Round 5 - Lady Wigram Trophy

Brian Janik wrote:

@Yves Placais, tried to wait for you before the hairpin at the end of race. Seemed like you lost the rear end before the contact. Maybe you would have saved it without me being there?? I slowed down for a little while, but a pack of cars were coming and I didnt want to lose too many more positions, and took off.
If you felt it was my fault, sorry  

No problem, Brian ! My rear tires were charred (I didn't make the right choice)
Your GTV6 is really beautiful !

Thiago Canola wrote:

Yves was pretty hot in T1 too

Bravo Thiago !

The points have been updated  10 points separate the top 3 drivers.

 Matthias Weber 85 points
 Thiago Canola 76 points
 Jan Titz 75 points

All to play for when we get to Wellington and our "Sunday Special" 2 hour race.

Fun race last night,

I started the evening admittedly with no practise (F1 has taken top priority with the standings ) and have to thank Jaques for an amazing setup.

Qualified 23/24th after ruining my first run.

The race was so much fun though, first lap I don't know how but I avoided the first lap mayhem and gained 12 places after lap 1 and quickly made my way up to the top 6. Great racing with Jan Titz and John Thim, came home a surprising 4th which I can't complain about

Once again Jonathon... thank you

Thanks for putting on a great show and drives last night. Will take some time out of my schedule to check any incidents on Lap1 just in case, expect it to be posted by Sunday evening if there is anything to come from it.

I will post the Wellington Thread on Saturday to allow everyone an extra day to test the available cars. There will be a few one-offs to pick up for anyone who wants to drive and, of course, the leanght means that 2 drivers in one car is also an option


Now, here is the broadcast from the event:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3b8Yv-o29Q

Well, after fuming off for a day, you deserve a slightly more precise report of the events surrounding me than yesterday's rant.

As you might have taken from yesterday's post, I never really got the hang of the track, never found a rhythm, never got an idea how to get around fast. Laptimes were firmly stuck at 1:31, with an odd 1:30.x inbetween. Setup-wise, understeer, understeer or understeer, with a bit understeer inbetween, no matter in what direction I changed the values. For a change, completely dialing out the values led to the car understeering with biting back hard on corner exit. Gears were always wrong, no matter how short or long.

Well, start of the race was so-so, first gear being to long to get away well from the line. I got around the first three corners alright, even had a good go at the cars in front of me on the inside when they got a bit tangled up in T3. I was maybe a hint late for the hairpin, but it still seemed under control. Until I realised, someone else was even later than me and bumped me into the traffic in front of me. Finally... last. Awesome...

From there I could slowly creep up some positions, partly being quicker than my competition, partly from their faults. I was chasing Juha Bos, when I got once again a bit wide in T3 (I stopped counting how often I got beyond the curbs on the outside there). I thought 'okay, that's annoying, let's get back on the black quickly and move on'. But this time something happened, that never happened before: the car made a sharp turn to the right and into the barrier WTH? I did that move like 30 or 50 times in practice, and that never happened. Unbelievable. Front right properly bent, front right tire busted. I limped back to the pits, had the tires replaced, lost about a lap, and went back to track. Unfortunately, the car was completely askew and uncompetitive. No way to gain any joy from this and tired of the whole track and the misbehaving car, I went back to the pits after a few more laps and called it a day.

Short story for me:
Decent qualifying + start for me. lost some positions after the first lefthanders, but got them back relatively easy, thanks to that holden power.

Then tried to manage my tires for the whole race, could not attack, very frustrating. I had to give Thiago that position, before overcooking my tires and hoped that David will get in more trouble at the end, as he did

Fair racing again, especially no problems with overlapping any cars.   at the end was the maximum

Last race will be a tough one, looking forward to a full grid again!