Euro GT: Imola

Absolutely cracking race. I wasn't hoping for much not having a set up or any practice but I drove pretty consistently all the way. A little bit of drama at the start dropping to 7th then back to 5th. But after the stops 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th closed right up and an epic battle for 2nd began. I thought I'd got 2nd when I started the last lap but Theo hadn't given up and pushed hard, neither of us were giving an inch, we got side by side through turn 4 and had the slightest touch which turned me around. Oh well, Joco went through before I could rejoin so I was down to 4th. But what a fight at the end of a long race like that, I really enjoyed it regardless of the outcome, and 4th is better than I expected anyway. Nice racing guys.

Wow, what a race.

I qualified 3rd and was pretty happy with that considering there were F550s in first two positions.

Qualify started pretty good, was very tight with Roman, but I couldn't take his position. The first half was all about Tolga being behind me all the time and Roman with about the same gap in front. Everything seemed to be normal until I made a mistake at Variante Alta turn(chicane). I spinned and Tolga overtook me. Luckily I only lost a few seconds.

Soon half the race was over. Time for the pit stop! Didn't take front tires as they were only 60 and 69°C. The stop took me 52 seconds. Nothing changed after the pit was over.

Than suddenly Tolga and Roman were having a fight. Tolga took the 1st position, and Roman was getting closer and closer to me. I was faster on the turns but the F550 was better off on the straight. Theo and some other F550 came behind. We all were sticked! Theo took my position and so I was 3rd amont the Ferraris(look at the picture).

The last 15 minutes were extremely tense! Roman was punctured a bit by someone and he DNFed :( Too bad, there was a chance 3 OGRacing drivers would be all in top3.

I'm proud that I finished 3rd, because damn, you guys in the F550s were fast!

Grats to podium!

PS: This is my 50th race! And what an exciting one!

It gets better every time but i still have a lot of work till I get to the front. My maseratti was very nicely balanced and made a 46 in qualifying that put my i think 13th.

In the start i overtook a bunch of people and then breaked too late and gave it all away. Afterwards it was pretty lonely till a couple of laps before the pitstop when one lambo lapped me and breaked way too early and i couldn't avoid hitting him from behind (BIG SORRY mate, i didn't know how ruined your tires were until i saw you pit).

After the pit stop i put mediums and suddenly i started flying (at least compared to my previous laps), cought up with the 13th guy 1 minute in 10 laps, and then while i was that close, the engine went puff. I didn't expect that to happen :(, i thought i'd make it up to 10th or 11th as the guys in front were a lot slower at the time. Quite a disappointment but life goes on.

As usual very nice race guys, congrats to tolga, he was running superbly till i left.

happy to finish the race !
very fast field - very impressed by the patience that the faster cars had very nice areas to let others bye-
good heads up
and congrates to the podiums

Not much to tell. Bad quali and a so so race. Got into trouble at the start and spun. That put me in last position. Worked my way up through the field but just before my stop I put the car in the wall. Managed to get it into the pits but needed to save fuel after that because it was 1 lap ahead of schedule. Gained a few spots after that to finish in 8th. Nothing to write home about. Grats to the guys on the podium. Will watch the replay to see what was going on at the front. Seemed you had a good fight going on there.

Congrats to Tolga, Theo and Joco...great race everybody! Great first names too.

I appologize to Johan Nilsson for getting into him on the first lap. I stopped so he could get going again but he exited the game instead which really made me feel like s#it. Sorry Johan.

I had to pit with 15 minutes left in the race because I was not smart enough to put the right amount of gas in. I pit then selected no change on the front and rear and about 10 minutes worth of fuel. My "Krue" went ahead and put tires ont he rear anyway extending my stop time. Whats up with that? how can that happen? Had I the choise I would have put them on the front so I could make a turn or two every now and then!!! Sorry for your engine blow job Robert but I thank you for handing me a top 10 finish. It eased the pain of my pit stop......

The race was great fun.

As usual i didnt practiced before the race, so i had no setup. I tweaked standard setup a bit and hoped to be fast lol. In qualy i placed 4th which was good for me thinking that there was 2 fast 550 guy and Joco with his lambo.

Race start was exciting. I made a good start and came to Roman's left side then i saw that Joco came to my left side too. He was inside so i didnt want to make a crazy move in first turn and pulled my feet from throttle a bit. After this i was chasing Roman and Joco. I didnt have advantage on straights on Joco with my lambo and it isnt easy to pass with late braking on that track so i decided to take it easy till pits.

After pits i could pass Joco even with changing 4 tyres and saving fuel on last lap before pit. I was faster than Roman at that point and started to force the car. I came too close to him after a couple of laps later. He was making mistakes while trying to defend. After 3/4 of the race in first corner i could pass him coz of his mistake. I was in the lead and was comfortable and incresing the gap lap by lap. After passing Roman my race was uneventful but it was a great race in 1st and half of the 2nd stint.

I dunno what happened to Roman but its really disappointing that we missed the chance to get 1-2-3 places as OG team. But im very happy that the perfomance that Joco and Roman showed. We all are for fun here, no team orders, no slowing down, all for fun :D

A nice race, though with a few low-lights for me wich i'm very disapointed with. Start and 1st stint went great and felt good, pitted with about 40 minutes to go, but unfortunately somone was in my pit-spot. Had to wait for almost a minute or so until i could enter my pit, and of course i only got out in 7th or around that.

Caught up to some and finally got close to the 4th place when i noticed it was like a big group. We tangled for at least a few lap until i overtook Joco in the last corner. Then on the next lap on the way down me and Roman both braked very late and when he turned into the corner we touched and he spun into the gravel. There was a bit of warp too as the touch felt very light for me. Sorry about that Roman :/ After that still tried to overtake Darren in the last lap and somewhat succeded, only to see him spin around in my mirrors, also sorry about that again :///

So 2nd wasn't too bad after all, but it was very far from my favourite race ever! Grats to Tolga for the win.

No probs Alexandros, I went with a soft front and they were done for so had to brake way early. Great race and thought I'd got Martin at the end, then looked at my fuel and realised if I carriewd on at this rate I would be empty half way round the lap. As it was I ran out of gas 20m from the finish but coasted over. grats to podiums.

Grats Tolga, you are the man! Well done Joco, too.

I set a strategy without changing tires, so I drove all race with the med/hards, didnt know that my lap-times would be so slow and without grip in corners. But i managed to get on 1st Pos after pitstop, allthough messed up my pitstop again lol.

I saw that i would loose some positions until finish because couldnt go that speed with these tires. I tried to fight with fairness and Tolga and Darren managed to overtake me. Good job guys.
6 or 7 minutes before finish Theo was behind me and as I turned in at Rivazza he hit the rear of my car and I spinned into sand. What should I say? I was pissed off! Could not believe this shit and hit the esc.

Sorry to my team mates Tolga and Joco, I was too disappointed to think about picking up race and to rescue one or two points for the team in the last 5 minutes.

p.s.
Thanks Theo for your email, no bad feelings here anymore, see you on track :-)