UKGTR Season 10 Upper Endurance - Imola - Nov 1

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Bad end to a bad season for me.

Qualified two places higher than expected (i.e. 3rd from last in GT1), then Matt Rowe sneaked past after I slowed to avoid a car which had gone off ahead. That would've been okay but despite braking early for the final chicane I found myself hurtling towards the back of Matt's car. Locked the rears trying to avoid clouting him and face-planted myself into the barriers. No point pitting that early so I soldiered on, struggling to pass the GTCs and losing time thanks to the damaged front end. Face planted the barriers again lapping Goldtop.

Pitted as early as I could and kept my tyres on. It seemed like the only strategy which might pay off when a few laps later Matt exited the pits right in front of me, but my hopes were rapidly dashed when my rear tyres reached 10 and all my rear grip disappeared.

Kept plugging away hoping to at least not finish last but the final straw was just trying to stay out of the way of cars which were lapping me around the pit entry and ending up right in one's way - GSI Bob I think - and collecting him. Quit in shame and frustration.

I don't think I'll touch GT1 again. I just don't seem to be able to make those cars work at all.

[JonM_uk]

Well that was bad for me. Poor/bad driving from me from the 1st lap to the last I did.
Qualified well to take pole but come the race I think the lower track temps really made me suffer as I couldn't get the fronts up to temp and had quite bad understeer until the pit stop. The 1st stint I had a nice little fight with Busi but he just clipped my rear end after I half went off track. There really was no need to wait for me to recover mate you should've just blasted on but thanks anyway(especially with the Championship on the line), a true gent After that poor driving saw me spin/ go off track/get cut warnings/brake to late/hit the chicane badly but I had a couple of nice tussles on the way I had another 'cut the engine' message when my engine was already cut at the pitstop. I came out of the pits and got my final cut warning...Back to the pits. A couple of laps later I got my hand caught in my headphone wire and pulled my head around the corner span off and hit the wall. I couldn't take anymore and pressed 'Esc'   Bad night for me.
Hope you all had a good race.

[Jimmie]

Broke my PB with 0.4 or something, into the 1:48's

So I thought it would be a bit more of a comfortable race, but I was wrong
Blasted away first few laps but then I hit the sand trap so lost a place to Simon.
Chasing him was alright for a while but finding a point to overtake seemed impossible. Then later I was in the mistake after mistake rhytm again and Lazlow and Jose could pass me.

Thinking while losing all the time, should've practised with race fuel and tyres
Nonetheless I had quick laps cutting some lossed time and laps losing time. Second stint I was getting used to the car, less fuel so an easier drive.
In the end everytime I lost a bit it had to be compensated by well like 5 quick laps so was happy with 3rd position.

Nearing the end of the race I suddenly saw Lazlow behind me, stop&go's I guess. And a little later he was even another 20 secs added behind, bad luck!
I was lucky keeping it at 2 warnings, but it sure makes it an exhausting ride.

Anyway bit different story, same result, sadly not much fighting at all with Simon. You're just too consistant in the Morgan

[phspok]

Mostly a good race. sorry about the start of the 2nd lap Dave,I was being a cautious as I was close to Spanner's
rear going into the chicane, and he was probably being cautious etc etc. Was having some fun slowly catching Jure
who seemed to have some "erratic" lines   Had passed Spanner somewhere, but he was a bit quicker, so I
reckoned he had more chance of passing Jure than I did, so moved over to let him have a bash.
Some of the traffic was less helpful than normal, came off twice avoiding people.
Ah well, good race. Grats to pody.

[Joss]

Congrats Busi! Nice championship win, despite missing the first round (without that you woulda won it by miles). Well deserved I tried my best but it wasn't quite enough this time, but you were the fastest all year.
I've gotta explain to the boss now why I haven't brought home the UE championship - I'm contractually obliged to win it for the Sharks, otherwise I'm out on my ass... if I get sacked, can anyone offer me a home?  
Might be in the next season, might take a break...not sure yet.  

Finally, thanks Dave and Pete for running this great league, Prof and co for the tedious moderator reports and Simon for working on the team side of things.

Cheers All!  

[Prof]

Firstly sorry API. I was much quicker than you through that corner - nearly had you again on the next lap. Thought maybe I was nudged into you at the time although I suspect the replay will show otherwise.

CTD in qually meant I managed to replace a 1:50.xx with a 1:51.xx and lost some places.

Everything was set up for a fantastic finale - two seconds behind Legzy and seven minutes to go but it was not to be as I was nudged by a GT1 and got the dreaded stop/go.

Results are going to be close but I don't deserve much on that effort.

Great season, my best yet - well done to all champions, podiums, racers and admins.

[Prof]

Finally, thanks Dave and Pete for running this great league, Prof and co for the tedious moderator reports and Simon for working on the team side of things.

I shall speak to the mods about making their reports more entertaining 

Don't even think of going away from TS either - once a Shark.....

[Simon Gymer]

Dunno where to start.

Managed a decent enough 1:50.8 or something in qualifying early on, but knew from offline testing there was more in it. Hadn't done below 1:50 in testing, but I knew I it was possible. Somehow I managed one of those banzai laps and I dipped below 1:50 to take 2nd on the grid with only a couple of minutes left. I think that has to be one of my best qualifying performances all season and it made my race tbh. Jimmie in the Spyker was too quick in qually and I knew I wouldn't beat his time, so all I wanted was to get ahead of Lazlow to give me a chance in the championship battle.

Going into the race Lazlow was leading by 2 points and I knew if Lazlow was in the place behind me I would have to win to take the title, because I missed one round due to family activities so level points would see him crowned due to 1 more race attended. Jimmie being in first wasn't ideal therefore, but I was hopeful he would take longer in the pits or make some mistakes like at Magny Cours.

Race got under way and the first few laps were very quiet for a change with the cars spaced nicely out in GTC. However I couldn't really see where I was going very well because each track segment would flash on and off from the car headlights behind. It was so distracting that I just couldn't see where some of the braking points were so I was braking conservatively and not lapping very quick.

Jimmie led for a few laps but then made an error which let me through into the lead and eventually Lazlow too. Battled then commenced between the two championship rivals. As the temperature of the track dropped lower and lower my medium tyres were just dire and I was struggling 2 seconds off the pace I could have been doing. Lazlow was sitting right on my tail as I was clearly holding him up, but he couldn't get close enough to make a passing attempt and I was really unsure what to do at the pit stops. Leave mediums on or switch to soft tyres.

Well I decided to switch to softs as I really wasn't comfortable driving an car on what felt like rain and so I left it 1 or 2 laps later than I would have done to stop for tyres and fuel. After the pits I hammered the car trying to make sure Lazlow didn't jump me in the pits. Unfortunately some of the lappees and GT1s decided otherwise and the lap before Lazlow pitted I lost 4 seconds in one lap so all my hard work had gone to waste. Lazlow came out of the pits 3 seconds ahead and I was very annoyed at losing the lead because of other cars.

So, the red mist came out and I was driving like a demon possessed to catch Lazlow. I think within 3 laps I was right on his tail and with the extra grunt of the Morgan I made minced meat of his puny BMW.

After that it was plain sailing as Lazlow couldn't keep up with my soft tyre shod Morgan and he eventually had to pit twice again afterwards.

Have to say Imola was a really really hard circuit to drive the Morgan at. It's so stiff that it doesn't really make friends with curbs, but at Imola you have to use a lot of curb, so I was really pleased at the result. My offline testing showed I could do 1:50.0 in the BMW Z4 without too much bother, so I really was worried that it could go quite a lot quicker than the Morgan.

Congratulations to Lazlow on a great season, sorry for pipping you at the post. Yet to see the final standings but I'm pretty sure Team Oldie will have just had enough to retain their lead in the GTC team championship, so congratulations on that, a job well done. Hopefully Prof has managed to keep 3rd in the drivers, but I think that one is going to be very tight as I'm not sure on the points everyone got. Either way a great season for Prof, so well done.

In GT1 I hold my hat off to Busi who has done what I've done to Lazlow and pipped the previous leader (FreQ) at the last, so well done on the championship win Busi and hard luck FreQ, but a great season in the challenging Viper.

P.S. Joss you can't quit, you can only be fired at Team Shark, so you're not going anywhere!

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart

[Busi]

1st stint I had a nice little fight with Busi but he just clipped my rear end after I half went off track. There really was no need to wait for me to recover mate you should've just blasted on but thanks anyway(especially with the Championship on the line), a true gent

Yeah that was an unfortunate incident, when I saw you running slightly offtrack I went for it, when you came back in I had no time to react, shame but I always prefer to wait

Apart from that, my race was good fun. I'd had zero practice for this one and came into qualifying still having to work on setup and strategy. My quali time was no good (even my race fastest lap was better ) and started in 5th. Passed Gazza and TT early on and started the pressure on Jon in 2nd. With the incident we were down some places but I made another comeback. After the pitstops I got up to 2nd (starting on 100 lit worked again ) behind Jayblue. But damn he was soo fast! At the time FreQ was 3rd so it was not enough for me to clinch the title, but I saw Gazza was catching him so kept going in 2nd hoping for a crucial overtake which looks like happened

Grats Jayblue, as I said your speed and consistancy was really amazing. And well done FreQ, putting the Viper up there consistantly on the podium is not easy. Just one point made it though

Grats to Shark as well on the GTC title

And thanks of course to all those who help making these racing series possible  

[H@L9000]

Nice race.

I had lots of battles in the first 25 mins and was trying to catch TT in the last 20 mins. Nice 3 way battle at the start with Jure and Spanner. Then had a good fight with nsfast. Jon M got stuck behind me for a while. I did not want to let that place go easily. Toward the end of the race TT took a stop and go and I was ahead (5th place i think) but I got a stop and go and gave the position back to TT. I just could not keep up after that and made a few mistakes.

Sorry for the contact Prof.

Great season. I have really enjoyed the Viper. I am sure that it improves the skills overall to use a car like that. I may use it again next season. Well done podiums, FreQ in the Viper. That's good driving in the Viper and I know! Well done TT, getting 3rd overall in the Marcos!!! Incredible!

Thanks for all the work from the organisers and see you all next season.

Team Pseudo are coming back to win this thing next season!

[Truetom]

Couldn't get anywhere near my pb, was half a sec slower in Q2 and whole sec in race. Despite that and despite the fact that I had one half spin and several smaller mistakes and a stop&go I'm quite satisfied with 5th place. Never do better in Imola (darn chicane) and I'm especially glad I got to do it in Marcos. Like you said H@l, I'm amazed. Not at my achievements but over the Marcos' potential. I wouldn't be able to score better in any other car in the present championship company and I think I can say that Marcos is a totaly legitimate car to race. I'd be very disapointed if no drivers are taking it in the new season, seems like sbg is my only hope. And I dare call chickens all that are in the same car season after season. And calling out for new mods.

Anyways, third overall in GT1 class, yay!   Bad luck, Gazza, you missed one race too many.
Grats to League podys in both classes and thanks to organizers and moderators.

Special thanks to all who made driving the Marcos possible and all who contributed in the helping thread https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=6514.0 (how can I hide all this behind one word? ) and finaly tweaked the car to make it happen.    

 

[goldtop]

I put in a lot of pracci for this one and had the Z4 running really nicely - even sussed out that top chicane which had always been a PIA in previous races. A little disappointed with my quali time which was about 1 sec down on my pb, but was caught up in GT1 traffic in my 2 faster laps.

Race went well for the most part. Early on I was ahead of Prof and API but was put under pressure as they reeled me in. I finally succumbed at the last chicane which I misjudged and was collected by Prof; totally my fault and I hope it didn't cause you any damage.

The rest of the race was spent avoiding the GT1s and enjoying the sunrise until I unexpectedly got into a battle with Jose in the TVR. Looked like he was having difficulty at one point and I managed to pass, though he came back at me for a close 5 or 6 laps to keep me awake to the end.

Glad I made the swap to GTC mid season and will be sticking with them assuming of course S11 follows a similar format. Congrats to both champ podies and to the work put in to organise and moderate

[Legzy]

I didn't have the most exciting race as I never got to attack or defend anyone over the whole 80mins (unless you count making sure the gap back to Prof stayed at about 2.5 secs).

It's been a season of two halves for me. In the 1st four races I managed three 3rd places & one 2nd... I started to believe my own hype that I could drive anything (Note for future: Ignore the voices in your head ) & so I swapped from the F430 GTC (which is fine, just not as much fun as its GT2 version) to the 997, quickly realised that unless you can left foot brake you're likely to get yourself in trouble pretty quickly in that. So after one race I took the 20% points penalty & swapped to the F360, convinced I could cure the "rear-end coming round randomly" problems... I couldn't & again I took another 20% points penalty & swapped to the Viper... where I've stayed to finish the season. Not entirely sure I deserved to pip Prof to third spot in the Championship, as he seemed to get better as the season went on. I look forward to driving against you next season buddy.

I am more pleased to have contributed to help Team Oldie (Lazlow, API, Blunder & myself) to secure our second UKGTR2 Team title of the season (congrats to team Shark on the other two team titles available). Well done to Simon on the GTC title, we thought Lazlow might have had you there for a few mins. Congrats to Busi too.

Thanks to Dave, Picnic & Prof particularly for all the admin work that I now have some understanding of.

But like Ginsters said, roll on 'Season 11' (in your own time Dave )

[Clive Loynes]

Hmmm........... Interesting

Was 3seconds off my PB simply because I didn't make a good enough job of the three laps where I was left alone by GT1 space ships at warp factor 9.

Never did see what the visual indication of the speed limiter might be as I was too cautious about running flat out into the pack.  Apologies to the late GT1 entry who was obliged to follow me.

Passed some cars in the gravel but they soon came past again.

Quite like the Z4 and would have enjoyed chasing after Tudor but once the GT1 cars started to lap me I was in totally uncharted territory.  I had no idea who was coming up behind and the difference between the two classes was a case of "Where will he catch me and shall I let him through before that?" to "Bugger, where did he come from?"

Towards the end of the race, my frame rate went weird, bordering on a freeze, which put me into the gravel.  When I dug my way out the problem had cleared.

I appreciate that I have no experience from which to draw on to compare the relative merits of single or mixed class GT racing.  But mixed class racing sucks! 

I have downloaded all the monster files for P&G and will have a look at that.  You do that on a Tuesday, which may save a divorce, but the down side is that I get the impression that setups are like hens teeth. 


Anyway, thanks for letting me play and apologies to anyone who found me in a corner not going fast enough.