UKGTR Season 8 Lower Sprint (GTC) - Interlagos - Aug 19

[Minton]

Good race.. Was feeling really tired after doing a E320 race at nordishliefe in the early hours of this morning.Couldnt rest for a minute as i knew Simon and Mark would be straight on me if i had.   Made a few mistakes towards the end as my nerves started to go as Simon was really pushing but just managed to hold it all together.

Think i put the limiter on a bit early at the start seem like an age to get to the finish line and soz for the chat at the end thought everyone had finished.

Cheers

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart

[picnic]

Damn computers  Was really enjoying the battles I was having tonight until the PC froze for around 10 secs. When it came back I had a minor accident but nothing to serious, however most of the textures were showing the wrong ones. Very 60/70's psychedelic style. Thought I'd continue but it happened almost immediately again so I quit before I ended up being the reason for someone else's accident.

Still as it all went wrong at 9:10 I had time to register for the 9:15 Skippy race and reboot before it started Missed the fastest race lap by .008 of a second

[Prof]

Started right at the back having had to download the new Interlagos. Pleased to see no rain after Sunday. 

Some good close racing amongst the non-aliens towards the back this evening. My usual battle with JPS came in two parts today after I made a mistake at turn 1. Catching up was one thing, overtaking was hard on this circuit. Pleased to gain 7 places before the end.

Close racing is the most enjoyable aspect of this league so great fun - thanks all.

[stnasky]

Good race,  although i think i took to much wing thinking about the tire wear late in the race but ah well :'(, it was all good .  Nice battles with TT and Roadrunner but could only make gains when they had made mistakes.  Near the end i was getting closer to the front 2, they looked fairly close for last few laps and i was hoping they would slow each other down enough for me to take full advantage but it didnt happen.

Congrats to Dan btw, nice drive there m8.

[Truetom]

I must say I expected a better result here. After qualified 4th I surprised RR at braking into turn 8. Was some laps on 3rd position, even as close to Shark to think about overtaking moves as Shark and Dan were slowing eachother down and there was a string of 5 leading cars. RR started to be really close and I had to defend and we lost contact with the leading two. The car was acting a bit differently than in practice on-line sessions, locking rears and after correction in braking ballance it was locking fronts.    Had to either lock fronts or add throttle on every braking to fend off RR (I bet you saw lots of smoke there) but I was losing time and eventually he passed. Both RR and MarkMc were faster on the big straight and DG was also close to overtaking in the last laps.

Had some close laps and one touch with RR (I wanted to squeeze you a bit but you held your course  ), nothing dangerous. Some close laps with MarkMc and he also passed on the big straight. I had the wing 6. Were you porshe guys running lower wing or is it porka that much more powerful? 
Duel between MarkMc and RR enabled me to close the gap to them and after RR's mistake I passed him on 4th place. That was 12 minutes before the end and we had another set of close laps and some 5 minutes before the end I made a mistake in the last corner, hitting the wall. Seems like I had aero damage only / car was handling bad enough by then that I didn't notice any other damage. 
RR passed me of course and DG came right on my tail. Three laps of defending, keeping the inner line and sweating on the big straight.  DG made a mistake in the last corner of the race or he would have passed me I think. Well, it would be close. 

Good race all around with constant battles. I think I should be satisfied as a combination of me and Mosler made the best possible performance, but... 
MJ was close to me in the practice we had, so I guess the the loneliness in absence of his GF made him lose concentration at the start.    Steve is learning setting the car, I think.     

Grats to podium and thumbs up for high level of driving from all drivers around me.   

TT

[Minton]

Were you porshe guys running lower wing or is it porka that much more powerful?

I was running 10 as any less would have hurt the hard rears too much, Thought i was going to struggle on the long straights but seem to be ok.

[Jeffrey]

I always thought the Mosler was a powerstation, but it was lacking compared to the Porsches, and also the Fezza's. That was a big disappointment when I used it, as that took away a lot of its fun.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I was running just 5 on the rear wing! Early race was trying to find a way by Psuedo, despite being in the same car we were strong in different places and just when I had come up with a plan he got T1 wrong and that was enough for me to bomb past at the end of the back straight. Car didn't like braking from the tighter inside lines but I knew I had to keep him behind until the final corner after which I should be safe, and that worked out nicely.

After that I spent most of the race trying to at least peg the gap to Mark McClean ahead and my Dutch Turtle nemesis Evert behind, hoping both of them would start to struggle with tyre wear in the Porkas towards the end of the race. To my horror, a few laps from the end Evert started to catch me - luckily he came under attack from Steve Holmes and Bob about three laps from the end and I suddenly had 3 seconds on him... and TT slowed dramatically, allowing me to glue myself to his tail for two laps. I clearly had better traction and good straight line speed so I planned to get a really strong exit from the last proper corner and simply drive past him up the hill. I would've worked too had I not run wide on the exit and had to back off the throttle.

I'll have to try and adapt the 360 GTC skin to the Modena now ready for the second half of the season!

[Simon Gymer]

as Shark and Dan were slowing eachother down and there was a string of 5 leading cars.

Yeah, I was trying all my usual tricks of pretending to overtake, putting him off with weaving and so on, but he wasn't phased at all, very good driving, kept himself focused on the racing line and the track ahead and that meant it was all in vein.

I was running 10 as any less would have hurt the hard rears too much, Thought i was going to struggle on the long straights but seem to be ok.

I was running 6 cause I knew the 911s would be quicker in a straight line. It was enough to keep up on the straights, but nothing more.

[Mark J]

likewise here for a disapointing result in the race TT.
 Qualified a good 5th after being in top 5 all qually sesh and feeling good for the race.

Then made an error on the final turn on first flying lap with a wheel onto the kerbs and dropped to poxy 9th  ...worst possible part of lap, i was so annoyed with myself and called myself all sorts of bad names, turning the air blue!  

Thought right now ive got it all to do to claw my way back up front but it just didnt happen. I just didnt have the pace to get by anyone. Despite seeming to be quicker than Evert in his porker and throwing everything at him i couldnt get by, its a tough track to overtake on unless someone makes an error, and eventually i wore my rears out in the process, gradually dropping away after umpteen assaults on his position.
I then became easy meat for the ferraris with their better use of tyres and ended up finishing the race a crappy 9th or 10th. :'(
The car was a swine under braking for last 10 mins or so. My oversteery setup that felt great earlier and in practise cost me later on in race. 50 mins hurts the 911's rears, like 40mins is their optimum window.
Though reading posts above sounds like going for 6 wing was not ideal for tyre wear and a 7 or 8 would have kept the back end in better shape  
Felt rather deflated at race end as was expecting a good result.  

Great looking track and a good challenge. Well done podium guys  

[purdie]

And my wheel promptly re-connected itself to the PC, so I had no control and had to bail...grr, not sure why it's doing that, but I shall investigate!

we had our own little race literally!

I didn't have much practise and had taken the day off work with a head-cold and I just could not concentrate  never mind learn the track (i know it anyway from GP2/3/4 but grip etc  )

quali'd with my race setup hence being 11th and then had a fund race with David briefly but never found my braking point for the first corner ....but i eventually found a wall.....  lol

[Steve Holmes]

I gotta echo most of the posts in what a great race that was.  Even though I didn't make a single pass and really struggled in the first half, and ninth isn't exactly my target finish position, it really felt like *racing*, was close to others almost all the time, scrapping for tenths, great stuff.

Shoulda done more than 30 mins practice on Sunday, I'm no Simon with a store of experience to call upon, and I'm probably also pretty slow to tune in to a track. To add to that my PC started stuttering and finally locked up after I joined so after restarting I only had time for an extremely tentative first lap on softs followed by a moderately tentative one! Not an ideal start......

Thought I might get MJ after his off on lap 1 but that would have been hideously optimistic.  Then had Pete behind me, I was quicker on some corners, but several I was just not getting at all and he was a bit quicker overall, had a good fight for a bit, he dived up the inside at the end of the back straight and I was able to cut back when he slightly overshot, good stuff, but eventually I succumbed.  Just followed on the back of the guys ahead after that, had a scary moment when Bob started spinning a couple of seconds ahead and I had to slam on the anchors and dive around, heart hammering there!

Sometime around lap 16 or 17 I started to understand how the Ferrari wanted to be driven and started lapping at least a second a lap faster, started closing on those ahead pretty quickly.  Had a good few looks around Evert, whose 911 was clearly lacking traction, while my 360 felt superb, and then on the final lap he was slow out of the last right hander of the lap and I thought '8th place, pah why settle, no fun in that' and went for it....so much I spun onto the grass.    Enjoyable racing though.

Like TT says, starting to get this setting up thing, still wasn't perfect, but managed the tyres well and the balance was great at race end.  So 9th felt like progress!

[spanner]

That was really good fun and probably the first race where i was happy with no major dramas, overdriving etc. And didnt get lapped!

Qualifying started cooler than it had been uptill now so decided to stick softs on the front which worked early on but after a while the temps just rose higher, but got a good lap for me in anyway and by the end i ended up 15th with JPS just managing to beat me.

At the start i misjudged it and thought i'd released the limiter early so quickly stuck it back on only to realise JPS had actually gone Thought they might have put Ade off behind but sounds like he had other issues! Though i was expecting him to come blasting past in the Morgan early on as that has good straightline speed. Then seemed to spend half the race welded to the back of JPS's bumper though noticed you were struggling a bit and managed to nip by as he braked a bit too late at the end of the second straight. By this time Prof had worked his way up and then spent the next half of the race trying to get past JPS which allowed me to build a gap and hold that to the flag. Though i did spend half my time watching Prof and JPS in my mirrors, wondering who was going to come out of the corners first!

[JPS]

At the start i misjudged it and thought i'd released the limiter early so quickly stuck it back on only to realise JPS had actually gone Thought they might have put Ade off behind but sounds like he had other issues! Though i was expecting him to come blasting past in the Morgan early on as that has good straightline speed. Then seemed to spend half the race welded to the back of JPS's bumper though noticed you were struggling a bit and managed to nip by as he braked a bit too late at the end of the second straight. By this time Prof had worked his way up and then spent the next half of the race trying to get past JPS which allowed me to build a gap and hold that to the flag. Though i did spend half my time watching Prof and JPS in my mirrors, wondering who was going to come out of the corners first!

Good battle with Spanner and The Prof.

Yes your right Spanner, I missed my breaking mark on the back straight, not something I wanted to do with you all over me, then instead of trying to get back past Spanner it became a survival mission with The Prof, had to close the door on you a couple of times in the slow corners (not to harshly I hope) because by then my right front tyre was shot and almost down to the fabric. Good driving Spanner/The Prof