UKGTR Season 9 Upper Endurance (GT1/GT2) - Silverstone (GP 2000 ) - May 3

[H@L9000]

Amazing race! What a battle

I was lucky to get in the server after a CTD in practise 1. My audio driver kept giving me pop up messages which alt-tab'ed me back to desktop. After a few times I got a CTD. Hope no one went down with me   With headphones unplugged, I continued without problem, just getting the last place in the server at the time.

I guess my comments about shark fishing at the start put the Shark team into serious mode as I had no answer for their incredible pace.

Had a Titanic battle with TT and Gazza for almost the entire race (again  ). It was great fun. I laughed when I came out of the pit rite along side Gazza and TT. Nice one guys. The GT40 and the C6R are very well balanced against each other I think

Luck was on my side tonight but I still hard to work really hard for 3rd. Thanks to all GT2s. Nice work out there tonight. I was perhaps a little pushy at times. I think Spanner may have gone wide after I passed him at turn 1. Sorry mate

Gazza's car had a small amount of lag. It seems to happen to him when a large number of cars are present. What could cause that? It made the race a bit more interesting

Well done podiums. See you all on Tuesday

[Craske]

WOW what a race, qualified in 13th and was worried that i would have bad luck for the race. found my way to 9th after all the carnage ahead of me, had some amazing scraps with nsfast and jure, seemed like i was racing one of them two for the whole race.
Well done to nsfast for the sheer amount of pressure he put me under in the final laps any more and i would have buckled i think.

Anyway really really pleased with 8th and congrats to the aliens on the podium

[Simon Gymer]

Sorry to Shark for messily letting you past late on but I was seeing all sorts of things thx to my graphics card and it didn't make it easy.

Did you? Really didn't notice anything messy. All GT2s were good as normal letting me past. Was scared from time to time when people wanted me to go through at corners like bridge when I was actually happy to wait, but no incidents so thumbs up to everyone.

Well done to Joss on the win, he was mighty mighty fast (over a second faster than his nearest rival, which tonight was me). He was cruising in the race despite me driving flat out and we slowed right down for a formation finish at the end with our lights ablaze waving at our pit crews for a much needed 1-2 finish.

The Lister was a dream tonight. It was so easy to drive at a circuit I really don't get on very well with, I just hope it will be that nice at Oschersleben next, but it's a completely different type of track so could be a very different story.

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart

[Craske]

Anyway really really pleased with 8th

Could have sworn i crossed the line before nsfast?... was i given a penalty?

[nsfast]

Anyway really really pleased with 8th

Could have sworn i crossed the line before nsfast?... was i given a penalty?

You did. Something seems to have gone wrong with your time for the last lap.

[Craske]

You did. Something seems to have gone wrong with your time for the last lap.

Oh well still had a really good time, was fun at the end with you in my boot 

[picnic]

Seems you cut the track on the last lap and this has confused the import code as you got a larger than normal lap time. You can appeal to Gizmo's better nature, however both his import code and AutoSim Analyzer gave the same result.

[Craske]

Seems you cut the track on the last lap and this has confused the import code as you got a larger than normal lap time. You can appeal to Gizmo's better nature, however both his import code and AutoSim Analyzer gave the same result.

oh o.k i never noticed. I'm sure its right tho.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

On seeing the server was full, and knowing I was going to be a total backmarker having done no practice save for Tuesday night's somewhat abortive race, I dropped out to let others have a chance. I joined again with about 4 minutes of qually left when Picnic decided he'd rather do some iRacing and let me race instead. Did a couple of out laps to see what the car was like on cold tyres, and settled down to start the race from last, behind my recently-appointed official nemesis of JPS.

I knew I would be tight on fuel if I took none at the pit stop, so I saved as much as possible on the pace lap and didn't worry too much about warming the tyres. After a nice steady start I was soon harrying JPS's Porsche, which was practising the common but ineffective discipline of "fast in, slow out" even more so than normal.

After a few laps he had a big moment in Club and I was past and streaking away after Matt Rowe's BMW, which was busy fighting Ade's Porka. At first I couldn't make any impression on him, but by halfway through the stint his tyres were obviously wilting and I spent the last few laps before my stops all over him like the proverbial bad suit. The GT1s were great during this period, sometimes sitting behind me all the way from Abbey to Woodcote whilst I worked to stay on his tail.

At half distance I was more confident that my fuel would last, so I ducked into the pits for fresh rubber only and came out on a clear track, which let me put in a bunch of good laps. Sure enough I jumped Matt by a big margin, but also Legzy, who I gather was not having a stellar ride.

Whilst this was going on the track temperature had started to rise a little and my pace was dropping off slightly. With 30 minutes to go I could see Legzy was really starting to close quickly. Not sure what happened but suddenly he dropped back a load and I had some breathing room, but I did myself no favours by getting distracted by a big gaggle of Ford GTs behind me and ran off at Priory, losing about 7 seconds, and once again Legzy was reeling me in hand over fist. Another two laps and he'd have had me for sure but thankfully the race ended and I'd made up for last weekend's disappointing performance at Brno by thrashing JPS.

[Mcfids]

An excellent 7th place for me tonight from a grid position of 12th and the honour of actually finishing on the same lap as Freq (of Nature)!!

It's great that this league has lots of mini battles with drivers of similar ability; my nemesis's are nsfast and craske. There is nothing between in lap times which makes it a lot of fun. Managed to sneak by nsfast on the 1st lap after he ran wide, but he was on my tail and keeping me honest for most of the race.

Only had one slight excursion when trying to negotiate a back marker - my fault there - otherwise it was just grinding out consistent laps. Btw, all the GT2 were top drawer when being lapped. 

Congrats to the podiums and it was good to see a full grid, although it was a shame that there were drivers that missed out.

[Jure]

Had no idea what to write about before thoroughly checking the replay. More to follow. Admins do read this please. Very peculiar problem, I have no idea what happened.

Quali went very well... position wise, had no clean lap or traffic free one but was happy with grid spot albeit a bit disappointed knowing the potential (am still rusty so it felt good to be at relative front of the grid ).

Fell asleep at the start, then got a traditional nudge on lap one so I fell back to P12 or something, climbed back to 10th, then it all went very bisare @ 2047 s of the replay, when I fell back from 12th to 21st (in an instant  , was still 12th). My position changed later on without making any passes at all - as in on clean track position changed. In reality still running 12th the whole time all the way to the pits. Lap 17 states I did a 3:41.698 lap time. Weird.

Raced on with no idea what's going on but had a hunch (pits came and went) I'm in 10 th or so. Which I was. Server thought otherwise so I was in constant danger of being blackflagged while actually racing for position (when I made the below passes).

Made "unlapping myself" (or so the game thought) passes on nsfast (3230s of the replay for 9th) and Craske at 4073s for 8th.

Later on Freq caught me, I let him by, then he immediately made a kack @T1 (his last lap I believe, for a moment I thought race is over, lol) so I unlapped myself and finished on same lap. For real, server probably considered I went from +1 to +2 and then back to +1 lap down. 





I love Silverstone. Apart for the nudge (which was a no biggie, racing accident, I was a bit slow on apex to begin with so no wonder it happened) problem and 6 positions loss on the first lap I had a great race, lots of action not to mention plenty of additional food for thoughts whilst racing.   

Was a bit frustrating following 6 cars knowing and seeing how much better race pace I had (was aiming for 6th or so  ) and was really enjoying throwing GT around through last sector. Loved it even, made 3 passes for position in that left hander that comes after right hander under the bridge.

It was a good challenge, my last race was on the 9th of March 2008. Tarzan happy. Thanks for racing guys and congrats to winners, was a blast.

[Truetom]

Welcome back, Jure. 

Was tempted to take Marcos for this event as I'm getting bored with the Ford. Can't get it to reach the limit. Marcos fascinates me but despite it's undisputable power I get laptimes at least 1 sec slower than with other GT1s. Might still take it, just for fun. It's engine sound is thrilling as well as trying to enter a corner. 

Race was so, so. As Gazza and H@l said we were together for the whole race, so this part was great. Tyre wear was huge, so I pitted 5 minutes before my planned strategic point. Was fumbling the keys to be fast, promptly forgetting to set more fuel then it was set.    Result was I got in front Gazza and H@l but had to shortshift for the whole second stint which resulted in losing two positions. Tried to be smooth but had a wobbly go through Becketts.    Even so I wasn't sure I'll get to the end, Jose was catching me (for the second time ) and in the end I finished with 0,6 litres of fuel. 

Too bad for MJ, I must say. He competes for UE GT2 pody and would be in much better position than he is now.    I saw many reports with "sorry" in it - let's be careful, eh? 

Gazza - your car was warping a bit, yes. Same as in LS. Was hard to judge where you were and when to have a go. In LS at Silverstone there were only 20 drivers so full server shouldn't be the cause of it. Hope it gets fixed.     

All in all it's nice to see a full server again.     Dave - an idea: you could disguise one of the test races as a Championshi race to get any results.       

TT

[spanner]

Well i was going to go with the Aston but it felt completely different from the sprint race and felt awful, can't believe how nice it felt 2weeks ago in the sprint So decided i'd go back to the only car i feel i can drive, the GT2 Porsche.

Wow, what a packed field loads more GT1's than normal it felt, must have been the biggest grid we've had as i surprised to see I was only in 22nd. Bit of a quiet race in the first half with Legzy and MJ speeding off in front and Blunder slowly dropping back but felt good as i was running with a full tank and only needed to top it up a bit when stopping. Decided to stop with about 25mins left and put on med/softs (started with hard/med) knowing i could push it a bit more on the new tyres and low fuel, however i think i spent too long messing around with the pitboard as i came out about 9 secs behind Blunder and got distracted trying to work out how he'd done it!

Quickly though managed to catch him up, but all of a sudden a load of GT1's came through which ruined any racing as i was able to go past as he let them through then suddenly found myself only 7secs behind Purdie but couldnt gain on him. I'm finding you cant let off your guard once with the porkas as they will bite back and i'd had a few moments already but on the last lap the back end came round after hitting the inside kurb at Stowe allowing Blunder through but i couldnt catch him on the half lap left. 

Good race guys, couldnt let off for a sec throughout.

[spanner]

Amazing race! What a battle
I think Spanner may have gone wide after I passed him at turn 1. Sorry mate

It was intentional, was trying to let you and the others behind you through quickly