UKGTR Season 8 Upper Endurance (GT1/GT2) - Imola - Aug 17

[David M]

grr.

I'd qualified 6th with a few seconds still to find, so I was looking like a great result by my standards.

Went to grid and then back to garage to double check my fuel level, and on clicking the button to go back to the grid, Avast has its virus db update dialog appearing, it stole the click and launched an update app that required admin priveledges, and that UAC prompt crasher GTR2.

Not amused, flooded track, would've been a great race for me!

[psuedo]

Load of baloney that one...total waste of a weeks practice time.

Did some wet practice...and had a reasonable set up....but when the temps drop from sunny and 32 deg to flooded and 6 deg....my setup may as well just have been thrown through the window. 

I'm all for REAL world weather and the like....and I don't mind wet races either.....but that was just totally wrong tonight.... nothing like real world weather....except the praccy session...(although that was a fair bit hotter than it actually is/was in Imola). Totally flooded track, thunder storms...28 car grid, all with lights on and an evening start time.......that race was for folk with better machines than mine only....

ah well.....spose you have to be up to date with your technology.

[Truetom]

Same here, Psuedo.   

Had a good quali lap and it was a race wet setup with less fuel. How could this be so different in the race?    Car was all over the place while I had a feeling in quali I could push even more.    The thing went over the edge when I hit spinned RR and got a puncture. Couldn't hold it on track, went into sand got fed up. I think the cleaver weather file should get some tweaking. 

TT

[Busi]

What can I say, it's bad to retire but much worse to ruin somebody else's race, sorry Prof! :'(

I'll report the incident but the only thing I can say in my defense is that I didn't see you coming due to lag issues, which I think got worse after I retired Thing is, I had been waiting for all cars to pass me before rejoining, I thought nobody else was coming then your car appeared only 50 metres behind. Sorry again!

My race was looking good in 3rd chasing RR and FreQ but a spin under acceleration made me pick up a puncture and then all this happened

Here are a couple of pics helping my explanation and my report:

Two cars go by, at that moment I think nobody else is going to approach.


Prof's car suddenly appears when I am already trying to rejoin, not looking backwards...

[Mike Hammer]

Well, I know I'm just about the worst rain driver there is.

But....even so I just wasn't expecting this.

I really like Imola, was hoping to hit 42s or even 41s in the dry, based on the few praccy laps I got in. Come Qually, I couldn't really get any decent heat in the soft wet rears, so I thought I'd make it a three stopper, with soft tires.

After some laps I was up to 150 and then shortly 160C right rear, going way out of control. Very sorry to the GT2 guys I kept getting in the way of.

Rain finally stopped and given the rear temps I had I thought it couldn't get any worse, so I went in for dry tires. Yeah, well, it could get worse.

I was a total hazard, spinning several times per lap, and also being lapped by GT2 cars. Had had to give up before I took someone out.

My apologies to everyone I got in the way of.

[Legzy]

Did OK in qually for the amount of practice I'd had (& in the wet too), then GTR crashed on me. Managed to rejoin game with seconds left but from the back obviously.

Thought we might get a sunny start with rain later, but freezing weather & storms were the reality. Did my best to pace myself, but managed to damage my front end early on & hoped for the rain to stop soon so I could fuel up & mend the damage! I didn't have to wait too long, stayed out till my wets were cooking then dived in & put on intermediates.... 

I should have gone to hard wets. I was slipping all over but it was getting better with every lap so I thought I'd stick with it & hope for sunshine    My lap splits were getting better & the confidence was growing. Then somehow I managed to catch a kerb at the start of the home straight & hit the spectator stands full on. 

Sorry to anyone who my burning wreck may have distracted while I searched for the nearest fire exit.

Enjoyed the race, another one chalked up for experience. Congrats to everyone that goes the distance.

[Gomes Silva]

hi all,

My return in this track, i made a nice qualify in the storm , and in the race i was strong to, but in  lap i got 1 stop and go, and them ither and other, well i push ESC end of story

[ginsters sponsored]

Apologies for tap Gomez, you slipped in chicane and I had nowhere to go. To be fair, it straightened you out nicely

Despite that, twas a good race. Awful spin at chicane taking just a little too much kerb (different car with fuel ) left me behind PR, Dan and Gomes and avoiding poor old Mike, I counted six spins mate , for first stint. Got back up to Dan and pressurised him to no avail, good stuff. Pitted with me softs after long stint and, as track still seemed wet, went with soft wets again. All seemed well, PR was away and gone and I presumed it was a GT1 car closing me down at a rate of knots. Unfortunately, for me, it was a flying Mark and I was just lucky the spray saved me.

No idea what happened on last lap but whatever occurred I think PR was more than a worthy winner. Bugger.

Sorry for not making lapping easier, think I held up Freq, but that was real tough Congrats to all that finished.   

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart

[Prof]

What can I say, it's bad to retire but much worse to ruin somebody else's race, sorry Prof! :'(

I do not expect you to report yourself Busi - I would have messed up by myself given a bit longer.    Put it down to conditions.

I made it back to the pits for lots of repairs and should have pressed esc there. Joined well last and never found any rhythm on the circuit concentrating on trying to keep out of the way. My evil handling car did not even let me do this properly and I struggled to the end in poor style. Sorry to those I obstructed the worst of which was Jan - I had spun on the track and in trying to get out of everyone's way I was badly in your way - didn't see you because of the corner until too late, sorry. As soon as I went off line to make way, the car was always likely to misbehave.

Lesson of the day: If in doubt and last: give up.

[Gomes Silva]

Apologies for tap Gomez, you slipped in chicane and I had nowhere to go. To be fair, it straightened you out nicely

No Problem with that, Dan Minton is entering the track so i brake hard and loose speed you can avoid my rear

[Simon Gymer]

Busi, I've been there and done that. Doesn't look like people are coming and then they do out of the gloom. What I would say is that having done that myself the best thing you can do to avoid it is to reverse up first and try to get as straight as possible to the track to narrow the entry at which you are coming back onto the circuit. Sometimes I've spent 30 seconds doing a 23 point turn just to avoid coming back onto the tarmac at a silly angle, especially when there's not much room to maneover at the side of the track.

Race report...
I never practice anyway, so I didn't care what the weather did, although I didn't really want rain and dark as it's hard (boo hoo ). I just took my existing dry setup, stiffened the front a bit, added full wing, a couple of notches of both differential settings and moved the brake bias back half a click. Qualified 7th I think and with the monsoon conditions knew it was all about keeping it on the road and forget where you are or what times you are doing. I let others spin in front and behind me and soon I was up into 3rd still driving slowly and carefully. As rain stopped I had to try and cool my soft wets off-line (as did everyone) and decided to not pit until I was about to run out of fuel. 25 minutes to go and it was time to come in and decided to stick Inters on for the last bit (as Joss's Inter report was positive). I came out of the pits with a 20 second cushion to Gazza and the Inters were better after I gradually brought them up to speed. 2 seconds a lap faster on the inters until I lapped team mate Gizmo and decided that I would try braking a little bit later for the left hander just before the hill into Aqua Minerale. Apparently it was a bad decision as it spun vicously sending me spearing back across the track and whacking my front end into the barrier. Carried on, but front end damaged slowed me back to where I was on the over-heating soft wets. Anyway, it was enough in the end as I eased off towards the end to make sure of the Team Shark 1-2.

Well done to all that made it, very tough and challenging conditions a real test of skill and concentration. I think I enjoyed that, but I'm not convinced, was really tough going. The Ferrari is horrible in the wet on the slow speed stuff. Having driven the Lambo in the wet a lot, I can honestly say it has far superior traction in the wet out of the slow speed stuff. Ferrari was ok on the brakes actually and not bad in the high speed stuff, but I needed my best throttle control tonight out of the slow speed corners.

P.S. We're all in the same boat with the weather, so although it might not have been perfect, we're all having to deal with the same evil conditions. The weather generation stuff onyl deals with initial conditions and changeability (I think) and the game does the rest, so not entirely sure what tweaking Gizmo can do tbh?

Joss was so far ahead of everyone else it was amazing stuff from him to be 2 seconds a lap faster than anyone else in qually and race. Great job there and to Gazza for 3rd place.

Well done to GT2 podium too, sorry half of you had gone by the time I'd finished my lap, so I don't know who won.

[pribeiro]

Well done Freq and SBG for both class wins  
As for my race....
although...
anyway....
For all that, i only want to say as a conclusion, that i really like to drive in wet tracks

Cheers

[H@L9000]

Really hard race.

I started off ok but fell off a few times trying to cool my tyres at about 40 mins into the race. I then pitted and really messed up my pit and had to drive round again. I then (for some unknown reason) thought that it would be a good idea to put med dry tyres on, LOL. I span many times trying to get back to the pit and eventually had to hit 'esc' to avoid a collision after spinning into the middle of the track

Once again an important leason learnt

[Joss]

That was horrible  

No idea what was going on in Qually, just stuck fuel in and guessed a setup, spun a load and managed to stay on for a few laps.
At the start I was in 1st gear, and then thought maybe 2nd would be better as it was so wet and the Lister has soo much torque, TT quickly proved my point

Felt good after a few laps, pitted very late to see what the weather would do and finally went for inters after a spin on destroyed soft wets. They were much better but lethal off line.

Towards the end I was just getting frustrated with the constant lapping (nothing against anyone). I was always up 0.3 or 0.5 only to catch yet another GT2 and lose time. It was relentless and the speed difference was so big, then I made a load of mistakes and caught Ribs......where I think I just forgot how to drive for 3 laps.

Then hit Jan 3 mins from home after he spun in the middle of the track....tried to go inside but couldn't turn. Oh well, no harm done. Last 2 laps were fun with no lights!

Looking forward to a dry race now! N1 to everyone who stayed on and finished - v tough in those conditions.