1953 Round 6 - Coppa Inter-Europa

I'll sadly have to miss this one too

Qualified pretty well for GT Challenge (11th) so I want to put full focus into that this weekend

Mia Rose wrote:

I'll sadly have to miss this one too

Qualified pretty well for GT Challenge (11th) so I want to put full focus into that this weekend

Good luck with it, Mia

Present!

Present

i will be there

present

present

I had a last minute change of plans and I sadly will not be able to attend this Sunday’s race

I should be able to make it.

Present!

Yesterday I saw finish line...That was probably not the motorsport god at home

Here a brief (or not so brief) recap from my perspective:

In qualifying, I could go about a second quicker than in pre-qualifying thanks to the evolving track. Didn’t try any slipstreaming though, maybe could have find another half second or so. That was P4 on the grid.
I got a pretty good start and was aiming for a gap between the cars in front. Thereby I crossed into Darrens line unfortunately and we both suffered minor body damage. Sorry for that! Could keep up the momentum though and outdragged both the Jags and was P2 into Curva Grande behind Nico. (Side note: Almost crashed into the right hand barrier due to lack of focus. Would have surely come back onto the road an taken half the field out. Spent the rest of lap 1 thinking how embarrassing that would have been.) For the first two laps I could keep up with Nico. Then some green cars flew by. Might have been the Jags of Isi and Rory, but they were too fast to tell for sure. There was some fun slipstreaming and overtaking with Tom and we were both able to stay reasonably close to the leaders. Then, around lap 10, Tom and me went off in Parabolica simultaneously. We rejoined in the same order but had lost 6 seconds and contact to the leading pack, obviously. I think some laps later Petr overtook both of us. So was P6 at that time. Tom stayed in his tow for a while but couldn’t keep up ultimately. At the same time Rob de Vries in the second Lancia was closing in on me slightly.

Some more slipstreaming with Tom but we couldn’t really close in on Petr who was some 8 seconds down the road. Meanwhile, Rob spun at the exit of the second Lesmo. It happened while we were lapping other cars, maybe there was some contact? When we came into more traffic, Tom lost out a bit through the Lesmos. As my car was handling beautifully in this part of the race and I had lots of confidence, I started to really push 100% and was able to break away. Was now in P5 and doing the same times as Petr (10s ahead) and 0.5-0.8s quicker than Tom. From then, it was only about bringing it home. Was doing some calculations in my head and figured out that me and Tom would have equal points but he would take 3rd in the +3L championship because of his wins. Needed a car between us or one of the leaders retire to make for a bigger points difference. Nico didn’t disappoint me and once again failed miserably at managing his brakes So came home in P4 in the race and P3 in +3L standings.

Congratulations to all winners, finishers and thanks for the clean, professional and fun racing at Monza and the whole 1953 series. Special thanks of course to the organizers and everyone who contributed.

As I will be moving to the mighty Scuderia Guastalla for next season, I now also have a Maserati at my disposal. Excited to find out what that car can do. Will need to figure out whether to concentrate on +3L or 2L. See you in 1954!

I won the ISO 1958 Italian Grand Prix last year, so I had high hopes for this race. It was also obvious that all those horses under Jag's bonnet will help. A lot. Another reason for optimism was the fact, that I finally learnt how to rotate this car. You either need to apply brake to avoid understeer or slam the gas pedal to slide the rear. Coasting is the worst thing to do and the car just understeers off the track. Handling can also be improved by moving brake balance to the rear. With these problems eliminated, I started from P9.

It didn't take long to move up the order, simply because the Jag is a beast in straight line. The march forward stopped at P4 halfway through the race and I expected to finish at the same position. The battle for top 3 had to be very intense, but I was way off. But then one of the leading cars got stuck in the armco and I brought it home on P3. Top 5 achieved, I'm happy

Looking back at the season, I wish I joined you from the start. Still, better late than never. All those races were very enjoyable, from survival in Monaco to the lonely night stint at Spa. Spa is the only race where I could do a significantly better job, but the rest was either on par or better than I expected. I'm definitely way behind the fastest guys, but it looks like I bring it home in most cases = P5 target achieved = I can't be happier and I'm looking forward for more

Congrats to winners, thanks to Frank, thanks to everyone for fair and clean racing and see you soon

Race and season summary:



The outlook to 1954 was outdated already when I finished the upload because SOMEBODY had to change their plans again.

Just a quick update.
Fairly quiet race. One leary sideways moment but no big deal.
Tried to slipstream Mark's Masa for a few laps but he soon dropped me. Managed to hold into Mark's Aston for a couple of laps but lost him in traffic. I was gaining about .5 seconds per lap in his stream. Sorry if it was off putting.
Spent loads of the time being lapped and lapping but could never hold onto anyone's slipstream. I didn't even notice Mark and Erwann lapping me. I hope I didn't get in anyone's way.
Sorry to see John drop out on the last lap.
And that's 1953 done.