UKGTR Season 9 Upper Sprint (GT1) - Valencia (GP) - Apr 7

[purdie]

looking forward to revving the nuts off the DBR9 in the midfield 

Well if you're in the midfield I might as well put my name on the wooden spoon right now!

well.... thats what my McLaren team manager told me to say...  hehe

[Busi]

PURDS YOU NEED THE NEW CARPACK! 2.9.5.1!!!

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

PURDS YOU NEED THE NEW CARPACK! 2.9.5.1!!!

Ditto phspok - the physics pack will do, the skins don't matter.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

ps. Must apologise for not making it more obvious in the announcement that the pack has changed!

[purdie]

yeah sorry guys i didn't read the announcement. My bookmark is the forum and i have just changed it to the front page so i read the announcements

8:40 and only 17% downloaded........my bad 

Enjoy the race 

[phspok]

Thanks Dave
yes I knew, I thought id d/l'd last night, but had not, not enough time left to get it.

[Simon Gymer]

Well done TT on the really really close finish with Busi.

Bit rusty myself after managing to join the race 5 minutes into qually, but plonked my trusty Lambo mid-grid

I was going quite well in the race. Managed to get past Prof fairly early on after gaining three places from some incident at the front which saw Busi, Jose and Hal all drop back. But after that I drove too hard and kept half spinning the car for a while. Eventually after about my 5th half spin I got a proper rhythm and speed. I was consistently lapping in 1:30s and for the last 7 minutes or so I closed Prof and Jose down at about 3 seconds a lap. One more lap and I would have been with their good looking fight, but wasn't to be.

P.S. Was some warping from Everts car tonight, was quite hard to follow him and know where I could put my car without potentially getting got by the warping gremlins.

[H@L9000]

I forgot to put my race setup on :'(

I raced as hard as I could to minimise the damage but i was involved in a tangle with Busi and Jose, not sure if that was my fault but sorry if it was. I should not have been there as I was going to pit.

I really screwed up my championship chances their. :'(

Seems like I missed out on some race action. Looking forward to the next one.

Well done podiums.

[Mark J]

Doh !  what a numpty    the oldest one in the book...dont floor it on cold tyres  

Got huge power oversteer off kerb on exit of T1 and immediately put myself 12 seconds behind the last car and about 22 secs behind the leaders  :'(

From then on it was a boring hotlapping session with nobody to race. Only caught up with DG in 9th once then i span again   So annoying and made for a carp race for me.
Usual frustrating scenario, pump in regular 1:29s in praccy and low 1:30's race pace only to find on race night that i now have a heap of understeer & locking cold fronts and running upto 2secs a lap slower  

What a waste of time.  

Just a thought, but if low turnouts continue in GT1, could it be worth swapping it for a GTC sprint series next season? It would attract more racers and the racing would stay close and personal.   Shame, but the low turnouts always seem to happen to GT1 series, i guess because they are such demanding buggers to drive quickly, but footie was also on this eve so may have affected it.

[Busi]

wow, just... wow!!

Got pole on what was gonna be my race setup with soft fronts and medium tyres, but realised softs were not gonna last 40 minutes. So I changed to meds but they were very cold in the opening laps. My car understeerred and I went slightly off letting Jose and H@L through. On lap 3 they touched and as I tried to avoid the chaos around the outside, a slight move by Jose made me spin him while he was almost stopped, sorry mate!

I waited for him so I was down to 6th I think. I made a good comeback (a lot of warping btw on your car Evert, your car was moving forward-backwards continuously) and I was up to 3rd behind Gazza.

First tough battle when I caught him, it was not easy to overtake in such a circuit. I was trying to use the corner speed of the Lambo to have some good exits and try the move on the next corner. It finally worked, 3 or 4 laps later. Nice fight.

Then came THE battle lol I closed up on TT with about 8-10 laps to go. I was faster but again struggling to find a way past. I was running out of laps and TT was not gonna give me the place, noticed that when he started going defensive I tried a lot of different lines, everywhere it could be done actually I tried to make it around the outside in some corners, but was not gonna happen. I almost did in T1 but ran wide doh!

Last lap, we both went off at the same corner LOL he rejoined earlier so I couldn't do anything else. I finished 1 tenth behind him. BRILLIANT BATTLE MATE

[Gazza49er]

Doh similar to H@l but not as bad i didn't load my proper race setup which meant i didn't have enough fuel 

Top 3 or 4 pulled away at start just hanging on to TT but couldn't do much about it. Car didn't feel quite right at the rear so couldn't get the power on early on the exits like i had bin practising.

Then the top 3 appeared at one corner all facing the wrong way  so me and TT got through. Was doing similar lap times but always a good 4 second gap. I knew Busi was going to catch me at some point and he did. I held him off for a few laps but i had to back off otherwise i was not going to finish due to not enough fuel. Had to really crawl round the last 12 Min's but had enough gap to very luckily hold on to 3rd.

Grats TT and Busi

Shame about the turnout but I'm sure the football was a factor.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

From then on it was a boring hotlapping session with nobody to race. Only caught up with DG in 9th once then i span again   So annoying and made for a carp race for me.

At the rate you were catching me I thought if I blinked I'd miss you coming past, then you vanished again.

I couldn't get a handle on the car in qually, but in the race (on the same setup, same fuel even) it felt more comfortable, and I was soon chasing down JPS's Ford GT, which was really slow out of the slow corners (gearing issue?). The only corner I couldn't do was the uphill chicane before the final turn; I think I passed JPS twice before running off there and letting him back through until eventually I got a run on him out of the final corner and managed to stay ahead into T1 and then pull away.

Was then catching Spanner in dribs and drabs; sometimes a second a lap, sometimes nothing. Shark spun and was behind him for a few laps and that was helping me catch up, but when I finally got close enough to start thinking about a pass (and having gained another place from Evert's jumping 550) the rears passed into that evil 7 wear range where they turn to ice for two laps and I ran off, handing Evert his place back.

Still can't quite work the Aston out. I think it's actually fairly quick (especially with the tweaks in 2.9.5.1) but I have terrible trouble feeling the edges of grip when steering and end up either not steering enough or cranking on way too much lock and wrecking the front tyres. THe brakes aren't much better for feel.

Just a thought, but if low turnouts continue in GT1, could it be worth swapping it for a GTC sprint series next season? It would attract more racers and the racing would stay close and personal.   Shame, but the low turnouts always seem to happen to GT1 series, i guess because they are such demanding buggers to drive quickly, but footie was also on this eve so may have affected it.

I don't think the Lower Sprint is much better. We were down 3 tonight for various reasons and there was also some silly soccer match on which some may have been watching. Next season we will probably go down a different route, possibly even putting P&G in one of the Tuesday night slots.

[Prof]

A massive pb in qualification meant I was racing against people I consider much faster than me. True to form, I soon lost a place to Simon but was able to hang on behind him for a while. When the three leaders tangled I inherited fourth place and then third when Shark span.

The fast people were catching up though. Busi went past easily to take third and I allowed Hal to unlap himself as I was slower and he was politely waiting behind not wanting to cause an accident. This left Jose on my tail and I spent a fun quarter of an hour swapping positions with him - I think his brakes and my tyres were at the end of their lives and it made for an entertaining battle - I hope you thought it was a fair one Jose, good driving  

Fourth is a dizzying position for me even with only half a field present, I assume the draw of Arsenal and Man U proved too temting for many (Porto and Villareal too I'm sure)

Congrats to the three who finished ahead of me!

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart

[spanner]

A good time for me in qually and i thought i'd be up for a good race with MJ. But come the race it was a bit disapointing really. Looked back after my big moment in the first corner and i see MJ diving into the gravel, oh well. Thought i'd go with hards on the rear as i wasnt happy with the wear rate i'd seen practising but knew it would take a few laps to get up to temp but the rather low temps didnt help as i take quite a while before I was able to nail it properly out of the slower stuff which is how Evert got by early on and as he was warping a bit i thought i'd just let him by. Maybe it was the lower temps but i was struggling with grip everywhere and my times were nothing like what i'd practised before. By about half distance the fronts were knackered which i wasnt expecting. Valencia was always going to be a hard track for these cars especially the aston, looking forward to silverstone, always love that track.

Hmm its a shame the numbers are dropping, few seasons ago you'd struggle to get in before the limit But with PnG and Iracing taking people away its suffering. I hope the races dont die completely as i'd really miss it.