Estoril 350k

I was running my probably best GTI-race so far until I found Nuno in my pitbox when I entered the pitlane for my last stop. I was running in 4th and had a lead of about 8 secs to Kent that didn't really change much. According to the laptimes the waiting for Nuno took 68 seconds. By the time I left the pit again I was in 8th with no way of getting back up front again. Unbelievable that this game can't handle 18 cars by giving them all their own pitbox. After that ... I drove like an amateur .... all the motivation was down the drain. That resulted in going too wide coming out of the last turn followed by a spin on the straight. All I wanted was to get out of the way asap but in the process Pete hit my car and just about managed to do an unwanted drivethrough. I'm sorry that happend Pete. That stunt dropped me to 10th. Terrible result after two great stints. Grats to the podiumfinishers.

Was surprised to be in 3rd after qually, as I was running meds allround and was a sec slower than PB.

Lost a lot after the rolling start as I was asleep :P. Some laps later one of the Saleens infront went off and I was in 2nd, with Ari right behind me. He was faster all over the track, except for the last corner, where I got enough room to survive at the straight.
Shamefully I got spun and dropped from 3rd to 7th, because I had 3 cars very close behind :).
Was hoping that my strategy would save me some.
Because of the crash I had quite some damage which lost me at the end of my 1st stint but also in the pits.
So when I came out I lost a place to Morisette. He came out side by side with me and was following around for my whole 2nd stint and was 6s behind when I pitted in for the 2nd time.
When I came out I was 1,5s infront of him and was slowly driving away from him, and I mean slowly. I really had to push hard.
I had trouble keeping all that torque of the Lister down with it's light weight ass :P.

Grats Ari, very impressive in the C5!

Really enjoyed that; my first outing in the Lambo and it held up really well, I should've double stinted my tyres really but there you go.

Had a great time keeping Mark McClean behind for about an hour until he jumped me in the second stop and then returned to the pits only to quit - not enough fuel or something else, Mark?

Thanks to the people I lapped for getting out of the way - sometimes above and beyond the call of duty.

I listened to the weather forcast at grid-up, which was for showers and went with a full wet setup with intermediates. What a mistake! After 5 laps I had no grip left and had to pit. But even on slicks, the car was just a brick to drive in dry conditions. Sorry to anyone I held up.

When I look at Ari's race and compare it to mine, they look almost identical... except for the first 13 laps while I was on wets. I stayed out that long because I knew after that I could make it with one more stop, but I lost about 90 seconds in those laps, which was pretty much the difference between me and Ari at the end. Bummer. At least I got to have a great battle with Charles for the last half hour or so :-)
Grats Ari, cya next time.

This is my third season of GTI, my first not in a Ferrari. Having never driven the Saleen in anything longer than a GTX event, and rarely at that, I wasn't sure what to expect.
I qualified on med/med's figuring the softs would be toast after just one or two laps. It worked pretty well earning a 9th in Q.
Seeing the light rain at the start almost had me double guessing my choice of setup and tires, thankfully the sun came out, it might have gotten ugly otherwise.
The Saleen felt pretty good for most of the race and I had some good fun racing and chasing Jan for most of the first stint, most of the second stint was spent with Jeffery and his Lister in the mirror. In the final stint I watched him drive away, than a couple mistakes here and there and all of a sudden Enis is closing in. Thankfully I managed to keep it mostly on the track over the last few laps and held on to finish 6th, better than I expected and an encouraging first outing with this car.
I have to apologize to Barry for bumping him off the track while lapping him near the end of the race, my tires weren't holding very well and I braked just late enough to get a little piece of that Lambo. Sorry Barry.

That was a lot of fun, see ya's at Donington.

Huge dissapointment. The only highlight was a battle for a few laps with Tom Rue. Unfortunately, like my teammate I started on intermediates, but I decided (I think) to pit at the end of the second lap. Problem was that I had my decrease/increase buttons mapped to the wrong b__dy thing on my G25 and every time I tried to change fuel or tires it would not take (the dumb crew chief kept saying "make up your mind" or something to that effect-- I was cursing a storm at him). I lost a TON of time on all my pitstops because of that. Originally had a 3 stop strategy, which I think was too much (the pitstops take SO long, after being used to the F1 ones...lol). I still ended up stopping 3 times, including the idiotic first time. Pity, because I had practiced and felt decent with the car. I think lap times wise, both on heavy load and light load, I was doing respectably-- but the pit stops ruined everything. I spent the last 30 minutes very demotivated and pissed at myself, which was dumb because if instead of pouting I had driven a little quicker, when my teammate Bob had to stop an extra time I could have snatched 13th. 13th...oh well.
I hope I did not slow anyone down too much-- I think I had a half caught slide in front of Mr Bunce which might have given him a headache, and also I think I was alittle wierd once (last left turn before long right hander) when Scott Michaels was lapping me. Other than that I tried to be predictable. Apologies to anyone else.
Finally, this was my first GT-I event. I was very honored to be amongst your bunch-- what a lot of talented drivers! Thank you and I look forward to our next event.

Dennis,np there.My 1st thought was to run my normal pace thru there,then changed my mind and decided to stay out wide and leave you the inside,never second guess yourself.Charles and i debated between 575 and Lambo,but i was unhappy with praccy at Anders and Estoril in the 575,front tyres were wearing badly,so Lambo it was.I was never really comfortable,although 1st stint felt good.Initially i was surprised to get by Sam quite early then Tom,Francesco,Bob and Scott,so figured they had made a bad tyre choice.Enjoyed the race although my butt was long overdue for a break.

Qual: not bad at all, almost beat Jeffrey. In retrospect, perhaps I really should have.

Race: I was considering taking inters because of the rain. Eventually I decided that most will take slicks and I'll be better off not taking a big risk. It worked great, with rain stopping after a few laps.

Nuno went off in T1, p3 for me. For a long time I tried to pass Jeffrey but no go, he was really good in the last corner. At some point Nuno was recovering and passed us both. I started pressuring Jeffrey again, and unfortunately we had slight contact, resulting in him spinning. He went a little wide in T1, unfortunately I also slid just a little wide behind him and as he turned in a little more than I expected, I couldn't do anything at that point. Sorry, I'll have to take the majority of the blame for that. I caught Enis soon after, and passed him on the exit of the chicane after he got a little out of shape.

After first stops I was ahead of Nuno and things didn't change for me ever since. On the last lap I backed off a little to finish after 80 laps. I feel bad about the incident with Jeffrey, that's not how I want to end battles on the track.

So, where were some of the expected names: Claus, Joco, Janko/Tolga, Conor etc?

Don't worry about it Ari. I know you from SC so I know you're a very fair racer.
What I saw was: I thought you made a move so I kept wide to give you room on the inside (as I lost you in my mirror and thought you'd be on my inside), but then I saw you again in my mirror so I steered in.
But like I said, don't worry :)