Round 3 - Thruxton [20th Feb]

My apologies for eventful end of the lap 9. My apologies to Grant Riddall (honestly I did not lift the throttle at all, as I was more than sure that in the very next second you'll accelerate away and wave me goodbye). But to my surprise I've tapped your rear end and we both ended up spinnig. Thankfully you've managed to stay on the track.

At the time when returning to the track, I misjudged proper rejoin point to the chicane (should've take right side of the HiQ Serviving/HiQ Tyres advertisement) but instead I've jumped right in the middle of cars    diven by Yves Placais, Mick Chapman, Lukas Vydra and my teammate Matthias Weber.

This was very unsafe rejoin- my hearfelt apologies to you all of you gentelmen

Hope not make any of these stupid things in future.

Rob Swindells wrote:

Apologies for smashing into Juha Bos at the first chicane in race 1. Thankfully I came off worst, a quite terrible race for me.

No problem. Get me more works Honda bits for the next race and we'll forget all about it.

It was a great set of races for me. Dave Miller qualified first privateer for the first race but I got away better. I started 12th and ran as high as 5th at one point, chasing Honza's Peugeot. Hlavac and Wilks caught me again with all their power but 7th overall isn't bad.

For race two I snatched the privateer pole off Dave in the final moments of qualifying. I had another good race, but the works Hondas got the better of me and I had to settle for 8th.

The results table

Cezariusz Czlapinski wrote:

This was very unsafe rejoin- my hearfelt apologies to you all of you gentelmen

no problem, Cezariusz !

Cezariusz Czlapinski wrote:

... instead I've jumped right in the middle of cars    diven by Yves Placais, Mick Chapman, Lukas Vydra and my teammate Matthias Weber.

It was okay to me. I had to do a little bit of correcting, but nothing unusual and time spending.

I had a horrible 13-hours day at work and I literally run home to jump right into my cockpit and make it to qualifying (which pissed off my wife ). I started from 8th and the race was kind of OK, as I slowly got into my rythm.

Qualifying for race 2 was a little miracle. I modified my setup based on experience from race1 and the car was flying. The first pole position in a looong time The race was much worse. My Volvo clearly was a race winning car, but I had a horrible start and made some further mistakes during the race. I was looking forward to crash into my bed. Instead, I crashed into Peter Blom (I'm sorry Peter, that was a brain fade from my side ) and finally finished 2nd.

First, congratulations to David, that was an amazing drive!

Second, hats off to Jonathan and the admin crew

I had a bad feeling about this race. No time to training, and i was very exhausted after gym workout. Cca 1,5 hour before race i started making setup and trying remeber where the way leads. So i was very surprised when my quali time was so good. 4th place and online PB.
RACE 1 was good, when aliens in front of me disappeared i was trying keep fast pace and keep safe my tires. and after some nice racing moments i was 4th at the finish.

Second quali was similar but i was 5th. So it was still great for me.
RACE 2 was terrible, bad and unlucky. Start was not good but i was bravely fighting, after some nice battles i was 5th i think but when i was fighting with another car i was penalized for cutting...drive through... just few turns after this i was penalized second time just after one cut again. It was frustrating and horrible race continue after second drive through i too early shut down pit limiter and again penalized. That was the end.      

Thanks HSO and drivers for great racing, my admiration to admins for solving problems. Gratz to podium!
See you at Silverstone.

I started races from the back of the grid, because at this moment I lack consistency, pace, confidence...  The car aka Audi aka "Thicc Pig" is still a little bit unpredictable. My goal is not to destroy the race of others and reach the finish line.
R1 was good. Couple of fights (nice 2W with Lukas Vydra   )...
R2.. I killed myself..
Gratz to the winners, thx you all.
See you at Silverstone.

Where can I find Silverstone International track for Ams?

The track will be released a week before the the race.

Me and the Peugeot did far better here then I expected so I could fight in the front group both races.

1st Race was quite eventful. I made a sluggish start but did not loose much ground. After a few laps Grant lost his Audi in a big way in front of me so I gained another position.  
After that I was on Jonathan's tail and under braking at T2 we touched a little. Sadly his Volvo went into the barrier. Was not sure what happened because I could not see him under braking but after viewing the replay I have to say it's more my bad then Jona's. Sorry Jonathan  
In the later stages of the race I outbraked Richard Coxon and lost my back end a little. We did not touch but Richard lost time avoiding me. Shame you lost time there but hey that's racing

2nd Race me and Honza had a simple team strategy: Honza would hold off the Volvo's while I would try to run away...sadly that was a little bit too optimistic
Had a nice first half of the race with the leading group, it was very close but in the later stages I made a mistake and lost touch.

Great two wins for David in the Mondeo! He was very fast in both races

Well... That was just as difficult an event as I had feared.


Practice:

Thruxton has never been my cup of tea, to use a British expression. I was aware that the Volvo ought to be pretty good around here, with it's higher amount of power from it's 5 Cylinder engine, but my lack of affinity with the track certainly showed as I couldn't get myself to bring enough speed through the corners.

Qualifying 1:

Qualifying went surprisingly well considering I felt very off the pace.
I could do nothing about David, he had that Mondeo set up fantasticly well and was flying. But a surprise 3rd on the grid with a fluke lap was nice, since I thought I'd probably stuggle to make the top 5 or even 10.

Race 1:

This was a real struggle. The issue with the DQ'ing was a real downer as the admin of the series. But after several different attempts we finally found a way to let everyone have a run during the evening. This is an issue we now know of and will sort out Before the next time we visit Thruxton.

But with all that, I didn't quite have a good enough start to out-drag the front row, especially not Richard with that RWD advantage over both me and David.

So 3rd, just, after the opening turns. Sorry to anyone I may have impeded, I felt that I was a bit too aggressive on the defense while driving but has yet to look at the replay.

Was able to, sort of, hang with Richard and David, partly because Richard wasn't a lot faster than me and partly because I had the slipstream from the Beemer and Ford ahead of me down some of the straights.

It finally came unglued through when Peter caught up and wanted to get by. I had made a lackluster move on the S/F straight (sorry Peter) and decided to let him run around the outside of me in Campbell but, like Peter said above, we had a coming together and, just like the contact I had with Steve in R1 R1, the car was allready unsettled in the rear and it veered left. No hard feelings from my end Peter, shit happens.

Had the luck of not loosing too many places and tried to do what I could to keep up with and pass Juha but another few mistakes and loss of time meant I couldn't get by and also let Peter by.

So finished 8th, which was still better than I thought I'd get around here.

Qualifying 2:

I had little hope of improving my time but with a fluke run I got into the 13's and thought, for a moment, I may even have picked up pole position but then Petr pulled a rabbit out of his wizards hat and went 2 tenths faster still.
But a surprise 2nd on the grid for Race 2.

Race 2:

By now my mind was completely off the charts. But at least I was in there long enough to get a good start, outstarting Patr and even got a bit of a gap to try and work with when Grant and David put Petr under pressure and even passed him for a while.

But I knew I probably wouldn't be able to keep the gap for the whole race since I was a bit too slow compared to the fastest drivers that was proven.
A few laps in, David caught up to me and braught Petr and Peter along with him I believe.

It didn't take them long to find a way past, made a slight mistake in Club, was able to just save the car to the applauding comments of David, but both him and Petr in the other Volvo got by.

By now it was obvious my setup change hadn't worked while Petrs' had. Thanks for sending me your setup and I should have gone with it but decided to use my own

From then on it was just a question of trying to keep the car on track and not let Peter, who had dropped back after a mistake at Goodwood/Village, catch back up.

Thankfully for me, I was able to stay in front by a few seconds and pick up my 4th podium of the season.


I'm really happy that Thruxton is over with, it's really not a nice circuit, the next one in the form of Silverstone International, I believe will be a lot better in terms of "drivebility".

Thank you to everyone who stood by and waited for issues to be sorted and sorry to see some had far worse races than I had.

See you all at the next round and I hope you all, despite the issues both to get it going and during the races.