UKGPL Season 15 Masters - Rouen - Apr 27

[Kruger Enge]

Well, the plan was to take an eligible Lotus and then not push as hard as I would with other car but never got on with it actually. Rouen is also not my cup of tea (at least with 67s) so I didn't expect much of it anyway.

Had a nice dice with Ken but then made a mistake into braking area after the back straight and it seems I have damaged the suspension a bit although I only touched the fence. Later on, when I spun at T1, that suspension seemed to have gotten worse and an otherwise twitchy Lotus felt even twitchier so I called it a day.

Grats to Neil for a great run and rest of the podium.

[Glyn]

Decided to take a better chassis than my championship position allows for this one seeing as I drove the Lotus earlier in the day for the GPL World Champs. It only had a 1s pit stop so thought it would be worth it. I knew I had to pull around a second a lap over Hristo to be able to stop and come out in front of him but there was no way this was ever going to happen. I pitted and Hristo drove past just as I was pulling away from the pits. Heading down the hill though I saw a load of yellow flags and found myself back in the lead after he had an off.

[Lorenzo Galluzzi]

Nice race for me...
I'm happy about my qualifying lap, 1.55.6 which is my pb in the cooper!
I knew i couldn't fight with Hristo and Neil so i tried to end my race without mistakes, the fight between Ken and Kruger allowed me to arrive 3rd in a "relaxed" way...
Cheers
Lorenzo

[Ken Murray]

I spent too much time on Sunday evening winding up our admins when I should have just fired up GPL and run a few laps of Rouen!!

I did make an effort to arrive early in VROC and hosted a Rouen session just to get my eye in. After only about 2 or 3 laps I posted a mid 1:56 so I was a little more relaxed about the change of venue.

I knew that was too good to be true and once into the race server I couldn’t string a lap together for toffee. I bumped a polo at the hairpin and knocked the tracking out, and then I blew an engine. I think at least half the session had gone before I even posted a 1:57. Eventually I did get a mid 1:56 but Glyn, Lorenzo and Hristo really put the rest of us to shame with the quick times they were doing.

Everybody behaved very well on the first lap with a nice orderly queue at the hairpin. On cold tyres Kruger got away a little and Clive was pressing me hard in his Ferrari. Eventually as the tyres got some temperature I increased my pace and I was able to push Kruger. He had two moments at the end of the back straight. On the first occasion he ran wide I nipped through but it wasn’t long before he was back on my tail, and even though I defended the inside line at the same corner he drove round the outside of me to regain his position! All this fighting allowed Lorenzo to ease away and I also noticed Clive re-appear in my mirrors. A few laps later Kruger repeated his error at Sciere and I was through again and this time he seemed to drop back much further before disappearing completely a few laps later.

It was then a case of keeping concentration to the end with plenty of opportunity for error at this demanding circuit. As it was I did get it home but I can only gape in awe at the times posted by our three podium drivers.

[Steven Foster]

I spent too much time on Sunday evening winding up our admins when I should have just fired up GPL and run a few laps of Rouen!

Serves you right  .

Seems it was quite a good race - some interesting reports to read. Sadly, there was a reported incident, so I'll have to do some work this time.