Endurance Championship Division 1 - Season 1, Round 9, Estoril - Nov 6

[Truetom]

Well then, just make sure the dice falls right... 

I decided for 1 stop.

3 stops, ha! I'd like to see that. And don't forget to refuel each time! 

[fozzmeister]

praccy server up

[Don]

Well my race was nicely ruined for me on about lap 3.
Don

[codsworth]

Well lost connection in the end but had some fun while it lasted.

Getting better slowely.

Cheers,

codsworth

[Mark J]

I got punted off twice tonight, once by a lapping (impatient) GT car then by a backmarker being lapped 
I'm sure he just left his braking too late or panicked cos me and a GT car just passed him, so no problem...thats racing.
Problem was it was at the end of the start/finish straight so i was well and truly nubbed into the gravel. Would have taken me about a minute to get out of there so i retired.
Was running 4th of NGT with a fresh set of boots on too :'(
Ho hum, see you chaps at the next meet. 

[fozzmeister]

had a good battle with J Schmidt(spelling?) for the first 20 mins or so, he was quicker but made more mistakes. until he pitted (I didn't need to). After that I was in no-mans-land for the rest of the race really, till the end where I realised Locutos was catching FAST and I'd have to hold him off for 2 laps or so, unfortunately while I was doing the maths, I forgot about my braking point, stupid n00b error. Ah well another podium (3rd again) so its still OK.

[Simon Gymer]

Good race. Satisfying race and a good tussle with JonM near the end, but boy was that hard work.

I had left my brake duct on 3 from qualifying and sure enough after 15 mins of each of my race stints the brakes were overheating and I was finding it very difficult to get the car stopped for some of the corners especially T1. I had to adjust my driving by braking a bit earlier in a couple of places. Very cool modelling that, it really did feel like real life brake fade.

As usual I gained a few seconds in the pits with a well drilled pit stop and about 3/4 way through JonM made a mistake ahead of me and I passed him then we had an excellent tussle where I tried in vein to keep his faster (and better braking) Lister behind me. Confusion with a back marker gave Jon the opportunity into T1 and he took it, but he was slow out of T1 and through T2/2a and I took him back into T3. Great stuff. A few laps later and Jon had me on the start finish straight into braking into T1 and that was that. Brakes were a real problem and I wasn't going to contest outbraking into T1 with fading brakes. Well played Jon.

Well done Blaz on the win, I'm amazed that you managed Mediums the whole race and no pit stop. No chance of doing that in the Lambo as the fuel consumption is silly.

[Blaz]

Had solid quali (3rd).
In T1, Truetom jumped on 3rd, tryed to pass him back and i touched him (sorry), than i was following Shark, spin on pass atempt, was 4th and i was closing Rich, after 35 min i decided not to pit, start to drive easy to finnish. My 1st in enduro. Thx.

[Minton]

Nightmare race, sorry Jonzo i thought you were gonna let me through on the left hander but i should have waited, really sorry mate!   Dont know who i hit going through the kink but the car was invisible nothing i could do. Finally i was break tested by Jerama or what ever his name is about two laps from the end, no need buddy! but as they say what goes around comes around.

[Jamera]

Hmmm, strange race for me, I hate that track, never been able to any sort of decent lap times or consistancy. Quallified well down the order about 19th i think and decided to just drive well within my limits tonight and see what happened. Was really surprised to find that apart from one little error ( selecting neutral by mistake then spinning when trying to get back into 3rd   ) about 5 laps from the end I didn't have any dramas at all. So all in all, on a circuit I don't like I'm fairly pleased with the result

[greg130]

Bit of a lonley race for me in the BMW, qualed in 18th and finished 12th, 1st in class which is always nice.
Good to see 4 Pro Eco drivers on the track tonight, makes a nice change having been the only driver for such a long time.

[Mike Wrightson]

Hate Estoril

Tried to go non-stop.  No problem on fuel, but the tyres went off big-time after 45mins.  I used hard rears and medium fronts, but the rears seem to be the first to go    so from a nice balance at the start I finished at a crawl with an oversteering monster!

Spun 3 times when the rear decided to lock up on a downshift.

Need to think again about setups, this is just not working 

[JonM_uk]

had a decent run in qually and the race.
Make a few mistakes but was expecting that tbh, After I pitted and the race panned out I could see it was going to be tough to catch the leader as it looked like he might not be stopping, so I prayed that he would and when he didn't I decided I had to go for it, this probably would've been a good plan at any other track but at estoril I find it hard to find the limit. The off happened soon enough and that put me behind Shark, thought I might have burned out me tyres but they seemed to be undamaged from the off. Really enjoyed the racing with Shark it was the first time that I'd diced with someone for a while   Glad to have finished 2nd in the end 
12 points difference in the champ with just Monza left. So close   should be a great showdown, looking forward to the battle  
Don't know where truetom finished the race in the GT class but if it's 7th or I think the Team Championship for Ze penguins is wrapped up, But We'll have wait and see....
Big Congrats to Blaz and Matjaz on thier 1 stopper winners, Zelo dobro    Great driving on a track that seems to eat up my best setup's.

[Rich_A]

Got a PB out of racing here this week 25.8 but couldn't manage that in quali.

Not so great start which I think is caused by pole going really slow over start/finsih line - you can go whenever you want you know even out of last turn full throttle only can't overtake before start finsih.. bunching up like causes chaos.

Cause of strange start I was in 5th, there's always one that flies through in T1.

Had a good run with you Blaz and Shark.. Blaz spun it but kept up, then you pitted Shark and then I pitted with about 15mins to go. Pit crew fixed damage that didn't exist and I forgot to fill can up for first stint so extra fuel cost me a position maybe two.

[Jakob_Schmidt]

It was always going to be tricky for me on this track: I just couldnt get it smooth enough to do the whole race on one set of tyres. I tried using hard for the rears, but found that after 1/2 hour they became worse than the mediums , so only option was to pit.
 Formation lap seemed wonky and far faster than normal and at turn 3 after the start, there was a pile-up, picking off Matjas.
 I was following Fozz closely had a couple of sniffs, but got the doors slammed hard once and braketested another, so had to use a GT car passing to get past him. I was then slowly pulling away, before losing it at the chicane, a place where I was normally reasonably safe (And this track has thrown me off lots!).
 I lost concentration after that and never got a steady string of laps together. Pitting put me far behind, but I hoped for mistakes up front. They did happen, but I wasnt anywhere near close enough to even see it.
Mysteriously, I had to go for a Splash'n'Dash with 6 minutes to go. I do set up my pitstops for it just in case, but it still puzzled me a bit, as I thought I had it well covered and pitted halfway through on time. At that stage I was 20 seconds behind and had a minute to the following car, so it didn't really matter.
 I enjoyed driving the Mosler, though and hope to use it again at Monza.

Jakob