UKGTR Season 8 Lower Sprint (GTC) - Brno - Oct 7

[ginsters sponsored]

Mixed bag that

Really not happy in quali. I flashed someone on their outlap to let me through (why should I have to do that after all these years) and they still cut me up anyways. I know I shouldn't react but I was steaming and cwap time in quali was the result Mirrors gentleman.

Didn't half set up a nice race though Brilliant dice with Dan and the struggling Brian. After a half hour of eyeballs on stalks stuff I finally gapped them and was catching Matt quickly. Had visions of a KC 1/2 until I checked my fuel gauge. Had to let Matt go and got caught running outta gas with 50cm to go What a crock, indeed.

Cwap start and finish but an excellent race in all. Congrats to Mike and Matt

[Busi]

What an arse my car was! I didn't expect to be struggling so much, not only with superworn tyres but from the very beginning.

Quali went really good on med-soft tyres but I had to pick hard-meds for race and the car wouldn't turn in properly at all. And even with a hard front left I got its tyre wear warning with 5 laps to go!!! I kept up with the top 3 pushing hard until I made a couple of mistakes running a bit wide. Back to 8th I kept following the TT train lol had a couple of wheel to wheel fights with Psuedo but we were obviously not gonna risk too much with him battling for the title, so he stayed ahead, but then he lost it in the last lap

6th for me

[Simon Gymer]

Had a great race with Evert which was fun, but by the time I got past when he finally made a big mistake my tyres were already past their best and my laps times were doing nothing but getting slower. This made it very dull to the end driving a on my own in a car that felt like a hairy rugby ball.

I don't like these 50 minute races very much, they are 10 minutes too long for a Sprint imho. The last 10 minutes usually feels like a chore rather than fun and this race was no different. Next season I would like to see a return to 40 minute races.

The Morgan tyre wear is bonkers. I wished I'd put hard fronts and soft rears as I was on a shade under 30 on the front left and a shade over 10 on the rear left at the end of the race.

[Madd-RIP]

Similar to my Mosler then Simon, 33 soft front left,  16 med rears.

[Prof]

Enjoyable race

Great battle with NSFAST

Left front tyre was down to the fabric..........don't know how I kept it on

Great Battle with David Milne then the same tyre problems. Over 35 front left when I gave up looking on the last lap.

HUGE apologies to NSFast who caught me on the last lap. I tried to leave you room up the last hill and lost it off the racing line into the last corner causing you to crash as my front left gave up the ghost - completely my fault.  

[Mark J]

wow, forgot how competitive GTC is when we have a good turnout  

Qualied about 8th or 9th, pipped in the dying seconds by teamie TT  (old habits die hard eh Tom )

Race was all action from the green light. Tucked up behind TT and Pseudo who seemed to be pretty ragged in the opening lap or 2, which at one point made me back out mid corner to avoid rear contact but allowing Zak to squeeze past up the inside with an excellent move.
That started 40 minutes of some of the most intense racing ive had !   I enjoyed a brilliant battle with Zak whilst DG kept station a few secs behind no doubt enjoying the view and hoping to benefit from our action.
We were at it hammer and tongs, often side by side and taking different lines to gain an advantage for lap after lap.
Eventually i really put the squeeze on even more and got by him with a pretty good move if i do say so myself  
I was elated after chasing him so hard for so long, great battle mate, very clean  

I then started to pull out a few secs and watched in my mirrors as Dave started dicing with him. I started to gain on Busi and Pseudo up ahead but then disaster struck, i took a slow speed left-right combo exactly the same way i had the previous umpteen laps but for some reason the car jinked left offline and i had to painfully slowly crawl around on the marbles on the outside of the turn allowing Zak and DG to get back past. :'(  i was gutted to throw away all that blinking hard work  

Despondently and deflated i set back after the pair of them but with only 10 mins remaining knew my work was cut out to catch and then pass them both. Fortunately for me, a few laps later, zak went off at the exact same corner and i reclaimed a place. I started catching Dave again but my tyres were shot with only 5 mins left and i had to settle for a lousy 9th place despite all that effort !

Great pace in the top 10. Well done to the podium guys, fantastic race  

[Simon Gymer]

Similar to my Mosler then Simon, 33 soft front left,  16 med rears.

Soft fronts?!

I was on medium fronts getting that shade under 30 wear!

[Busi]

WTF!! I was on HARD fronts and still finished on 35 front left tyre wear! Me being a tyre killer doesn't help though lol

[Madd-RIP]

The mosler setup I made is very kind to the front tyres, so much so its sometimes difficult to get them up to temp!
They were hovering around the low 80's iirc. (the beauty of Motec!)

[psuedo]

It was one of them again....loads of praccy, setup feeling just right...quallied well, car felt great with a pb in 5th.

Race started ant the car felt like cwap  ....back end all over the place for the first lap or two till I adjusted to how to drive it....lost a couple of places on that lap after a major tail wag and then a third place went....although I'm not yet convinced it was taken 100% fairly   (will wait for the replay obviously).

So when I got used to my 'new' car, I started chasing Busi, Dan and TT ahead...busi lost it a bit and I managed to squeeze infront....(phew, thought he was going to actually RACE me for a moment  )
It took till 10 mins to go but I eventually got on the back of Dan and TT as they were having a bit of a battle between themselves. Almost got Dan up the hill under braking into the left hander before the s/f straight but couldn't quite get the overlap and had to back off.

Started getting close again but then overcooked it on the long right at the end of sector 2 and spun out onto the grass handing places to Busi and DG. Gutted.

Grats podium. Good race.....cant wait for Mugello...I like that place  

[Mike Hammer]

 

Well, that was an unexpected win. And a *really* long time since I had a race without a single spin.

Very lucky that I was able to retrieve my old setup from S7 back in march. Good thing this forum has a show all post by user, and even luckier that filefront still keeps my old setup file around. Don't get me wrong, it's nothing special at all, but it is better then default. At least with Psuedos corrections.

Good dice with MADD, Kerr, and Busi in the beginning. I foolishly locked the brakes into T2, going wide and dropping from 2nd to 4th. Got back 3rd from Busi on the downhill brakes and Kerr had his issues and gave me 2nd. Time to chase the leader.

Chased Madd for quite a few laps, and was looking for a place to make a pass. Tried on the downhill brakes a few times, my favorite place, but no go. Finally got a good drive out of the esses, and with the help of a bit of drafting I could get in Madd's way for the long righthander. Good race.

After that I guess Madd's tires were giving him more issues then I got from mine, as the distance grew slowly. Last 20 minutes just cruised by myself, trying to baby the left front and stay on track.

Even though I took 65l fuel for 29laps / 57 minutes, I was still worried the last few laps. Fortunately time ran out just before I crossed the line, so no worries there.

There's something about the Modena and Brno for me, not my favorite track or car or anything, it just fits very well somehow. As long as you mind the left front, it's very easy on the tires. Think I finished with 19 on the left front, 15-17 on the others, all medium. I practiced a whole lot, and I mean a *lot*...back in march for the S7 Brno race, and while that one didn't go quite so well, it finally paid off now, six months later  


Sorry to hear about your woes Kerr, really odd behaviour that. Looked at your times on the praccy server and thought I wouldn't have a chance, but I sure would have liked to try.

Been having pretty poor performance in S8 so far, so nice to be competetive at the front for once. Thanks again.

Oh, who was it that knocked me clear off track, over the railing, after the race 

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I just couldn't get a good feel for the Modena during qually - I'd done a Skippy race earlier (11th to 4th of 14!), maybe that wasn't helping. Started just ahead of two of my Shark brethren and behind the faster of the Dutch Turtles.

Took it relatively easy on the pace lap, knowing that front left tyre wear was going to be a major problem, and just concentrated on warming the brakes towards the end of the lap to avoid any scary T1 moments.

Evert was nice enough to make a mistake coming out of turn 3 and I nipped by. Next was nsfast - I must applaud his heads up driving when I made what looks on the replay like an inspired, genius dive up the inside into turn 8 - in fact I was just looking for my braking point, and the first indication I had that I'd missed it was his 911 going backwards on the right. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I set off after the Zak/MJ battle.

For most of the race i was utterly unable to close the gap on them; then suddenly with about 20 minutes to go I started gaining heavily as their scrapping got more direct. MJ slipped by Zak and having looked after my tyres I was able to slip by and set off after MJ, who was then kind enough to throw himself off the track, giving me 8th with Brian's retirement.

The gap to Busi ahead was steady at 7 or 8 seconds until the last 10 minutes, when suddenly I started closing. Too little too late though and 7th looked out of reach with a gap of 4 seconds remaining on final lap - but there was a twist in the tail as I rounded the corner at the end of the back straight to find Psueueueudo's 360 trying to extract itself from the barriers. Lucky number 7 was mine!

I don't know whether it was the fuel load or just a change in mindset, but I found the car was transformed in the race - the smooth, conservative style I've been forced to adopt in the 360 to avoid snap oversteer under braking really paying off, both in terms of tyre preservation and outright pace.

Woo!

[Minton]

Well that was great...Had a great battle with TT for nearly the whole race with me in front for the first half and him the other, Only one slight bit of contact which was my fault. Was getting a great run out of the first corner but TT was always a litlle later on the brakes into the first left hander and i could never manage to quite pull the move off. Had Bob for company in the second half of the race , Bob was attached to my bumper at some stages and if it wasnt for the extra bit of punch out of the corners in the porsche then i think he would have had me. Sorry for closing the door a bit to harshly going into the second to last corner , didnt realize you were so far up the inside.
Had a good moment with SBG and Kerr for half a lap ,at one stage 3 a-breast..top stuff.

Grats to Mike and Matt and unlucky SBG, third was yours mate.

Cheers

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Oh, who was it that knocked me clear off track, over the railing, after the race 

Might've been me - I saw a big pack and headed for it at full speed.

Race started ant the car felt like cwap  ....back end all over the place for the first lap or two till I adjusted to how to drive it....

Hmm, the total opposite of my experience - I wonder if there is a difference in balance between the front and rear tyres in medium and soft compounds on the 360 which means that a setup for one doesn't work at all for the other. That would go some way to explaining why I've found the car so hard to get to grips with.

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart