GT Sprint Cup - Season 1, Round 6, Spa - Aug 17th

[Woodee]

how the hell are you guys doing 2:12-13's??? I could only get 2:20 at best on race fuel...what the hell am I doing wrong?

I'm quite proud of my race, started near the back, watched people fall off... ended up in 10th at the end by keeping consistent. Strange thing happened with TOm Cooper who I was chasing...out of the corner before the back straight his car stopped dead, and left it's collision box there...so I went through him, but still with a bump...kept it on the island without damage luckily. I'm guessing that was him having lag?

I'm so off the pace... I am using default setups... could this be bad?

[Paul968]

It happened again, and now I'm convinced it isn't just me. Not a bad qual lap having had no real practice, but spun on the power at the bus stop, with no warning and no chance to collect, and I wasn't even trying that hard. I'm coming to the conclusion that as the frame rate drops (as it always does on lap 1) the control inputs lose their smoothness - my motec trace on that lap shows an almost vertical line power appication, but I don't do that for obvious reasons! All these spins on lap 1 with hardly any at other times can't be a coincidence (can it?).

Anyway, was 13th I think when I rejoined and started working my way back up through the field. Helped by FlyBri and Zacari having some sort of incident at the bus stop I finally got back to 4th, right on the heels of Ginsters, but time ran out just as I caught him. Had a good scrap with Smoothy and some mild contact where he came back across as I was passing - hard to know what happened as no replay yet.

So, a fun race at least but I now need to search in earnest for some hardware upgrades which wont cost a packet - anyone got a Palomino Athlon XP 2100+ they want to sell?

Paul

[[ZiP]Tyf]

It happened again, and now I'm convinced it isn't just me. Not a bad qual lap having had no real practice, but spun on the power at the bus stop, with no warning and no chance to collect, and I wasn't even trying that hard. I'm coming to the conclusion that as the frame rate drops (as it always does on lap 1) the control inputs lose their smoothness - my motec trace on that lap shows an almost vertical line power appication, but I don't do that for obvious reasons! All these spins on lap 1 with hardly any at other times can't be a coincidence (can it?).
Paul

I never checked my Motec m8, but your story sounds just about the same as mine. Had it last time with the Bi-T on Spa as well. Hardly on the power and beng spin! Guess when I have it next time I will need to check the Motec to be sure!

T

[Zacari]

Quite an eventful race for me.  First time I've been in as a reserve and did better than I thought I would.

Qualified in 11th on 'race' setup, but seen as my main PC is still out of action I've got no saved setups   so it was a variation on the default with med tyers.

For the race I realised I'd get nowhere with the setup so stabbed in the dark and put on softs (not totally crazy as I'd done it before in 30 min races there) which worked much better.  Had a steady start and had a good battle with Smoothy for a few laps; side by side on more than a couple of occasions!  Never any hard contact though and was probably the best battle I've had in any league race so far.

Managed to squeez past into the hairpin and after a while ended up 4th with 4 laps left.

Helped by FlyBri and Zacari having some sort of incident at the bus stop I finally got back to 4th

Lol! basically I got a small tap into the hairpin  

Ended up back in 8th and my tyers were all over 150 degrees, spent the last few laps just trying to keep the car on the track (which was damn hard!) and ended up 7th.

Was still good fun though 

[fozzmeister]

Fozz, I hope that wasn't my fault, I was aware you were behind me then you got in my blind spot and then you were gone!!!!

You were one of the slower ones (don't take offense, none is intended at all). But its my inability to be sensible around those slower ones which is the real problem. I'm used to placing further up the grid now, and I just can't do that in the sprints, partly because of slight lack of preperation, partly because of connection issues meaning I only get maybe 2 laps in, its particularly a problem in GT races, as I know the F360 like the back of my hand, but I'm not so familiar with the GT cars.

The real problem is I go into NFSU mode I think, which is dangerous. Of course I don't go ramming into people (my accident rate is slightly higher however, but I still do everything I possibly can to avoid accidents) but I seem to invent interesting lines on the fly, which is stupid. I am someone who can overtake similarly paced cars as well which makes it all the more crazy.

You did nothing wrong while I was around you Jam.

I'm pretty good at hotlapping, but my racing skills aren't much good. I can follow similar paced cars around fairly well without causing accidents now, but I really struggle with either slower cars ahead or faster cars behind. Too often I simply miss my line and run off the track.

Think I'm going to drop out of the sprint races, getting nowhere atm. Might give the endurance league a try. The longer qualifying session should lead to less mixed-up grids and help give me more room on the track.

I've never done hotlapping at all. I nearly always concentrate solely on race setups. I'm also reasonably good at overtaking usually. IMHO hotlapping will do nothing for your ability to drive consistently, take an hour out and drive non stop without pitting, then alter your setup for hotlapping/qual and see how much faster you go... My thinking is you get 2-3 times more practice on race setups as you don't have outlaps, and the fact that your practicing at consistent tire temps is a great help. I've come to lots of endurance races, just took the fuel out, put softs on and qualified really well.

I'm giving very serious thought to dropping out of sprints, I don't want to ruin anyones race and the penalty points are going to kill my endurance championship if I'm not careful. I think I'm only going to race when I qualify well in Sprints, which is probably going to be not very often.


Fozzmeister

[fozzmeister]

how the hell are you guys doing 2:12-13's??? I could only get 2:20 at best on race fuel...what the hell am I doing wrong?

I'm quite proud of my race, started near the back, watched people fall off... ended up in 10th at the end by keeping consistent. Strange thing happened with TOm Cooper who I was chasing...out of the corner before the back straight his car stopped dead, and left it's collision box there...so I went through him, but still with a bump...kept it on the island without damage luckily. I'm guessing that was him having lag?

I'm so off the pace... I am using default setups... could this be bad?

Well firstly, race to qual setup would usually be about 3secs (it is for me) but Spa is looooong so that's 4 secs at leastso your already at 2:16 ish. There's two _really_ long straights, one after Eau Rouge, one with Blanchimon on it (am I correct with that name, it's number 17 on http://www.race-rally.be/spaeurorace/infos/maps/circuit.htm ). So you need to be super quick out of number 15 (where I certainly wasn't maximising it) and out of Eau Rouge (3/4). I know once I started pushing hard out of 15 I was about 2 secs a lap quicker in the F360.

I still sucked with the F550, went to a public race and qualifed with roughly the same speed but i did a half spin at turn 17 on that map so I would have taken at least 2 secs off it I reckon.

Fozzmeister

[picnic]

Replay uploaded to the usual

Cheers

[[ZiP]Tyf]

http://www.race-rally.be/spaeurorace/infos/maps/circuit.htm )
Fozzmeister

Eau Rouge or Red Water or (Penis)Aqua Rosa LOL! (Dutch joke never mind ) looks almost straight on there Fozz!

Which some of us may have noticed in this race was not the case 

T

[fozzmeister]

Eau Rouge or Red Water or (Penis)Aqua Rosa LOL! (Dutch joke never mind ) looks almost straight on there Fozz!

Which some of us may have noticed in this race was not the case 

T

Aqua Rosa appears to be a perfume, don't know what that has to do with penis's... I'm not sure I want you to explain it. I knew it meant red water but thought the corner was just a nice way of saying "blood" (tis dangerous), I guess it could mean "wine" but if you went down it pissed you'd be in trouble, bringing you back to blood again... I only just realised there's a stream (under?) there and the Ferrari's were very quick there?

Anyway I think (and spend to much time in forums) too much.

Fozzmeister

[ginsters sponsored]

That was exhausting. Quali went quite well, I got within 1.5 seconds off my pb which is closer than normal, and was surprised to see I was fourth.
First lap had a little ding dong, all seemed fair, with locutus and he slipped through to take my place. Then Paul had his spin in bus stop and locutus had a bigger moment through eau rouge which saw me move up to third. Started to settle into easy pace after that, with someone about 2 seconds behind me. Even though I was driving a little below limits it took a great amount of concentration to keep gap constant and I was relieved when my chaser slipped up and left me with me comfortable gap.

With no chance of catching those in front and 6 sec gap to those behind I decided to drive carefully and bring it home which brought even more pressure on myself. I was just hoping race would end when I started to notice gap behind me was shrinking at alarming rate which could only mean that one of the faster guys, Paul, was now behind me. I had nothing else to give. Could not go any faster with half a lap to go and concentrated on not making any mistakes. It proved just good enough as I defended last corner and beat him to the line, another lap and I was done for.

So pressure throughout the whole of the race made it a very difficult and tiring third place for me. But delighted to finish at top of second tier of gt boys and pinch a podium thanks to absentees.             

[Simon Gymer]

how the hell are you guys doing 2:12-13's??? I could only get 2:20 at best on race fuel...what the hell am I doing wrong?

Watch a hotlap from one of the fast guys as it's probably your lines and how much curb you're using. You'll learn a lot at Spa from watching a hotlap replay.

Shame Shark wasn't there, as he was challenging for the championship too, but this has made things very interesting for the championship chase.  Jon 192, me 170, Shark 165.

Well done Mark on the win.

Yeah I was out for dinner with the inlaws unfortunately and actually for some reason I am down as reserve for GT Sprint and not full time (dont know how that happened) so actually there might not be space for me every week anyway.

I'll be back next week to come 2nd again though. 

[Woodee]

how the hell are you guys doing 2:12-13's??? I could only get 2:20 at best on race fuel...what the hell am I doing wrong?

Watch a hotlap from one of the fast guys as it's probably your lines and how much curb you're using. You'll learn a lot at Spa from watching a hotlap replay.

I just never feel I have enough grip....kerbs cause me problems and usually spin the car around. I'll have a look at someone's hotlap if any of you want to donate

[Paul968]

I've had a look at one of your laps Woodee and have a number of comments. It would help tho if you could get me the motec too (as discussed).

thx

Paul

[Woodee]

The motec was attached to the email to, oh.....and your comments....be gentle?

[Paul968]

ah - no email has arrived yet.