GT Sport

Firstly, I must apologise to John, glad it didn't cost you too badly. And congrats to the podium as always.

Things to take away from this race:

1. It's painfully easy to cause a punt in that first corner. I switched approach partway down the straight as I had a good start and the BMW in front of me took the line I was after. To avoid punting him I went for the other side, but got stuck in the middle. Figuring like usual I could stay at full speed through it... Well. You can't with all those cars around, but braking made it worse.

2. It's probably a good thing they dropped Magny-Cours from the F1 calendar. I didn't believe the comments about not being able to pass, but oh my god, it's an infuriating track unless you're a good second faster! Apologies to Dwayne for getting impatient... I was faster through the hairpin, and the last corner before the chicane, but every time Dwayne managed to cover the inside on the hairpin, and wasn't braking much earlier than me into the last corner. I got stuck for about three or four laps before I got a drive through for cutting one of the fast chicanes, having kind of followed Dwayne's line too much. I came up on Dwayne when he'd gone off slightly at the hairpin, and as he came on alongside me, nudged me a bit and my rear stepped out a little. I thought it was totally my line after his off, but watching it back, he couldn't see me 'til the last second, even coming back on, and had barely gone off, so it was totally fair in hindsight.Getting to understand just how hard it is to tell what exactly is going on when racing is interesting for sure.

Had a good couple of laps gaining on Tom, having served my drive through. Coming into the last corner I could see he was braking a good 25 metres before me, so tried to get a move in there, but by the time I'd then slowed enough I wound up pushing him off track, so held off on the straight to let him back through. I then slotted in with enough to pass on the next corner, but remembering Lewis at Spa, held back and waited. Came to the hairpin and got in for the inside line and got through. Tom took a really late apex line into it (quite liked that line by the way), and I thought he had me coming out of the corner, but managed to get on the gas again.

It went completely wrong for me when serving my stop'n'go for the cutting, it seemed to turn off the limiter once I'd stopped, so pulling away I got a penalty for speeding, and had to serve another. Just as I was gaining on the car ahead...

Fun race, even if it didn't end up so well for me. I was surprised to end up 2nd after qualifying since I hadn't gotten much prep in and hadn't been under a mid 41 offline. But I was happy with it, though I figured GP would check out come racetime and leave me to the wolves. ;-)

Got a lousy race start with too much wheelspin, letting Brian slip into 2nd into T1. Figured I'd ease into it and see how things unfolded, then Brian had a slip up in the last chicane a couple of laps in. That let me get back into 2nd, after which I took a while trying to get on terms with George's pace. Noticed that while he was a little quicker overall, he was getting into a couple of turns hot, locking tires and losing exit speed. Knew I couldn't get by on speed, so I just tried to avoid mistakes, close up and apply some pressure to see if an opening would come.

We ran a second or less apart for quite a good bit, but George finally had a small error in Chateau D'Eaux and I was able to get past with around 5 laps to go. Floundered a bit with clear track ahead at first, but settled down and figured to have it if I didn't throw it away. George was right there, but as even as we were on pace it would take a mistake for one to pass the other.

And I made one. In the pits... before the race! Heading into Adelaide on the last lap, I noticed I had barely over a liter of fuel left, and knew I was toast. Wasn't sure how many laps we'd end up doing or the fuel consumption at Magny, but I added a couple of liters over the setup I was using from the last GT Sport race, figuring they're timed races so the fuel would be ok. Uh uh. Even though I backed way out and tried to run top gear in the last quarter lap, it went dry and sputtered to a stop with two turns to go. DNF.

Would've been pissed if it hadn't been such a fun race with GP. Well done George! And everyone else who knew to put enough gas in their cars... ;-)

Decently solid qual and race for me, was consistent and had some fun bits in there with Mueller, ended up pushing too hard through 1 on the last lap and beeched it through to the wall; trashing my car :)

Good race everyone! Steve, didn't you hear that gas is a bit cheaper lately? No need to skimp! ;)

Bad luck Steve, couldn't believe it when i saw you parked up with 2 corners to go!

Like Steve mentioned i made a slight mistake going over last chicane which gave him a run on me down start line straight but i didn't think he had enough of a run to T1 to pass but he did, it was a brave move Steve but it was a very clean decisive pass. :)

After that i tried to hang on to Steve and George which i could do for the 1st half of the race but as the race wore on my front tyres started giving up grip and i was struggling.

Les who at one point was 10secs behind me started taking lumps out the gap and i was really under pressure, i was 2-4secs a lap slower than i was, just hoping i could make it to the finish before Les could take advantage. I think he got the gap down to abut 2secs by the flag.

Grats to George :)

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What i would like to know guys is, how the hell do you guys manage to keep your tyres good all race? I had a look at the lap times of George, Steve and some others and you all manage to maintain consistent times all the way through the race. Are you guys looking after your tyres early on or is it a set up issue. Please please :) help as this happens in every evo race I've done and it really is taking away the fun in it for me as i always end up being a sitting duck (losing 2-3 secs a lap) at the latter stages of these evo races...Any help would be appreciated, many thanks :)

For me it's both, Brian. I really pay attention to tire temps and wear rates when I practice, and will tweak the setup if my front/rear are wearing at significantly different rates. I generally tend to favor a slightly loose car, but they tend not to be good over a race distance as the rears wear too fast and the balance goes to hell. But you definitely have to manage them in-race also; the less sliding, scrubbing, spinning and locking you can get by with the better you'll be late in a run. If I had any advantage at all over GP last night it was late due to having a bit more tire left. Just didn't have enough gas left for it to matter... ;-)

Many thanks for the response Steve :)