Zhuhai Masters

the race was fun .. first part it was a F575GTC Cup race
had a touch with Darren i think in T1 .. I didn't take a drive-through .. hope the stewards look into it and act accordingly

Wooohooo no disconnect!

Just a horible qual, had soft wet/hard wet and felt pretty decent but rears were cold. Next lap started overheating so I stopped for soft rear but made a mistake and put on inters....well nothing left to be said about that, 14th on the grid.

Figured I would just follow everyone around lap 1 but I got away better than the car in front of me so I took the center lane. Then someone got sideways and shot left in front of me, hit the car ahead in the left lane and bounced back to the right, just leaving me enough room to pass.

I think I was up to about 11th after lap one and following Greg closely. We had an intersting dice for few lap but I managed to get by.

Now I am 10th with 6-7-8-9 right in front of me, we were nose to tail for a lot of lap as Mario was catching us from behind. We were going very slowly since we all had to brake so early being in a line. Soon I misjudged and to avoid taking out the car ahead I slid through the inside of a corner, luckily not hitting anyone but I dropped back to 12th again.

Made my charge back to 10th and when I caught David he was right behind another car. I was faster but it was hard to pass being in equal cars. Finally I got a good run going into the final hairpin and David gave me the outside. I made a good corner giving plenty of room but David either spun his tires or didn't expect me there. His car hit my front right and then spun off after a episode of tank slapping. Ironically the other car that was ahead also spun off all alone and I gained 2 positions. Wondered about a drive thru but then realized since my front end was ahead that I was clear and I charged on.

Was gaining on Allen at a decent pace while Donato was gaining on me. Then Allen took an early stop and I had clear track ahead.

I stopped and rejoined in 7th and gained 2 more positions as other stopped. Not sure what happened to Mario and Donato figuring they would be my closet competition after the stops but the escaped. I tried to reel in Hienz but he was way to far ahead and running the same laps as I was.

Grats to Claus and the rest of the podium.

Conrats to Claus for a nice win. Also to Ari & Xavier for the podiums.

What was with all the Ferraris? I thought you couldn’t run the same car twice? Oh well. I was hoping for a wet race, so I chose the Vette because it’s a great rain car for me and would have been a great equalizer. With the weather yesterday, I thought we would see a repeat weather system. No such luck. I was happy with my race even thought where I finished. Driving the slower car wasn’t any help, but I’ll have the 550 for Spa. Just hope it doesn’t rain there. Had good consistent lap times and really wasn’t that far off the pace. Pretty lonely run with the exceptions of the lappers coming through. Hope to run better at Spa with the 550. See ya all there!

No problem Kent iirc i spun the rears and lost it all on my own just as my teamie did the same :(

Qualified an impressive 2nd with less than 0.4 to Ari seems my run in the wet last night gave me some advantage, went out with hards on and realised i made a wrong choice and pitted for softs and was immediatley faster and managed to get a couple of laps in and at this point hoped for a wet race knowing i was gonna be a rolling road block if it was dry :P

So race got away and i was really struggling with the car and i could see Claus`s frustration as Xavier was giving it some but Claus made short work of my struggling pace and then not long after i had a bad lockup and let another 2 or 3 cars through, and ended up in a battle with Phil then he flashed me past and i had another bad braking moment and dropped again :(

I had a nightmare of a race, wrong tyres on the front meant they were blue all race and i have trouble with understeer in the Ferrari`s as it is!!! so i had a car that wouldn`t turn in and loads of loss of traction exiting corners mainly turn 13.

Poor effort from my side and struggled for the whole race, so glad i wont be using the Ferrari`s anytime soon :P

Well done to Claus - see i had to make it interesting for you at the start :P
WD to Ari who was really fast at the beginning and also to the very impressive Xavier ;)

cya all at the next one.

Really exciting race, although most part of it was just pushing and pushing alone, specially during the second stint where I set a really fast pace.

First of all though, a big sorry to you David. When Claus had just passed you I tried to brake late and take the outside line into the corner, exactly where you went as you tried to avoid Claus I think, that made us touch and you got the worst part :(

Well here's my race:

I started 4th after a cool qualifying session, kept the place after Turn 1 and I was having half attempts to pass Claus, having to go into the grass once to avoid contact as it was all really close fron 2nd to 5th. Then what I explained before happened, that left Ari leading with a 6-7 second margin over Claus, then Heinz and myself in 4th, luckily David didn't lose too many places..

Passed Heinz and caught Claus after some laps. He let me through as I guess he knew he had a better strategy.

I pitted from 2nd on lap 29 and changed tyres, unlike the others. So after the pitstop I was 5th I think and had to overtake David and Heinz if I remember well.

Most part of that 2nd stint was all about going for 1:27's or very low 28's. I was catching Claus and Ari over 1 second per lap. Finished just 2 seconds behind Ari! What a shame, two more laps and it was gonna be tough :) I guess without changing tyres I may have had some chances to finish 2nd at least.

Anyway great race once again!

Well,i stuffed any reasonable result in the garage.I went with full tanks and medium-medium,so i thought,but after a few laps in,i realised i must have put softs on the rear.I persevered as long as i could then pitted,changed tyres,added fuel,but alas,not quite enough.Was hoping for rain tho.

Charlie .. you are allowed to use any GT car you choose ONCE during the season... The 575 seems to have been a popular or logical choice for this track :)

Heinze,
I know about the once per car. I just thought that with Magny-Cours already have run, then Spa next race, the Ferrari would have been saved for those tracks. Seems to suit the car better at those tracks. I was just surprised that so many people have not used the Ferrari already. Both the 575 & 550.

Surely an action packed race. Qual was bit of lottery, I went out with soft-hard wets but quickly it was apparent that was not ideal so pitted same lap for softs. Bit better but still very slippery, first lap was a banker, surprisingly it said fastest. Eventually dropped to 3rd got one good lap spoiled by traffic then last lap was up 0.6 in S2 and had cleared the tricky penultimate turn better than other laps, but then next session grrrr.

Start was average, car was bit twitchy off the line but thanks to the inside I could hold station. First few lap I wanted to get by David, but at the same time I could not try whole hearted since I had Xavier behind in the uber Ferrari. Then it looked like I got some space to him so could focus ahead and closed right up to David, and he made a little mistake in T4 and I got past then. Ari was some 6-7s ahead but the gap stayed pretty much the same. After some 15laps I could see Xavier had got back into 3rd and found some speed, so opted to hold him till atleast lap 20, then let him by and hope he was on a different strategy. Was happy to see him pit then after 26 laps. Still Ari was 7s ahead, and knew it would be tough to close that gap with a pitstop since he would do the same strategy as me.
He then pitted L31 but I still had juice for 2 more laps so pushed like mad in those laps. On L32 I was having one eye on the gap and it just grow to 45s huh.
I knew I needed some 40-42s to get in, fuel and get out again so figured he had had some problems during his stop. Got out with 5s lead and that was good enough to see me finish first, but wasn't an easy task, could not relax for one moment. Overall very good result and unexpected considering the drivers in uber cars.

I've been given a penalty for the contact with David. Oh well I'll have to accept it :P grats Heinz your on the podium lol