnic when lapping him. I thought you were letting me through buddy....but on viewing the replay I should have stayed behind you through those first fast bends. The Viper's just as fast as the M3 on the straight so without a lift off it's difficult to power past....bugger  I hope I didn't mess  up your race, but won't mind a mod wrapping my wrists for that one.

Jeff then pitted and something happened to Jon - I was concentrating soo hard I still have no idea why you ended up 8 laps down mate!  I was planning on staying out til I had 20 litres left, but was losing 1.5 seconds a lap, so came in early and adjusted the fuel manually. I came out alongside Jeff. Not in front, or behind - alongside. How's that for close! 

We then had a fantastic battle to the end of the race, first behind Pribero (great defending mate, neither me or Jeff could pass you!) and then just fighting between ourselves. With about 3 laps to go I really pushed and realised if I went into Abbey slower, I exited faster and got a run into the vital for me sector 3. I managed to get Jeff once into Brooklands but he just powered past on the straight and through Copse, I tried a few places on the last 2 laps, once round the outside of Vale, which failed. I'd never tried Priory but knew I could carry more speed there and tried surprising Jeff on the last lap, but he's too wise for surprises and guarded well. He then missed the apex only slightly and I just snicked alongside......held the inside on Brooklands and cut Jeff off on the exit, exiting Luffield in front to win by 2 tenths.

Cheers for the close racing Jeff, it's always fun dicing with people at the front in races, but races like this and Donnington S4 are what will make me look back on my GTR2 days and smile.

Best Race Ever 

[Jeffrey]

Once again I cocked up the start thinking I should wait until the line....except the start and finish line are in different places  Way to go me. Hope that didn't cause any problems. I'm a liability on pole, I hope Jeff gets it next time! 

Deal . You were lucky I didn't take advantage of your mistake, as I was allowed to floor it as we crossed the line. But your doubt made me doubt , so by the time I realised and called you an idiot , it was too late

Jeff then pitted and something happened to Jon - I was concentrating soo hard I still have no idea why you ended up 8 laps down mate! 

I'll let Jon answer this question :

Had a good race but I hadn't had eaten enough for tea and cus of the old diabetes had to make a pitstop for food 13mins later all was well but was 8 laps down. Was a good race till then.

Are you still concentrating "hard". Probably doesn't need more explaining after all that dirty talk on Team Speak

[Joss]

Team Shark Hardies / Team Shark Softies
Team Shark Good / Team Shark Evil
Team Shark Oldies / Team Shark Period

Our TS channel is now a disgusting place to be with Jeff, Jon and me on it. It's the porn watching/drug taking/chocolate sprinkle-loving Dutch influence I swear! 

[Jeffrey]

Our TS channel is now a disgusting place to be with Jeff, Jon and me on it. It's the porn watching/drug taking/chocolate sprinkle-loving Dutch influence I swear! 

Don't come between a Dutchy and his "hagelslag" . Yes...try and pronounce that . And if you can, try "Scheveningen"  . Always cracks me up when you guys try to pronounce a Dutch word/name 

[Truetom]

I must say that after making a 90 min race at R2P I was a bit spent. So a heavy RSR here was a bit over the edge, as it felt ... dead. 
In the light of this event I feel liberated from obligation of ballast in future events.   

After colliding with a green RSR I had understeer and the car was going even slower. Got fed up and quit. Not a good start of the season. 

TT

[picnic]

I think I owe an apology to Picnic when lapping him. I thought you were letting me through buddy....but on viewing the replay I should have stayed behind you through those first fast bends. The Viper's just as fast as the M3 on the straight so without a lift off it's difficult to power past

Absolutely no way should you get done for that. I stayed left to let you passed then as we got close to the corner thought "why haven't you come passed yet". Trouble is this was my first race in the Viper and I hadn't appreciated the speeds were that close  I would have lifted earlier and a bit harder if I had understood the performance differences. Rack one up to experience

[Paul968]

One of those races where you never get really close to another car but are under pressure the whole time. I was quite pleased with the qual time and relieved to sneak ahead of SBG by a tiny amount. As expected, Dan pulled away after the start and I kept a small gap to SBG. Things stayed this way till late in the stint when I bit off a bit too much curb at the last corner and lost the place. After identical pitstops we came out in 1st and 2nd, and then it was a case of applying pressure and hoping for an opportunity from a lapping car, but it never came. SBG was frustratingly consistent and although I was starting to close in towards the end I was having to push right to the limit. I went over the limit in the end which opened up the gap for the last few laps and that's how it ended.

Congrats to Ian on a very solid drive and to Freq for the last gasp win. As far as the Beemer is concerned, everybody knows it is at a disadvantage, so I don't really understand why it doesn't get less weight (or a power hike). Having said that, Robert wasn't that far off the pace in it, so maybe it doesn't suit your style Simon? (it does need ragging a bit).

[jan duijs]

Bad start of the season.Set the car up for wet weather (wing 9 etc.).Rain never came so that was bad luck,then on the pitstop i just cruised past my crew( in practise my box was at the end of the pitlane,now it was in the front),out again and another go next lap,change of tiers and....stop and go  .Pitlimiter on all the way how can that be??
All hope gone for a nice fight with the midfield boys.Must practise these darn pitstops 


Jan

[Truetom]

Nobody took the Vertigo, so we don't know if the torque thingy works.    Might this be a better way to speed up slower cars than have more weight on faster? That RSR felt really blah, blah after R2P race. Or did we discuss this before? I don't remember, really. 

TT

[Kerr]

Bad start of the season.Set the car up for wet weather (wing 9 etc.).Rain never came so that was bad luck,then on the pitstop i just cruised past my crew( in practise my box was at the end of the pitlane,now it was in the front),out again and another go next lap,change of tiers and....stop and go  .Pitlimiter on all the way how can that be??
All hope gone for a nice fight with the midfield boys.Must practise these darn pitstops 


Jan

The forecast I saw was for a chance of rain, but hey, you take your chances at times.

I was not far away from Silverstone all weekend and drove back home on the Sunday. It was rather dull and cold and the rain had been threatening with minor downpours.

I was surprised to find the game weather file started the race in the nice sun and 25 degree heat.

I had been struggling to keep my rear left tyre temperature down and the heat only added to this.

[Simon Gymer]

I understand what your saying Shark, but us 811 boys were evenly matched and I don't think we should ballast ourselves to be competitive with the Bimmer. Paul would have had to carry at least a 150kg Over the course of the season I'm sure the Viper will be at least a match for the 811, seeing Dave/Bob were bang on our pace in S6. I think its shaping up well (if your not in the Z3 )

I never said you should SBG. I was hoping for more Z3Ms and for me to be better in it than I was.

I certainly don't expect the faster drivers to put on ballast so that slower drivers can catch up. Faster drivers and cars deserve to be there 100%. The only reason to add ballast is to make your race more fun so unless you didn't have fun don't change your ballast.

The race started out close and I slowly eased away from Jeff and Jon. I think I owe an apology to Picnic when lapping him. I thought you were letting me through buddy....but on viewing the replay I should have stayed behind you through those first fast bends. The Viper's just as fast as the M3 on the straight so without a lift off it's difficult to power past....bugger  I hope I didn't mess  up your race, but won't mind a mod wrapping my wrists for that one.

Cheating Junior members.  First race and he's already into the ways of the dark side.  The boy learns fast!

Why don't you join GT2. I need help from another TS driver as I'm alone now 

I must admit, something has gone wrong with the team division.
I was not expecting all the Junior drivers to be driving GT2 this season so it was a surprise to see 4 fast Junior drivers all in that class. Perhaps one or 2 of them could drop down to GT3 to add to the team competition there?

As far as the Beemer is concerned, everybody knows it is at a disadvantage, so I don't really understand why it doesn't get less weight (or a power hike). Having said that, Robert wasn't that far off the pace in it, so maybe it doesn't suit your style Simon? (it does need ragging a bit).

Rob was still off the pace by 1.7 seconds in qualifying, although impressive in the race and my hat goes off to him. Yes it could probably do with some more car ballast off, but as I said I knew it wasn't competitive before I started. It would be nice to see it balanced a bit more in the mid-season refresh, but I'd like to see how it does against the other cars at slower tracks first too.

I did end up throwing it about, but in the end I found smoothness made my laps better as usual and throwing it around just caused the tyres to shred. I also never know what wing to run at Silverstone. I ended up with 2 and 7 which I'm sure was too much.

It's fine. I knew it was way off the pace before I chose so I'm not complaining it was slower than the 911 as I knew it would be hence (hence MY choice to not take ballast).

I'm looking for the challenge to see what I can do with it. I need 2 or 3 races to nail the setup as I really didn't have it sorted under braking especially which was really compromising my ability to race it. I think in retrospect I should have practiced first to get a setup sorted, but hoped with it being the first race I could get away with no practice and no setup.

Unfortunately last night the track contributed to the Z3M being very uncompetitive for me, so I hope it will be better at slower circuits as Silverstone is a power circuit and I was unprepared.

I was surprised by how much tyre wear the Z3M used actually. It was pretty good on fuel (I didn't need to add any fuel when I changed my tyres), but I did need 2 sets of mediums to get to the end.

Nobody took the Vertigo, so we don't know if the torque thingy works.    Might this be a better way to speed up slower cars than have more weight on faster? That RSR felt really blah, blah after R2P race. Or did we discuss this before? I don't remember, really. 

Vertigo is GTC not GT2.

[Stewprovo]

Did anyone else have any problems with disco's/lockups last night, as it seemed that as soon as the server filled up, it became a bit un-stable. Or, was it just my pc being a *&%@ 

[picnic]

Did anyone else have any problems with disco's/lockups last night, as it seemed that as soon as the server filled up, it became a bit un-stable. Or, was it just my pc being a *&%@ 

There were issues last night, especially during P1 and Q2. Trouble is this is a 3rd party track and we're also running the 32 slot server tweak in GTR2Manager. Sadly we never got enough people on the server to test the 32 slot bit out when we asked for support to test it in a recent fun race I suspect we won't learn much until we race a standard track and get 28+ drivers on the server.

I did run a ping to the server last night due to the issues and got 100% response so I don't think there were network issues.