Moderator's Report
Another dominant win from Will Tway and a well deserved second place for Mike Wrightson in another Honda. Robert Burton grabbed the final podium place in his Ferrari relegating Diki Waza's Honda to fourth place and scuppering Honda's chance of a podium white wash.
Note: When submitting incident reports please enter the replay time and lap number as it makes it much easier to identify the incidents.
Server replay time: 0h01m00s
Lap 1 - Esses - Diki Waza and Robert Burton
Diki and Burt are fighting for position and neither driver wants to give way. As they round the right hander Diki is on the outside and warp contact is made causing him to spin out.
This is just a case of competitive driving with warp intervening. In this situation the car on the outside is always at risk of warp (see rules for warp on UKGPL web site). Burt did nothing wrong, he was entitled to fight for the place and he maintained a good tight line (in fact his wide line through the first part of the Esses, the left hander, was exemplary). Diki did nothing wrong either but it would have been safer for him to give Burt a little more room so reducing the risk of warp contact.
Server replay time: 0h01m02s
Lap 1 - Esses - Graham Poole, James Andrew, Colin Paxton and Jack O'Ferrall
Graham puts a tyre on the grass and he looses control slewing the car across the track in front of James who was powerless to avoid contact. Colin and Jack are also caught up in the melee.
James is entitled to a no fault shift R.
Server replay time: 0h28m50s
Lap 25 - Front Straight - Steve Bird and Jack O'Ferrall
Steve is recovering after an incident and reset at the Esses and is building up speed on the Front Straight. Jack is on full throttle as he exits the Esses and closes fast on Steve. Steve is in the middle of the track when he sees Jack and he tries to get out of the way. Jack has to make a snap decision on which side to overtake. Unfortunately both drivers move to the right and contact is made.
It would be very harsh to penalize Steve too much on this occasion as he clearly tried to keep out of the way although he should not have drifted towards the middle of the track. Steve should have stayed well right and near the edge of the track whilst he built up to racing speed after rejoining.
- b_1_rd (Steve Bird67) — advice — Advice - Stay well off the racing line while building up to racing speeds
Server replay time: 0h29m09s
Lap 25 - Front Straight - Steve Bird and Will Tway
After the shunt with Jack, Steve comes to rest on the edge of the track which happens to be the racing line. Will is approaching flat out at 173 MPH, he doesn't have time to see Steve and take avoiding action. Will clips the Eagle and his Honda is sent spinning across the track. Fortunately Will's car is undamaged and he can continue.
Steve was not at fault here, he didn't intend for his car to come to rest in such a dangerous place. However, having found himself in such a position, the best thing for Steve to do was too quickly select reverse and clear the track before contemplating a rejoin.
After the shunt with Will, Steve makes a couple of efforts to rejoin the race and to his credit pulls off the track when a freight train looms large in his mirrors. Unfortunately for Steve, this was a particularly dangerous place to have to re-join. The racing line was right on the edge of the track and what is more it is one of the fastest sections in the entire lap, just before the braking zone for the Loop. There are 2 ways to avoid a risky rejoin here. The first one is to rely on Pribluda which should provide the driver with enough information to select a decent gap in which to rejoin. The other way is to simply trundle down the grass verge to a point where the racing line is nearer the other side of the track and join there. In this case the nearest safe joining point is halfway round the Loop. Instead Steve retires the Eagle apparently having decided a rejoin is too risky.