Estoril Masters

Oh man what a start. From 8th to 4th. Then I made a mistake, then another one :) Had great battles with Brian and Gregg.
I think it's official, this is a track that I don't enjoy much :)
I bumped a Lister - sorry mate but your car spiked every 2 seconds or so and at one moment you just jumped in front of me. Sorry for that.
Also I understand that Mario had some problems with the PC cause he made an overtake in T1 through me :) and he was flashing - didn't get that.
Anyway a great day, even though there weren't spectacular results.
See you guys at the next one.

Sorry Chris im disapointed for hit but when i was close u the time gives me about u at 10 sec and so ive though u was overtaked flashing u for let me pass. Sorry again.

Good race, pole, FL but Claus is a very good driver, very dificult to win.

The start was disastrous (I'm a noob with my new G25 clutch), i was in P4 before T1 but I brake later and go to P2 and after two laps repeat it with Claus.

Only was able to made a gap of 4.5sec in 20 laps, but start with only 80l and the high fuel consumption of the saleen made my pit-stop 12 seconds slow than Claus.
nexts laps I only was able to reduce the gap 0.2sec per lap or least, the race was lost, but i also made a spin in lasts laps

grats all finishers

Pd: Claus, you had enough fuel in last lap??

It's ok Mario. But how can I let you pass me if we were battling for the same position :) unless I was dead slow.
Well see you all at the next one cause Estoril is not my kind of track apparently.
Congrats to podium and all that finished.
P.S. My wheel kept moving on my desk :( I think it's time to save money for a cockpit.

I never driven Estoril in a GT car so this was a first. I never could get the rear end to grip the way I wanted too.

I dont think I ever drove a car as loose as the Saleen was. I could not get off any of the corners, and heat and tire wear to it. I was very lucky I took hard rears almost took mediums which would have burnt up way before my pit stop.

It was fun however trying to keep the car in line. Had some fun battles at the rear though. Good run with a vet and a ferrari made it very challenging keeping the car on the track. Then I got all over the shop as the rear tires wore out. I was in a complete 4 wheel drift every time I'd exit the last corner on to the straight.

Saleen is a great car I just havent figured it out yet.

Atleased I finished.

Decent qual, was still P1 on my last lap but then Pablo made a blistering one.

Good start, could take the lead but I knew I had no chance on the strait since car was setup for stability and not so much straight line speed, so when Pablo got close after a few laps I saw no reason to go defensive since it would slow us both down, just aimed to get into a good rhythm and keep him close and put some distance to the guys behind.
It worked ok since gap wasn't growing very much, except to the guys behind. Lost a little time in some traffic, but still only about 4s gap at that time and getting close to pitwindow. Just before pits it looked like he had some problems on the last turns, maybe on his own plus there was a backmarker who looked like he was racing him lol, so closed right up and we pitted same time a lap later, thought even he took it bit easy coming into the pit so gained some more time there. I had started with 100L and only needed to put 30L extra in so when I got out I found myself with a 12s gap.
Car was acting much better now being some 25kg lighter I could drive faster and gap was pretty much the same for many laps, around 11-12s, but then jumped to 23s so figured he run into some prob.
8-9 laps from the end I came up behind a huge scrap with 3 Lambos, Brian, Christi and Gregg. Took a few laps to get past that, tho they weren't holding me up alot, but I wanted to get some free track and not having to focus so much on what they were doing, although it looked like a good fun battle to sit behind and watch :)
Last lap I slowed down to let the clock run out just as I crossed the line, still had fuel for a couple more laps.

Tough decision on which car to take here, I went with the 575 in the end because I thought I'd need a good car to hold anyone off out of that last turn and onto the straight. I struggle a bit with this track in terms of consistency too, so needed a car I was comfortable in.
Started 6th but dropped to 7th going through T1, Mario went deep, hit Donato and nudged me to the very outside of the track but not quite off. I was able to pass Mario on the next lap into T1, then had a good race with no mistakes. Close battle with Kent, made a pass when that lack of rear grip let him down in T2. Then I only just got out in front of him in the pit lane, so luckily I didn't have to try and do it again. Got within a couple of seconds of Heinz but realised we weren't going to improve on 3rd & 4th so I just concentrated on not over-heating the tyres or making mistakes. Sam passed Kent and got closer and closer as the race went on, I was going as fast as I could for the last quarter but the gap kept dropping. I'm glad Claus slowed and didn't do the extra lap because Sam would have been right on me for that last lap then. As it was he'd just caught me as the flag came so I got a reprieve.
Grats Claus, Pablo and Heinz.

That was a blast! I'm not a big fan of this track but had a great race long battle with Gregg and Cristi. Had to push all the way.

Congrats to Podium.

Tough event for me, well actually it was the best I have ever run but still dreadfully slow.

Set a qual PB and race PB. Still only 7th on the grid.

Got a nice initial jump at the light but then as the wheels started to spin I backed off a little too much and stalled, double clutched and was swarmed by cars from behind. Went into T1 realy careful wondering if anyone was inside me as I was going for a real tight entry hoping others ahead would over drive it and it worked as I exited T1 in 5th.

Almost lost it exiting the hairpin as shown in my screenshot but managed to hold position after lap 1. Was pleasantly surprised to find myself still in 5th after about 10 laps but the guys ahead were all pulling away and after I made a few small mistakes I could see cars lining up behind me. The second half of stint 1 I was really struggling and that is when I started dropping as Darren then Krueger got by.

I made a decent enough stop but all I did was close up on Hienz and Darren, not able to get them on the stop. On my 2nd lap out I saw Krueger rejoin and he gained on me very quickly. I held my position for a few laps and realized that I wasn't making any ground on Darren and Heinz and decided maybe Krueger could do better and let him pass. Following Krue I ran very consistant laps for about 10 laps and then noticed the gap behind was closing rapidly as Donato was making his way back through the field. Pretty frustrating running my best laps of the race in 6th and having someone just killing me from behind.

But I guess Donato must have cooked his tires or something because after he got to about 4 seconds behind me the gap started growing again and I was able to just run a conservative pace to teh finish.

Again a great race for me at Estoril but then again very dissapointing compared to the field.

Grats to Claus on the win as well as Pablo and Hienz on the podiums.

Congrats to the Podium.

I was expecting to be crying after this race, i had picked the viper or maserati initially, and was just not enjoying seting up either car, they were so slow.

2 hours before the race, i thought i'd use one of my wildcards and took the lambo, and boy am i glad i did. I managed to pull one out the hat and got 4th on the grid, and had a very solid race to take 3rd

Race was quite lonely, but on this track i was more than happy i didnt have any drama to contend with in my first stint, and while i was being dropped by claus and Pablo, I was making ground to darren behind me, was up to 7 seconds at the pit stops, and was worried i'd be taken on stops, the lambo does take ages in there, but managed to come out with about 2 seconds spare, and then had to wait patiently to get passed a backmarker, and thought i was going to have a difficult 2nd stind with darren, kent and sam right on the bumpers, but it played out ok.

Very suprised, but happy thats 2 on the trot now. Good team finish from darren coming from 7th and managing to beat Kent and Sam!

See you next round