I think Hristo has a point regarding our team. If we have assembled a team and that has been posted as such any last minute changes should be the at the discretion of the captain ( which does of course mean that he has to stay "in chat" until the whole team has joined the circuit) Any reserves can then be poached by an opposing team if they require topping up.
I do not attach any blame or criticism to Dave or those who were were involved in the seat swapping last night as we had not formulated any clear guidelines on this subject so they were only doing what they could to provide a full grid of two teams.
But, as Hristo says, other leagues do take these events far more seriously and with greater preparation than we do. I am positive that UKGPL has the ability to take on any of the leagues we have so far challenged and raced with a good chance of victory, but we do need to field our strongest available members and be as prepared as we can be. Confusion over who is driving what car and for which team during qually is distracting for ALL drivers, after all we do need to be sure whether we are racing the guy in front or is he a teammate??
Maybe we need to draft some internal guidelines for the UKGPL team along the lines.... that the published team will not be altered unless the captain deems it necessary during pre race chat and once a full team has entered qually there will be NO alterations. Only then can "reserves" be drafted into the opposing team if they so wish.
So to the race itself.
After our Saturday evening "team practice" where a few of us ran laps at Albi I was not entirely happy with the Honda setup that was understeering badly. Given my woeful lack of points in this series I was absolutely determined to finish this race even if it meant staying in 18th place!!
I was busy through most of Sunday but snatched a sneaky hour on track to tweak the setup and finally managed to dial out the understeer and gain drastic oversteer instead... a half way compromise in settings eventually gave a predictable response.
Tried Igor to find GPLracer had a server running with someone called Paulo circulating at 1:12's!!!!!!. without a tow. bugger!!
I did a few laps on full tanks but was only getting low 1:14's so retired to a private test session and further tweaking of setup but mostly braking points and lines.
Slowly the times crept down into the 1:13's so I was a little more confident.
Qually went well and a run with race fuel provided me with a mid grid slot. I tried to get a tow from someone but just was never in the right place at the right time :O(.
So I dumped a load of fuel and went out to try and gain a place or two ..mid grid sounded a trifle vulnerable knowing Albi T1 and DD have a habit of taking no prisoners on lap 1.
I was even slower than with race fuel, but I had been slightly compromised by other cars on each lap so I thought "ah well, just one more banzai lap, then back to a few mins on ful fuel" and Bingo 4th spot behind some very quick guys.
Just had to get a safe start and stay out of trouble in T1 which I did, although it allowed a couple of cars to sneak through on my inside.
That was ok there were 40 laps to go and I could easily stay with them with the slipstream.
Cold tyres caught me out at T1 on about the 3rd lap and although I went wide I was far enough ahead of the next car to rejoin without any damage.
By now John Roberts and Stu were involved in a dice ahead of me and I slowly reeled them in, until I was close enough to give Stu something to worry about and perhaps prevent him harassing John quite so much.
Then John spun and came to rest exactly where my Honda was planning to go! and we had a nose to nose meeting. Stu slipped through as we sorted ourselves out and gave chase. I kept a respectable distance from John as we slowly closed the gap to Stu allowing him to set the pace even though in clear air I knew I was about a second of a lap faster.
It would have been very easy to use the draft to pass John into DD on many occasions but I hoped that by just showing my nose in his mirrors he would get the message and push on.
I noticed Hristo disco and later we passed Stu on the side of the circuit which made us 3rd and 4th. I was hoping that we had a good many team members still running behind to collect points, as we were out of touch with 1st and 2nd spots held by Paulo and Paul. Alas it seems that there had been far more casualties than I had noticed.
With about 5 laps to go I decided that if I could make a clean pass without taking John and myself out I could move up to 3rd spot. a couple of times I backed out of the move when I felt it was only 70% until a small mistake by John exiting T1 gave me a near pefect tow and pass before the braking zone for DD. Because I hugged the inside line to avoid any contact with John, I had compromised my exit and he was able to pick up the tow.
I played safe for the braking into the next left hander, knowing that he would struggle to get past before the tight right hander onto the start finish straight. But John was obviously somewhat miffed to have been passed by a Honda and gently prodded me into a half spin whilst he regained his place
.
4 laps to go and he was now some 6 secs in front ( the despicable "cad"). Well, I adjusted my Fundoshi and tightened my white headband and deployed full red mist mode. I was closing on him but witout a mistake on his part I would not catch him. Still managed a 1:12 last lap in a do or die effort to get back to him.
Very pleased to have finally finished a race and score some points, disappointed that so many cars dropped out and that once again we did not fulfil our potential in terms of points.
I find that here really is a different mind set for these races and (other than the last few laps last night) I was playing the team game, intent only on bringing the car home and not attempting any risky moves that might take me or team mates off circuit. I was trying to help John early on by harassing Stu and keeping him off his tail and was hoping that Doni would close up from behind and pick up my slipstream.
During qually, having secured a good slot, I tried to give Will a tow but I think we need to practice that skill ( at least I do) because it seems that it is as easy to hinder your team mate through the corners as it is to tow him down the straights.
Grats to GPLracer for winning and to all those who made it to the finish.
