rFBMW: Manfield Park

My race was done on the start of lap two when Francisco sent me off roading into T1. No worries though Fran, it is racing and I know you would not have meant it. Jon Weal would claim it pay back for me hitting him on Sunday :-]

After that ran with no front wing, gave it a lap or two and decided to stay out as it was not that bad, probably one of the better tracks to try it on, and picked up places as others fell off.

Damage limitation championship wise but plenty of time just yet.

Please PM any incidents you wish me to look at, the replay will go up very shortly, and a driver has already been caught out by not observing our Chapter rule re punting so beware.

Thanks

Great race, very happy with a 5th place finish. Early in the race i discovered i had planned wrong and it looked like i was going to run out of fuel, so i decided to settle with a 5th place finish and not make a run for 4th, not sure if i could have got it but i like to think i could have. Anyway after getting into a nice groove and making sure 6th place was well behind me i brought it home for 5th. In the end very happy with the result.

Firstable let me apology to Nick for ramming him into the far wall at T1 in the second lap. Although there are no excuses when you ram somebody, there is always a reason and mine was not lifting while looking for my brake marker on the left wall. Really sorry Nick, please accept my apologies.

Congrats to winners once more.

At qualy I got P12 but a nice start put me P6 when exiting the first corner. at the back straight I was P9 again and then, in ths start/finish straight of lap 2 [sarcasm mode ON] I helped Nick get faster topspeed by removing his front wing. What? Understeer? Well, you can't expect me think of everything... :( [/sarcasm mode OFF]

I slowed down to see if he could regain position in addition of taking my D/T, but Nick passed me right when I was entering the pitlane. From there on I climbed up slowly from P21 to P13 with a twisted steering.

Nice battle with Jagger, who regained position after passing him when I let P1 & P2 go by. Sorry to P1 if I didn't move off quickly, I was afraid of loosing my position, what actually happened in the end, but luckily got it back.

Move on to PuKeHoKe.

I had huge ping probs and hope it didn't destroy anyone's race. I was always contemplating quitting and was trying to gauge if it was causing an interferance for others - also tried to stay in the gaps as much as possible. this is the 2nd time this has happened to me in all my racing and I hope the last time.

Made a CxxK UP of the start when I was looking at my revs when the green light came on. Lost 2 places there and another 2 on the 1st lap, as I was determined not to go out in this race after the mistakes I made at Sonoma.

ON L2 I made up two places coming out of T1 and then again another 2 going into T4 and ended up 11th with others going off. Great I thought, in with a chance of a top ten finish, until when I was close up behind Boyd going into T6, when I think it was Alessandro (?) that spun and stopped bang in the middle of the track! Boyd avoided to the outside and was launched into space off the kerb and I just smacked head-on and lost my front wing.

A couple of cautious laps and I decided to plug on to avoid a stop, but I couldn't carry the normal speed into either T5 or T7. I tried to hold on ahead of Francisco, but it wasn't to be. Still happy to reach the end with a mostly complete car and looking forward to Pukekohe.

Sorry Nick .. got a tickit lastnight... had to get my car out... didnt have time to unsing they said be here in 15 mins ...or tomorrow for more money.. so i was out the door .. see you next time for sure.. i was doing 1 :07 :

That.... was probably the best race I've had on R2P, maybe anywhere. Practice went well, qualy was messy, had to come in to the pits after tapping a wall when avoiding a spin, but my final lap, which I finished just as the flag went, was enough for pole.

I gave it too many revs on the start, but being on the inside was just enough to keep me ahead of Dave. The first lap was brutal, the full tank was nothing, but I just was terrible on the cold tires... or something.

The rest of the race was basically just a bunch of passing and re-passing with Dave Robinson. After the first couple laps I was able to put some space between us and slowly edge out a gap, but as soon as I ran into lapped cars I was in trouble. I don't remember who they were, but to be honest, passing Dave was often easier, and that is no way a slight against him. I know they don't need to pull aside for blue flags, but it got really messy a few times.

Dave was far more skilled at dealing with the lapped traffic and any time I caught some cars, he caught me and often passed me... once or twice while I was still "racing" the lapped cars. In clear air we would have a good race, but I was always a bit faster through the last corner which gave me a big advantage into turn 1.

The last 5 laps or so were interesting, because we both got really defensive whenever we were in the lead(Other than the last race, totally new to me). It was Dave who was leading over the line though, he didn't take the quickest line through the final corner of the race, but he made damn sure I wasn't going to pass :)

Anyway, thanks for the great racing Dave, I took a look at the replay and you were racing more than fair, definitely gave me some extra space when I was getting a little... aggressive.

Practiced a fair amount but when it came to quali I couldn't turn in on the last corner and went off several times - each time detroying the current as well as next lap. Later was on a quick lap and was greeted with 3 cars in different positions on the track at T4 - hit one of them. I pitted to fix and then proceeded to do quite a quick final quali lap and ran out of fuel leading into the last corner (Still got from 21st to 16th - but was not impressed with myself).

The race was ok - but I went off between T3 and T4 when hounding P9 - kinda unique place to get it wrong and not done it there before; dropped from 10th to 13th and then worked hard at trying to close the gap on Michael Virt (13 seconds); had a nice clean tussle with him for 2 laps and got passed with 4 laps to go. Was a little nervous seeing Nick behind me and was convinced he would close me down - was quite chuffed he didn't but guess it was really not a great achievement on my part having read now that he didn't have a front wing - lol.

I don't think I have the skill to get to the top but must say this is a fantastic format and even on a bad day there is somenone to race with which is what it is about.

Well for this first Formula BMW race I had hoped a little more then what I got. I tested only before the race and was able to gain quite some time on the qualy putting my personal best time so far. It didn't really affect the starting postion as I was still pretty far down on the grid.

The start was pretty good and I was able to stay close while I took it easy on the first corner, then I saw some people going off track and I was suddenly P10.

Then a mistake on the second lap cost me quite some time and I was P13 or P14 again, tried to get some time back but right in front of me was a crash and I couldn't avoid it anymore. waited till all the cars were past and I limped back to the pits and see if I could get some repairs done. The repairs costed me 82 seconds and the lost time I think I nearly lost 2 laps there. When I came out onto the track again the leading cars were there again and I had to let them past which cost me even more time. I did see I was gaining on Anthony but due to some mistakes and the passing leaders I couldn't take full advantage of that.

Happy to have finished at least and I will be back for some more.

Well done podium!! Dave, Justus and Barney, ... the usual culprits. Nice drive gents.
Ken, if you think your start was bad ... I went from 4th to 16th .... by t4 ... yowzah! Got pushed out at the start going into T1, and if you're stuck out on the left throught the first few corners you may as well stop and wait for everyone to pass.
Then I think it was T1, L2, I got a good shunt up my chuff. Thought my car was gonna tumble tail over nose. After landing with a considerable thud, I could still drive it, and still made ok times, so that was very lucky. But it wasn't the same, looser and squirrely.
LC's car's warping was quite bad, so when he got ahead of me and outta the way it was ok, but when we were close it was a terrifying ride. The car would swoop from one side to the other, and even went clear through the pit wall going down the straight.
Now, where that replay? I gotta post some pics of my air time.