USA G2: Oschersleben

Woohoo .. Highest ever finish P2 ..

Congrats to winner Tom G for making 1 set of tyres last!

Got a Good quali lap in, not the best but was happy.
The start was a little crazy, Agustin seem'd a little unsure of where he wanted to be for T1 and I had to yeild early to avoid complication, this put tracey sniffing on my lift inside, and David F on my right, I still had track position in my opinion and tracey tagged me, thus pushing me out and putting david in the kitty .. that was never going to work out.

Then I was stuck behind Agustin and Rob for a few laps waiting to find the best place to pass, Rob lost it at T4 all the while Tracey was causing all kinds of havoc behind, almost wiping out both Agustin and myself at T2 .. I was pretty nervous with him behind me... Once I got passed Agustin and in P1 managed to pull a slight gap but dived into pits for stop as planned. It was a nice fight back up the order my last oponent being Agustin again for 2nd. Tom just had enough to take the win..

Nice race

Started 20th in the Mosler, gained a few positions in the T1 mess. Played it careful for most of the race. Took care of my tires. Let some of the BMW's pass me. A few laps from the end, and my tires weren't reported as worn yet, but I was definitely experiencing a loss of grip. Caught me off guard in the Triple corner, ran wide, and Barry's Mosler got thru. Good drive, Barry! On the last lap I got all squirrely in the last couple corners, and Steve and George got right on my tail for the fight for the last two points positions. Managed to just hold on to 14th down the straight for 2 points. Tough, tough race! Can't believe I'm still on top of the standings. :) Congrats to Tom.

What a race! i really enjoyed it.

first 5 or so laps was really hot with cars all over eachother. I was just lucky to keep my nose clean and made no mistakes. I hung in 4th for a while and could match the top 3 guys, but could not better them.

I had no unplanned excursions the whole race, so that helped me out.

as guys left to make their stops i found my way up to 2nd, then saw 1st dive into the pits. I then got a 'tire warning' from my crew chief the next time by. So with 11 minutes to go i had to make my Medium Fronts and my Hard rears last the race (my original tyres). When the boys were back up to speed they were catching me. I had 20 sec lead to nurse.

in the final 15 seconds or so i came onto the front straight.....i decided i had enough of a buffer to cross the line once the time had expired. I really didnt want to risk doing another lap on those tires.

I thank all the guys who around me kept a clean race, and if they went off they showed caution when coming back on the track

TY and thanks R2P

That was a lot of work, but just as much fun. Came away with zip to show for the effort, but no matter; the racing was excellent!

After a couple of OK X-G2 outings in the Porsche, I thought I'd try the BMW again to see how it would go. Bad idea as it happens; for some reason I just can't seem to get along with the thing. Weird since it's generally a neutral car.

Qualified 12th on mediums using a set from Magny Cours with lowered gearing, but figured to run hards in the race and not stop, since that's what I'd been doing with the BiTurbo. Thought that would do it, but found out otherwise! My fuel load was plenty though; about 20L too much actually.

Started conservative and watched as Tom O went flying through the bunch into T1. Thought he caused the mess there, but saw later it wasn't him; he got through clean and picked up about 7 spots by T2 - just a super start. I on the other hand, fell back about 5 spots being cautious, then got 6 back tiptoeing around the carnage in T1 - up 1 spot on net.

The first half of the race was great - close traffic ahead and behind, and little to no room for error. Just plain good racing. Made it up as far as 7th, but got out of shape trying to squeeze under Tom's Mosler for 6th and lost a bit of ground. Then I got sideways in front of Augustin and got myself spun when he got into me. After that my tires started to really get used up and my laptimes were going north fast. Had no grip at all and it was all I could do to stay on track. Was thinking I hadn't used that much opposite lock since GPL days! ;-) That's kind of been the thing with the BMW for me, it's always either under or oversteering, so one end or the other is sliding and I never can figure out how to just make it stick.

Got the tire condition warning with nearly 13 minutes still to go, and since I was lapping over 4 seconds slower than earlier in the race I pitted rather than trundle around being a hazard. Had already had enough close calls and some contact from trying to hang on to it. Was much improved on new tires and I caught Heinz and Augustin and watched them duke it out for the podium spots. Once they'd sorted their spots out, I went by Augustin since his tires were shot and I was hoping to move up for some points. Didn't make it far though, as I ran out of time.

Looks like my secret plan to stay out of the top 5 is working! ;-)

What I thought was going to turn out to be a disaster...well, turned out to be a disaster.
I had problems right up until the start of the race with my wheel, had to change my .plr file at the last minute. It did feel somewhat better but not like it should. I qualified a little better then I expected, 16th lol right phew.
Race starts and knowing there was going to be something going down in T1, I still could not avoid the mayhem, after George Pol slightly got into I think David all the checking up in the world could help me and I get into the side of George. That wasn't so bad, got out of there and started racing. I had some awesome laps with Mark Carty, real good driving Mark, enjoyed every minute and my teammate Francesco. Who should not have changed to hard compounds right b4 a race!! Shame on you! :)
I made my way up to 7th behind Francesco but could not find the right place to pass, then stalking his rear for a lap too many the posse was right behind me and thats when disaster struck. Going down the short straight in mid track, I'm just setting up for the esses and bump, I take a good shot in the rear to take me off line and into the runoff. Not so bad I guess, the driver slows to allow me back on track and off we go.
Making it back up to the 7th 8th and 9th position again, right in the thick of things with Mark Carty and my nemesis battling me on worn tires! As he tries to defend one spot he has to use all the backyard and comes spinning out in front of me and you guessed it up on my side. David Fish barely makes it by a close call for him. Now unfortunately and I should have mentioned this earlier, BIG apology to Brian Shrock, real sorry guy, I was seeing Tweety birds after the hit and did not see you coming. I made a poor decision but all I could do was roll off the track, sorry I ruined your race car.
Well that put the car in rehab, then I get the famous drag out of the TS room to hear from the gods above! Halalluha... I am victim of the 1st lap "punt" rule and penalized a lap. whomp whomp whomp. Good call by the officials, but I had no place to go.
So until next time, my "target" BMW is in for new paint and will be ready to go!
Excellent driving podium finishers, some outstanding lap times.

That was a fun race. Heinz, I actually got "assisted" off the track at T4 while making a move for the lead -- but Augstin had the inside and I was on the outside, it was door to door so it was just a fair racing incident.

After recovering from the T4 shunt, I had worked my way back up the field. I had no pit strategy (once again) which really screwed me -- I was hoping hard/hard would last the entire race and I had enough fuel for it, but with 19 mins left I got the warn tires...ugh, game over. I came back out in 18th (took on fuel I didn't need).

Got stuck behind Tom O's Mosler and Tom O is no easy person to pass -- we had some door to doors, but I was lapping almost 2 seconds faster than his handicapped Mosler so I finally got around him, but it was good fun.

Yet another race that I had to salvage, bad pit strategy and letting myself get stuck on the outside in a door to door.

@Gregg Mulgrew

Don't sweat it, I've raced with you before and I know you would never have done that on purpose. Besides I have done that too, I guess every now and then that kinda stuff happens, even if we do try hard not to do it.

My pace was horrible, I was extremely slow. My only focus was staying out of trouble and trying not to get in anyones way...

I totally suck at anything in GTR2, I need to figure this out.

Yuck what a nasty race. And I'm still top 5 :( What does a guy have to do?

I qualified as best I could, 13th, and I got what had to be the best start in GTR2 history. I was in 6th by the time we were out of turn 1. I was going up and down in the field, running as high as 5th and as low as 8th. Everything smoothed out eventually and I started falling slowly, as expected, to the BMWs superiority. This Mosler is ROUGH. Not my idea of a good drive when your up against this G2 crowd. But anyway I made my pitstop after running the wheels off it in the first stint, trying to do everything I could to stay in front of as many people as I could. My stop must have been bad, or my pace after the stop because I only made it back to 11th. Congrats Tom, Heinz (finally 2nd dude!!!) and Agustin

Now...I'd like to have a word with the faster drivers about a little thing I like to call patience. Look, the bottom line is, the Mosler is not a fast car, and neither is the Morgan. And sometimes, the driver you've just come up on isn't as fast as you. You ARE going to go by, and you ARE going to have the opportunity to go by cleanly. So why, WHY do you, every single one I came across, insist on doing it NOW? I got ZERO respect when I was trying my very best and then some just to stay on pace, or close to it, and I got nudged by almost every car that went by. And not everyone is guilty, and those who did do it cleanly thank you very much. But, Why? It got to the point with one of you that I went flipping into the air, while you drove on to take out yet another slower driver. So, all I'm asking is, don't be a dumbass. It's simple. Like I said, you're gonna go by and you can do it cleanly. Just wait 1 more corner. And if not then, 1 more. Simple, no?

Not the best race for me, gave up two spots at the end.I changed 4 tires, but the last two laps the car would not turn in anymore.
Tom, I followed you for several laps & waited for an opening and'or a mistake to make a pass. So not every BMW did you wrong.

Sounds like you ain't happy Tom O. Sorry if I pissed you off. But I did take a look at the replay before posting and as I was on the inside and we were side by side, I had the corner. Clean racing is a two way street. If you felt everyone was doing this to you, you might want to ask yourself why?

When I was running the Mosler at Magny, I'd let the faster car go and did not make it difficult. When your handicapped with a car, you just have to take the pill and make the best of it.

As for the car that collected me, he had some issues at that corner and was on the racing line at a VERY slow slow slow speed -- you know that corner, there isn't anywhere to go once committed.

But I'm open to input and if you think Tim needs to be involved in the replay, I'd certainly be happy to try and learn from this.