UKGTR Season 11 - Barcelona (GP) - Dec 13

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Very disappointing result for me after a really good performance in qualifying. Race started okay but once the rain came my tyre temperatures plummetted and I had little choice but to put. Fuelled up too and if it had stayed wet I'd have been laughing, but as soon as the rain stopped I was in the same position as Shark, miles off the pace and with badly overheating tyres. There simply wasn't enough water to cool them down the straights so I had to pit again for slicks, which put me two laps down and completely out of contention.

After that the car just never felt quite right; I managed one 45 which was the second fastest lap of the race in GTC, but it was so inconsistent whenever I started pushing that I had at least 4 or 5 offs and stood no chance of a decent result. :'( I think maybe I needed more ride height to cope with the fuel load, but it felt okay in practice.

Very disappointing.

Am I right in thinking that if you don't select a setup when the session changes to race then you get stuffed in the default?

Don't think so - normally you get whatever you had in at the end of qually. With the change in weather the car can feel quite different though.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I suck at tactics, but I like to suck Tic Tacs.

[jpv]

The race didn't start too well for me, got distracted and didn't get a decent lap in during qualifying, and managed to spin myself off in the very first corner.

Of course hadn't checked the forecast before the race so the rain came as a total surprise. Figured I'd get in right away for wets to try and catch up, however so did everyone else and as I came in I had another car in my pitbox. Nothing to do but continue back out, which turned out to be lucky anyway since med slicks felt decent even during the heaviest rain, was just some seconds off my pace.

Had no idea where I was for the rest of the race, mostly just dodging the GT1's as usual, they either lapping, passing for position or unlapping. I guess Prof made the right call in the beginning and sneaked in second, but 1-3-4 is almost as impressive for the team.

[H@L9000]

Wow! Great race.

Fighting all race long with Jose and nsfast. Had about 3 corners door-to-door with Jose, nice.

Sorry to GTCs. I did a few very numpty moves.  
The pressure was destroying my mental state and I made a few bad decisions.

Sorry.

TT and Simon definitely surprised me with how early they went into the pits. The resident Team Psuedo rain expert, Reign Man, always said that we should wait until the lap times drop by about 10 seconds a lap before changing to wets. This info has served me well.

Did I lap you TT?  

Well done podiums, see you all next week.

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart

[ginsters sponsored]

then....SBG flashed me past so was just searching for the 'h' on the keyboard to flash back and my arm flicked the gear lever and threw the car in to 1st and the engine blew

Cwap, thought I might have been warping or something as I saw you pull off 

Tough but enjoyable race that. Decided to stay out as long as I could on slicks which proved to be the right decision. It was really tough at points, wish I was on soft/soft instead of med/med, but that effectively determined outcome of race.

GT gents were very good  Great result for Team KC. Hopefully get time to test some other GTC's to spice things up for next week.
 

[Prof]

Qualified second in GTC and finished second albeit a lap behind SbG and nearly a lap ahead of 57GT. I copied SbG and stayed out on Med/Med when the rain came and extended my first stint to nearly an hour.
I managed to avoid most of the carnage in the early laps and had an easy time in the second stint with the gaps being so large. Well done to the GT1s especially in the wet where your advantage wasn't as big as usual and to the podium winners and all finishers on a tricky evening.

[Truetom]

Did I lap you TT?  

Full report tomorrow.

Edit: Setup felt ok, Aston is much easier to do than Marcos. 
Weather service did a shot in dark as the forecast was dry. It got really dark and it hinted of more than a small shower but I was undecided. If I changed tyres early I could gain a lot - to do or not to do? While pondering it the pit entrance was already there and Shark swerved in. I followed like a sheep I am. Changed to hard wets and filled the tank, prepaired for a long wet period. Then it started to dry and tyres were getting HOT and the wet surface wasn't really wet to cool them down. Was losing loads of time, I think I was lapped by GTCs.
Like Shark I decided to drive until I could get to the end with the full tank, only Lister uses much less fuel. After pitting I had an accident, I think Picnic warped for a moment and I hit him and spun. Lost two extra places and got a suspension damage. Was driving a bit later behind Eddie Meyer then and he also warped, could hardly keep the car on track. Hope you two didn't have damage and extra trouble 'cause of this. Annoying.
Was catching Spanner then and his Saleen had enough grunt to pull away on every straight and we had a few close laps together. Well driven, Span - hope the pass wasn't too pushy.
Legzy was in front and when I tried to figure where Bob was (in front of Legzy) I promptly missed my braking point and almost collected Legzy. Went into sand but didn't lose too much time. Caught Legzy again and he decided it was safer to let me pass.
Gsi Bob was too far away to catch, so considering tactics mistakes from my team and warping troubles I have to be satisfied with my 9th place. But I'm not as I was thinking of a pody.

About the weather: ok, I have no objections to rainy races, love them. But clearly the difference between forecast and actual weather was too big in S11. Donington had wet forecast, the race was dry. Brno had snow forecast, the race was dry. Barcelona had dry forecast / partly cloudy and there was a shower which messed the things big time. I always tell my son to use his own head - I could have used this advice yesterday.

[goldtop]

Decided to go with soft slicks as things were looking a bit chilly, but it turned out that these were the right tyres to be on when the rain came and went, then came again and.........eventually all but dried up.

I concentrated on driving a steady and even paced race and hardly made a mistake. I had a fright towards the end when Lorenzo dicoed right in front of me which caused me to brake and swerve off track as I drove straight through him

I wasn't taking much notice of positions and I don't have xd set up to show all the drivers, so I wasn't really sure where I'd finished until the results were posted.

Congrats to both podies and finishers. Amazing drive once again by SBG and very impressive pace/consistency from Prof. Well done also to jpv for his 4th and to Eddie for completing what must have been a baptism of fire (or rain) after his break.

Great result for the Crawlers. Roll on Oschersbleedin whatever it's called

[Legzy]

Dry forecast, it started raining & looked stormy on lap 2. Going round the last couple of bends before the pits, car had a couple of little twitches already so pitted for HW's.

While I continued running till the end, that was the end of the race as the rain stopped once I got back out on track. We had a giggle about it on TS, as some hadn't come in yet

While my tyres melted, I briefly got my hopes up that I'd made the right choice as it once again started raining, but it was just a little light drizzle & hardly cooled my tyres. I knew I was loosing 5 secs per lap, so didn't even bother waiting till my fuel could last to the end. Pitted again on lap 10 & came out 2 laps down on the leader already

I don't mind at all that we had the rain, it's just a shame that we didn't see a bit more through the race...  I took a gamble with the early pit & I lost. Next time 

Well done to all the finishers, apologies to Dave for possibly 'the most indecisive lapping maneuver ever', hopefully I didn't get in others way as much as I came through.

p.s. Have you checked out the GT1 Team Championship... 4 teams currently very much in the mix

[spanner]

Seemed a few people were have connection issues, me and i think API got tangled up with Kidzer warping, nearly got taken out by the Spyker that got TT, while lapping someone there car seemed to appear inside mine!

Saw the mass exodus to the pits when it rained but thought i'd wait it out and see. Though it was pretty difficult on cold tyres and i dont think i was anywhere near the pace sadly but was catching those infront only to hit Kidzers warping car so spent a minute or so digging myself out of the gravel and a few too many spins from then on meant i was catching and passing the same cars lol. Interesting to have the field so mixed up with people coming through from the back.

Annoyingly i let TT past before my stop as he's bound to be quicker only to misjudge how long my stop will be and to come out in front of him by a few secs. Second half i was still struggling a bit and never really got under the 40's and had Legzy teasing me about having to do another stop but he managed to keep going, drat.

Saleen was interesting to drive but not sure i'll stick with it, might run a different car each race. More looking forward to the next season where i'll run GT2 and GTC!

Though i think half my problem is my wheel is playing up and likes to upshift randomly a few times so would end up in the wrong gear and have to downshift down the straights to get any acceleration! Its started a few weeks ago but havent noticed it in iRacing yet.Does anyone know about taking the DFP wheel apart? Dont really want to buy another wheel at this stage

 

[Clive Loynes]

...................Does anyone know about taking the DFP wheel apart? Dont really want to buy another wheel at this stage

 

Yup.  Done that and changed the upshift microswitch, which I bought at Maplin.

PM me your email address and I will send some pictures.

[Lorenzo Galluzzi]

Another awful race for me!

Qualifying was not so bad, i started from 6th position in the grid and was feeling good with the setup of my 550...
After 1rst lap the rain came on the circuit and i decided not to wait and changed the tires, i choose hard wet ones and think it was a mistake looking at my speed, then i choose intermediate tires and then changed again to dry wet, so 3 pit stops....a disaster...
After racing in no-man's land had a Ctd, second time this season...
I knew this would have been a training season for me, but i'm realizing it's really hard to get the hang of this sim....
I'm feeling like i'm loosing to much time in th pit, maybe i'm doin' something wrong....

Cheers

Lorenzo

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Its started a few weeks ago but havent noticed it in iRacing yet.Does anyone know about taking the DFP wheel apart? Dont really want to buy another wheel at this stage

I just map the shifters to keys using Joy2Key (or the Profiler), then the double hits go away. Every Logitech wheel I've ever used eventually had this problem - the switches just aren't debounced properly in the electronics.

[nsfast]

Fantastic race last night.

I got off to a steady start, gradually easing myself in to it until the sky changed almost straight to black.  Within one lap the track had changed from dry to wet. On the final two bends I noticed a number of cars going straight into the pits but decided to carry on for one more lap as tyre temps still seemed ok. This was a lucky break. I've made the same choice before at Spa and lost out. As the tyre temps kept up I knew very quickly that slicks were the best option and there was the chance of unlikely top 5 finish.

The rest of the race was one long fight trailling H@L and Jose, with some very close moments. H@L made a rare mistake in the last five minutes which gave me the opportunity to go past and at the end I was only a couple of seconds behind Jose on the final straight. That's as close as I'm likely to get to a GT1 podium. 

Great result for Supersonic Racing last night. The GT1 team championship is looking very close with four teams in contention.

Congrats to both podiums. See you next week.