Donington 350k

Qualifying:
Qualified second. Pushed much too hard and denied my self of better lap time while the track was still dry.

Race:
I knew qualifying second wouldn't mean sh*t if there was rain.

Dropped 2 places in the beginning, forgot that brake bias was set for dry, never mind though, 4th still wasn't bad. Then coming out "McLeans", when I started applying throttle, PC decide it was time for few stutters. Oh joy. Half spin there, lost some 5 places, I think. Then I made a mistake fighting with Pete, blocked front left coming into "Coppice", that only meant one thing: sight seeing.

Then after a while I checked my FPS, oh joy, they were in 20's, with occasional drop below 20's and jump above 30's. Finally when I half spun in "McLeans" once more due to drop in FPS I decided to call it a day.

That was fun. See you guys at my most favourite track, Anderstorp.

A rare and sad disco from the session change to race ended my day in GTI.

At least I got to run in the GTO event :)

See ya all at the next one.

Not a great first GTI race for me.

A crap week at work and glorious weather meant I got little practice in before the race.

Dicided to qualiy with race fuel to make sure as I was out of the way of most people at the start as I just wanted to use this race as a taster race really.

Started on the wrong tyres and quickly went backwards. Pitted after a few laps and came back out a lap down and rejoined with the mid runners. Found I was running pretty much at the same speed as those guys so I was happy with that.

Set about chasing a car which I managed to catch and pass a while later to climb up the placings a little.

Coming up to the hour to go mark though I was cycling through the HUD and the engine health number was tumbling then boom, that was that.

Bloody hate getting DNF's :(, was fun in a mad way while I was running though. Hope to cya all soon.

Qual'd fine and got 4th which is not bad.

In the beginning Enis spun giving me 3rd. Soon after I bumped Scott... PC twitched a little I think and his car was suddenly on my bumper... cleary my fault, real sorry for that :(

The tires were OK in the first half of each stint but grip was insane in last quarter. Made numerous spins as the car was just so unpredictable. The rears worn off quicker that fronts and the rear was very slippery because of that.
In the last few laps Simon was getting closer and he was just a seconds behind as I spun again. He was faster in his Lambo but I just somehow managed not to lose the position.

Dissapointing race, especially considering I bumped Scott off track... Dunlops are just horrible.

Grats to podium, see you next time maybe.

Qual was ok. Had another half a second in it, but Jeffrey followed me round the whole lap in his God-awful loud Lambo and I couldn't hear jack shit from my own car. This pretty much summed up how my race went...

Started fine, faily conservatively, and got into 2nd when Enis went off. Then at the ridiculously early point of lap 3 Joco slams into the back of me at McLeans. Maybe I should cool down a little more before posting this, but I'm pretty sure your excuse is bull, you were just being too aggressive too early and ran out of talent. I know i have a big car, but there should just about be room for it and your ego to fit around the track....
Anyway, rant over. The punt cost me 20 seconds, then over the course of the race getting stuck behind Lambo after Lambo after Lambo (remember my sound issue from qualifying? Yeah that was fun....) probably cost me a further 45 seconds or so, it was ridiculous. I didn't make any mistakes and my pit strategy was good, so I had 4th in me easily if I'd had a clean run, which I think would have been pretty good in the Viper. Sigh... I guess I'll take 5th considering the nightmare that this race was.

I'm pretty undecided about whether I want to continue with GT-I. It isn't what it used to be, the GT class is annoying and now that Tim's switched all the tracks around the Viper is a shocking car choice. Maybe I'll feel better by the next round, maybe I'll just do Spa this season, maybe I'll leave it altogether and just say thanks for the memories. We'll see....

PS: Joco, there's less than 0.3 a lap between michelin and dunlop, and the wear isnt much different either, AND its even closer in the wet, so stop complaining.

Well after a complete re-install this morning because of some issues I finally got into the game when qually was just about to tstart, I had no controls :-( Went back out reload the control ini went back in..nothing. Went back out reset controls in windows...nothing hmmm. Back out 1 more time unpluged the controls and plugged back in and nothing.
Still don't know why! Just went and tried it in rFactor and works just fine. Got me?

Sorry Dennis as you had to carry the CanAm banner alone. Luck just isn't on my side this series as I've had to miss 2 tracks I love and now the next one is Crapperstorp. But will give it hell again. See you there.

I went out asap in qually to get a somewhat "dry" track. I was stuck behind Scott's Viper, which cost me a second I think ;). So we both lost due to our closeness :P.
The lap afterwards I backed off to get a clean run, but the track was already too wet after that and I couldn't improve.

I had a good start but car felt very twithcy. I had to wet practice nor setup, so I just had my dry setup with soft/hard wets. Soon due to things behind me I got into a 7s lead on Coelho. But he was slowly gaining, by 0.2 a lap or something.
At one point I got a tyre in the grass in the last corner and I was heading towards the pitwall. Luckily I got just stop the car and keep it on the track.
Till the pitstop I had a 3,5s lead on Coelho. When I came out Ari had overtaken me and Coelho was right behind me again.
For that whole stint I was right behind Nieminem, only a 0.4s gap the whole time. It was very close, but no room for me to overtake. For that stint I went for softs allround, but the rears overheated and I couldn't get the max out of it because I couldn't get around Ari.
For the last 45 minutes I filled the car up completely again and went for soft hards again. They felt great but I had a 8s gap behind Ari, and again Coelho right behind me.
I thought the win was lost, as Ari was faster than me, but for some reaso I was gaining quickly on him.
I was running on auto clutch for my first two stint, saving the engine. When after 90 minutes of racing I didn't lose 1% of health, I thought I'd go back to my trusted manual clutch. And it felt so much better, I immediatly improved my lapstimes.
When the gap was 1,5s between me and Ari, he went off at Redgate. That was a shame, as it was looking out to be another cracking battle.
After that I could drive to the finish as the car kept feeling good at that point.
Still I hate that Lambo for endurance racing. The fragile engine, the tyrewear and the fuelusage makes it pretty crap over such a distance.
Very happy with the win :).

@ Joco: The Saleen is after the F550 the best car, it's also the best GT1 car in the wet due to it's aero.
And to top it off, the Dunlops are the best wettyres, not the worst, that's the Michelin in the wet.

Bad race, awful setup for the rain, forgot to lower my rear anti-roll bar to 0 before the race, the back end was a complete nightmare in the rain when trying to apply the power and my rear tires wore quickly.

Would like to apologize to Simon for a bump at T1, i had just changed tires and i guess your tires were slightly worn, and with the difference in speed at that time i misjudged the braking and bumped you, sorry m8.

Ran outta fuel on the last lap but as i look over the results i see im still in 9th place albeit with a DNF, is that right ???

Congrats to Jeff,Ari and Nuno

That was hard work and despite not really racing anyone wheel to wheel there was always pressure from Brian and (as usual) Mark.

Built myself a new PC a few days ago and it really comes into its own on a wet track, with FPS remaining huge and everything totally smooth.

Arrived with no practice time at all, so did my qually with a full race setup, just getting a half-decent lap in before the track got really wet.

Started with hard wets at both ends but that was a mistake; fronts never got warm and I had terrible understeer. Came in as early as I could and still make just two stops and swapped to soft wets on the front which made things much better for most of the stint, with only the last 10 or 15 minutes on worn rears getting a bit scary.

Came in for my second stop with just 5 litres in the tank, having judged the fuel usage to perfection (about 50% luck and 50% judgement I think!), same tyres. Had 5 seconds of damage from a minor collision where somebody or other had touched the back of me (no worries, my rear was all over the place at that point!) and just knuckled down and drove to the end.

Very pleased to pick up 10th given that I don't really have the pace to compete directly with many here, and only one really costly spin, a 360 in the Foggy Esses very near the end which cost me most of my 12 second advantage over Brian.

Well now. After all that come to find out when I decided to take my pedals apart to see what the prob is. We have this new little dog and NOT by my choice! called a chiwawa (I spell it that way cause I DON"T like em) that has graciously chewed the cord from the pedals. I may just have a taco tonite for dinner.