05 Motorsport Imola Enduro

Story of my life. I always find a way to screw my race by making only one error.
After pit got 1st back and was about 5 seconds ahead. Still wasn't sure if the fuel will be enough and with that on my mind I locked up at the chicane and spun, hit the barriers and lost a wheel. Pitted again. After that the race seemed endless.
Seeya all at the next one.

Congrats to GT podium. Hard luck Cristi!
Especially grats to Barry and Conduruta for 1st and 3rd in nGT. It was a close thing (at the end). My first stint started ok. Stayed with Barry and Conduruta, we swopped a few places here and there. Then my tires went weirdly off. I spun 3 times in one lap which didn't help the tyres or my fight with Baz and Conduruta. Made it back to second but Barry was gone ... solid gone!!
Pitted 1 lap earlier than scheduled, and then started making bits of time on Barry. Concentrated on not spinning it, but lost it a couple of times. I think Barry was also having trouble with tyres, since it came to a point where I had made up 34 seconds on my original 1:26 deficit to Barry. I think Barry was trying a no stopper, but eventually had to pit. When I saw Barry had pitted I got so excited I promptly spun the darn thing at the second to last chicane. My luck!! As it worked out Barry came outta the pits with an 8 second advantage. I thought maybe his cold tyres would slow him down, but it was a lapping car that slowed me down. I had been within 3 seconds.
Finished the race with 1.2 litres fuel .... scraping home.
Some of the GT cars today were not as patient as previous races. I was shoved off track twice [EDIT - three times] by lapping GT cars, and at the end had a side to side with a GT car who wasn't sure which side to pass.
Thanx all, that was a nice race, although a bit dry due to the big gaps. Well done again Barry!

Pole and feeling very comfortable with the car, so sad to have a disco before race even started :( Had to reinstall windows a while back, guess I still had filter and sticky keys enabled. Talking with Tim on TS and suddenly Filter Keys opens toggling me out and when I tried to go back---BSD.

Grats to all.

Thanks Boyd- Yes I was trying a no stopper :-) Too hard on the fuel in the early race though otherwise I would have made it.

Sorry Kent wasn't out there. Don't know what happened. I guess he must have discoed before the race. Sorry Kent.

The first laps I was very squirrely and over driving the car. Sorry for the contact going into the right dog leg Conduruta, but I backed way off knowing I have never benefited being on the inside going into that last chicane but then you went sideways. I hope that just from the excitement of racing and not from that incident.

Had a good gap after 10 or 12 laps and put it in cruise mode and that was pretty much where it stayed until 5 laps to go when I had 1 gal. of fuel left so I had to bring it in for fuel and no tires. I got so amped up to get my pit board correct, I forgot I had re mapped the keyboard to shut the car off manually. I hit enter and sat there a while before I realized I still needed to shut it off before they fuel it up. DUH! I didn't panic too much and came out like Boyd said with an 8 second lead. and with 2 laps to go he knocked down to just a couple of seconds when I damn near thew it away letting Conduruta by. Brought it home on the point.

Congrats to Boyd and Conduruta for the podiums and Mario for the GT win and podiums.

Had fun and Thanks R2P!

Hard luck Kent! With 1:48's you would have left us in your wake... :P

Now I know. Never do a two stopper. It never made a difference anyway, cause I blew my engine up 20 minutes to go when I accidentally shifted down at the run down to Rivazza on an already sick engine. Spelled my doom. No smoke no fire, very boring. Wasn't even worth making a screen shot. I apologize to Pablo in the early laps there if I was much of a nuisance. I'm sure I might have cost you the race.

Congrats, anyways, to the podiums.

This has got to go down as in some ways my best but in most ways my worst race so far. Had originally dropped out of the race, but decided an hour before to give it a go - tweaked my Magny Cours set up but didn't have time to calm it for the kerb hopping Variante Alta - which caused me problems several times in the race.

Qualifying was abismal - lol - just under 3 seconds slower than my fastest race lap! Started 17th of 18, and the temps were way high (high 30's) so went Hard rears and Medium fronts. 1 stopper with a longer first stint. And from the start I was very competitive. Car felt great. Managed some very nice overtakes on Dimitriu and Buta, and got ahead of Silviu following a spin he had. So by lap 7 I think I may have been in nGT 3rd place from nGT 6th on the grid. But then it all went downhill. In total I had 10 spins in the race, if it wasn't so painful I would have laughed at my stupid attempts to destroy my race, so successfully done! Each time I had to fight back up with Jones, Dimitriu and Buta being taken again a few times. The other guys pitted earlier than me, but after the stops I was last by around 27 seconds. 2 or 3 more spins in the last stint and I was still around 25 seconds behind at the end. I lost all confidence in my being able to take a couple of the chicanes at speed and so drove for the finish. I've definitely got a lot of respect for this Imola track - it bites hard if you or the car aren't quite right. And I'm blaming the 3.45am start for my poor driving!!! OK - OK - I blame me!!

I too found some of the GT's being totally impatient - especially the orange Lambo - looking for trouble a couple of times in lapping me.

I'd like to thank Jones, Dimitriu and Buta in particular for some excellent close racing. And to all who took part, especially the podiums in both classes. 6th in nGT for me will be taken gladly.

Exciting qualifying session saw the top 5 GT cars inside 0.3 seconds , which was quite cool 8). On a last possible moment i managed to get a decent lap in and clinched a 3rd place on the grid , which was a relief since i had a lot of problems to get it all together.

Start was fine , tried to give some pressure to Mario in 2nd place but when he got his tires warmed up , he sailed away with Cristi and i was left to battle with Pablo for the 3rd position. Pablo run into some troubles early on and i could concentrate on surviving this cursed track with the chicane straight from hell :P.

Race was progressing like usual , some good laps and every now and then a typical slip up in the chicane of death , then pushing on again. Donato was closing the gap slowly but surely and somewhere close to halfway we were nose to tail.

It was starting to get exciting but then Donato unfortunately had some troubles and i had the track all by myself again , tried to push hard on the inlap but made a several small mistakes which made me swear rather loudly :P.

Well , after the stop car felt pretty good again and could do some decent laps ,but the gap behind was still shrinking and i figured that Pablo had found his usual pace.

After Cristi had a puncture , i got the 2nd place but there was quite a lot of laps to do still and Pablo was closing in fast. Knew that the last laps would be difficult and on lap 46 i got a little taste of whats going to happen ,then already on lap 47 the fight was over and i found myself on the gravel trap of Tosa.

Rather disappointing , althou not surprising end of the fight. But anyways , no point going into details here , i'll rather give them to stewards so they can deal with it as best as they see.

All in all it was a better race than i expected , had the usual slips and slides but overall my pace was a bit better than i hoped for. Hot temperatures made it even harder than usual , so in that light it was an ok race :).

Congratulations to Mario for the nice win , very nice pace there with the F575. Tough luck for Cristi on his F550 , he had the pace to fight for the win too today.

Grats to Barry too for the nGT class win :). Bad luck for my team mate Kent in nGT , with a disconnect before the start :(.

Thx for the race and cya in the next one...

-----
Samuel

My race was somewhat OK, had a few fights with the Ericksons, until my pitstop, I could not start the car and that cost me like 35 secs. and lost the place.

Went off track to let you by Sam, and all I saw is that the next corner you were tapped on the rear left quarter panel...

Pablo, te van a cortar los huevos!... xD Solo broma...Salu2!

One driver penalized 1 lap for not serving mandatory punt drive-through

One driver penalized a total of 3 laps for not serving mandatory punt drive-through, chatting during race, and 'passing' violation.

Congratulation to the new podium finishers