i7e Endurance Sundays Round 4 - Silverstone Historic GP - 18 September

[Toby Bushnell]

I'd like to race tonight please in the Ford GT if there are still spaces available?

Regards,
Toby

[Adam Parle]

I'd like to race tonight please in the Ford GT if there are still spaces available?

Regards,
Toby

The more the merrier.

Sadly I'm out - I ran some laps this afternoon and it was going okay, but I also went out for a 9 mile run and my knee is absolute agony now.  The last thing I want to do is to have to operate my pedals for a 90 min race

[JazzGreenway]

Sadly I'm out - I ran some laps this afternoon and it was going okay, but I also went out for a 9 mile run and my knee is absolute agony now.  The last thing I want to do is to have to operate my pedals for a 90 min race

That's why I never go outside

[Mahone]

That was interesting!

Sorry to Simon Trendell whom I span into then in my haste to get out of the way had a bit of a retard moment (sorry forgot name of driver I came into contact with)!

I was carrying damage from earlier hit with an HPD contact and perhaps should of quit out sooner....

Shame the front pack of Ford GT drivers didn`t keep together as we were all well matched for pace...

[C3PO]

Hi guys -- many thanks for hosting a fantastic race. I am v sorry to one of the Ford GT drivers whom I gave the closest of shaves entering the start/finish straight ... my apologies 

I would also like to thank all the Ford GT drivers for fantastic situation awareness of the HPDs approaching them ... every one I passed was a considerate driver and my thanks to all.

As for my race, well it was pretty unspectacular. Qualified 7th and dropped to 8th or 9th by lap two. By the 15th lap, I managed to get a wheel on the  grass at Abbey and hit the wall. Car felt bad but hobbled back to the pits to see what could be done. Thankfully, it seemed it was a puncture and some aero damage, so rejoined and did the best I could.

But then disaster. Three minutes (yes 3 mins) from the end I ran out of fuel enjoying a great little battle for 9th position.

C'est la vie.

Thanks again to all who took part and thanks for hosting.

[Andy Birch]

Definitely my most fun race so far this season.

Coming into the race I was the most comfortable I've felt yet with the car - aided my racing at a familiar track for once. Still surprised to have put it on pole - helped by Mr Walker not putting in a representative time. Guess you have to take these opportunities

I'd been able to run nice consistent laps in practice. But that was practice, and at the start of the race I was struggling to be as smooth. Was running the pace of the green cars of Simon and Jamie, but a couple of errors in the first stint dropped me quite a few seconds behind the pair. Another costly spin put back to 5th or 6th before I actually started to get it together. Wasn't sure who I'd be racing for position as the different fuel strategies panned out, but most the second half was a race with Simon G. After jumping me in the final stop, we had a great battle all the way to the line, changing position quite a few times -sometimes with help of traffic, sometimes with the help of gravel, occasionally with a little bit of skill .

There were a few hairy moments with the GT boys, hope I wasn't the cause of anyone's grief (I know I had one little bump).

Cheers all for a fun race, congrats to the FT-Ninecraft Racing crew for the 1-2, and Jasper for nailing the GT win again

[Gazza49er]

Sooo miffed with myself tonight.

Had a terrible Qually, never got a clean lap and i knew i could have got pole!

Start went ok and got my teamie of the line into turn 1 and just settled behind the 3 or 4 GT's ahead untill there was a coming together and me and Ted managed to come out 1 and 2. I started catching Ted and i got to close  

Had to tow and came out 19th i think. Started banging in some fast laps and crawled my way up to 4th in class which wasnt to bad but i really should have done alot better as i really got the car felling good round  here and felt really confident i  had the pace to win.

Grats to the LMP2 podium and Jasper for the GT win.

Lapping was generally good apart from a few hairy moments when LMP's try to go round the outside in Stowe  


 

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Very relieved to actually finish one at last, if a little disappointed not to be challenging for a podium when Shark and I were virtually inseparable on raw pace.

After another short run with the Silverstone fixed setup I decided I was just not going to survive 90 minutes (or indeed 10 minutes) with medium downforce and took the Suzuka high downforce setup that I'd felt so much more comfortable with and adapted the gears and diff to create a relatively safe setup. Got sixth on the grid despite qualifying on full fuel (was still setup tweaking at that point), but slipped behind Dmitry at the start.

The race itself was intense; a whole bunch of us running very close together up to my first stop; knowing how hard Silverstone can be on the front left I decided to start with a full tank and then take 38kg and (effectively free) tyres at each stop, on the half hours. I think it was an essentially sound strategy, but I came out of the second stop to end up bottled up behind Dmitry after some sort of off, which cost me any shot at being close to C3PO and Shark after the latter's late splash and dash.

In the end, after I broke away from Dmitry having passed him using a Ford to box him in I backed off a bit to make sure I finished - though I couldn't back off too much 'cause RikW was charging in at warp speed following what I assume was a stop and go for him after his first stop.

Good driving from all the GTs - the fast corners certainly produced some 'interesting' lapping situations, the most memorable of which all seemed to involve shooting gaps through cars into or out of Club. And a few round the outside of Stowe if the car was dithering about tracking to the outside.

Sorry to Ted for the move into Becketts that sent you through the grass - I misjudged how much speed you'd carry in there compared to most of the GTs and ended up with nowhere to go but through.

But then disaster. Three minutes (yes 3 mins) from the end I ran out of fuel enjoying a great little battle for 9th position.

Handy hint: turn the spotter on... then you'll know when you're running out and can splash and dash...

[Simon Gymer]

Nice shot there Andy. I must do a video or screengrab of me and Gizmo going side-by-side through becketts and maggotts early on which was so dicey, but awesome at the same time.

Wasn't sure who I'd be racing for position as the different fuel strategies panned out, but most the second half was a race with Simon G. After jumping me in the final stop, we had a great battle all the way to the line, changing position quite a few times -sometimes with help of traffic, sometimes with the help of gravel, occasionally with a little bit of skill .

I had no idea what I was doing with fuel as I'd not done more than about 5 laps in a row without falling off in this car before and the fuel manager thing doesn't do pounds or kilos. So I just did 2 full tanks and then approximately 50lbs on the last stint and no new tyres. Was very pleased to jump you in the last stop, but knew you'd be all over me like a bad rash. Was great fun passing and re-passing and the slower class made it very interesting (and hairy at times).

There were a few hairy moments with the GT boys, hope I wasn't the cause of anyone's grief (I know I had one little bump).

I was doing really well with the GTs as there was pretty good track positioning language going on until right near the end when I came across one into T1. It looked like he was giving me the corner so I went down the inside only to find the gap suddenly close and we touched and span off. As the one behind, obviously my fault, my apologies.

Might do that car again now. I had such fear of it as I just hadn't been able to drive it consistently. I won't be at the next race as I'll be moving home and without an internet connection, which is a shame as it's Spa. Then I have to put up with just 5Mb ADSL for a few weeks before Infinity arrives in my area. On VM cable at the moment so I suspect this will be a shock to the system after having such good internet for so long.

[purdie]

Cool pic!

Was just getting back from Inverness (or escaping whichever way you want to look at it  ) and missed the start...

Spa here we come!

[RikW]

After the first lap mess I caused at Suzuka, I decided to just set a slow qual time to put me at the back of the LMPs on the grid. My plan was to take an early stop if I couldn't get past enough cars to put me off strategy and hopefully make up a lot of time in relatively clean air. As a result I pitted about lap 13 and it might have worked too but just afterwards a GT car span at Brooklands and although I went more than wide enough to avoid him he slid across the track into me destroying my suspension. It's is really frustrating that people still haven't learnt to hold their brakes when spinning :'(

That extra stop effectively killed my race and after that I was taking too many risks until I calmed down, sorry if I scared any GT cars during this.

A big apology to Willeim for ending his race later on. It looked to me like you were giving me the apex and it was only too far into the turn that I realised I was mistaken. No excuses though, crap move on my part and I'm especially sorry to take out a driver who goes out of his way to help the faster cars. I need to work on my concentration in the latter stages of these races as this isn't the first time I've misread such a situation

Grats to Simon and Jasper for their wins!

[C3PO]

Silverstone always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling 



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[Andy Birch]

You're lucky. It's normally cold and damp

[Andy Birch]

I must do a video or screengrab of me and Gizmo going side-by-side through becketts and maggotts early on which was so dicey, but awesome at the same time.

You must have spent a fair bit of time brickin' it through becketts then - this was one of the moments I remembered during our battle towards the end of the race....

[Andrey Zotov]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=150dtAs63nU

Here is video about my race and some events near me