GTC-East Barcelona

Sort of happy with 8th, but im mad at myself again. I cant seem to start the races well anymore... I had 2 exits in the first 5 laps, and i got rammed by Barry K once (sorry m8, but that was easily avoidable). So lost a lot of time there, but the worst was my decision to run hards in the first stint. Bad, BAD idea... I was way off the pace, almost a second per lap of what i used to do with the mediums. The pitstops went well, though, since i hoisted my positions up from 15th to 9th, then Sam quit, ended up 8th. The last 15 laps of the race were absolutely cool, since i was runnin within a second or so behind Barry K. I was pushing 100% flat out, with minimal mistakes at that point, so was Barry, he didnt make mistakes so he took 7th. Congratulations for a great drive Barry!
And of course to the winners and the podium!!!

I lined up 2nd behind Tolga to do quali and we waited for the lights to go green. But before that my car was totally wrecked by William Cody (wasn't that the real name of Buffalo Bill?) who used the pitlane as a racetrack. Ok ... back to the garage and start again. But then I managed to put the car in the wall myself in the outlap. So had to start from 19th. Had trouble in the first laps passing cars but things got smoother after a while. Then a misunderstanding with Tolga which I'm sorry for. Had seen more guys went for 2 stops spread over the race instead of back-to-back. So I hoped to see Paul and Scott in the third part of the race. And yes ... I did. Had a good run on Paul on the straight but that braking one meter later made me spin. Still 7 laps to go so I tried again. Paul passed Scott and I was able to get to him again. But just like the Euro-race .... the race should have been 50 laps. But getting 5th in the end isn't that bad at all. It was a real pleasure racing with you tonight guys. We should do that more often. :-) Grats to the guys who reach the podium.

Now that was entertaining... Somehow managed to pull a 1:08 out of the hat in practice (having only just slid into the signups at the last minute) - and then did another in Qualli! Sorted... 4th on the grid.

Race start was right on - and for the 1st half a dozen laps just sat behind the leading 3 - watching them edge slowly away. There was no threat behind so I could just run my own race. After the pit shakedown - I find myself right behind Scott and we had a cracking few laps racing. I knew Scott's tyres were already worn so I didn't push too hard for the pass... until Rocket George appeared from nowhere LOL. A good move up my inside gave him the spot - but I thought he'd run deep, so I moved to cut back - only to see him spin right in front of me. I kept her in the right direction and managed to pass Scott with a few laps to spare. Tolga was about 12 or 13 seconds up the road - so cruise control for the last few laps.

Great racing Scott, & George from the back of the grid to finish where you did. Kent & Tolga - Well done!

Excuse me Bobby,rammed you,when might that have been.
bazza

CTD this time... What a shame , it was nice to get in from the waiting list and things were going my way in the race, after a good start i could control the race from the P1 and we had some good 3 way action there with Kent in 3rd place.

Tolga was keeping close in 2nd place , but i had a low wing setup and i could outrun him in the mainstraight. Not many other places to pass here , so everything was looking good. Thx for the fair fight Tolga :).

Did an early stop in laps 21-22 to avoid the trafic , but didn't have the best of luck in out/in lap(s)and lost several seconds there due some surprising moments in pitroad entry and when i was overtaking a lapped car later on outlap. Noticed that i'm missing my 2nd inlap from the results , had to go around a slowmoving car in pitentry and got a warning from cutting the track :o.

After most of the pitstops were done , i was running comfortable 2nd and catching up the leader. Dunno if he had pitted once or twice , but could have been a good race without the damn CTD... But from the positive side , it was a refreshing way to take a DNF , usually i get disconnects these days ;P.

Big congrats to my team mate Kent , well done mate 8).

Grats to Tolga and Paul too for the other podium places. Save some champagne plz.. :D

Well.. cya maybe in next one , depends on how the waiting list moves on... ;)

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Samuel

I have to agree with George and Paul, that was entertaining. I really like how this series forces different strategies to go along with close racing.

That was on full display as I came out of my back-to-back pitstops in 10th knowing I would move up when the split pitstop guys went in for their second round.

That put me up to 4th and when Sam left (disco'd I guess) I was in a podium spot. Unfortunately, my tires didn't allow me to push on as much as I would like with George and Paul filling more and more of my mirrors as they got themselves warmed up after their second stops. My only hope was that they would cancel each other out.

Unfortunately for me (and presumable George) George span and that left Paul free to chase me down. After missing a beat going through the chicane it was a simple matter for Paul to seal the deal going into T6.

Then it was left to defend 4th against a hard charging George, who was clearly faster than me. Luckily, the powers that be scheduled the race for a very round (or square) 49 laps, and I managed to hold off George to the finish line.

Congrats to the podium and great job Paul and George.

I checked the replay. around laps 10 to 15. PEnultimate corner. It was more like a side impact, according to the replay, but it felt like a back ram. Reviewing it, it was avoidbale for sure, but not only from your end. At the moment i felt i had the speed to carry on at that corner, and it looks as if you assumed i'd let you by, so we just ended up on the same piece of racetrack. Wasnt a biggie, only cost me an extra 5 or so seconds.

woohooo! Finally a clean race and a win.

Qual was dissapointing for me but it sure could have been a lot worse. This series is really hard for me, I have to leave work early and drive 80 minutes home just to rush in launch the game and get 10 minutes to warm up. So starting third and on the inside is pretty good.

I was behind Tolga and his start was not the greatest I pedaled it a bit not wanting to get to close in T1 since I know I have a tendancy to over shoot T1, and after the last 2 races with Tolga where I shamed myself by spinning him 3 times. So we got through T1 clean and took off after Krueger. I laid back a bit figuring Tolga had the speed to challenge Krue.

We were slowly pulling away from Paul so I was just fine where I was. But I found our pace was not as fast as I had practiced and was actually just cruising and easily keeping up with Tolga and Krueger. In fact when lap 15 came around I was planning to stop but my tires were looking fantastic and I was considering doing the back to back stops. Then it hit me that if I got away from these two with fresh tires I could probably make some gap. So I pitted lap 16 and as I went in to pit Tolga went out to the beach. This was looking better by the minute.

I did my stop taking 4 tires and resumed in 6th. After I saw a lot of guys on the same strategy I soon found myself in 2nd and about 19 seconds behind. Since my stop was about 27 seconds I new the lead would soon be mine. Sure enough a lap later I was leading by about 19 seconds. I streched it to about 24 and had a couple bad laps, so when I pitted the second time I only had about 20 seconds.

I resumed in 3rd and saw Krueger go by as I exited. Can't remember who was leading but they still had another stop. I charged on my outlap and was about 3.5 seconds behind Krueger and about 2 seconds ahead of Tolga? Well half a lap later I looked up and found myself leading? Where did Krueger go. I soon saw him exit the server.

I guess Tolga was having troubles because I was pulling out about a second a lap and ended up about 20 seconds ahead at the finish.

Was concerned about my strategy but optomistic, turns out it worked fine although it would have been interesting if I would have caught Krueger and had to pass him assuming I could have.

Had one guy go off track at the chicane and he did a not so bright re-entry that caught me off gaurd....watch your mirrors guys.

"The race was a big disspointment for me. We didn't have any testing time before the race, so we used the data from another circuit to give us an idea of where to start. After using the qualifying period to sort through some different configurations, the team was confident we had a strategy and setup good enough to be competitive for a top 10 finish.

However, an early mishap in qualifying would force us to do a drive through penalty on the first lap. Despite this, I felt there was still a good chance of finishing strong even starting from the back row and serving the penalty.

I had a sensational start and moved up 8 positions into P11 from dead last by turn 3. I was full of confidence and was on maximum attack straight away. The car had great balance from the get go with plenty of grip on the cold tyres and we had a full fuel load on board. It seemed the strategy and setup would work into the later stages of the race.

Nevertheless, as I entered the pitlane to serve my penalty I engaged the speed limiter. The car immediately died and I could not refire it. I was able to pull it into my pit to have the mechanics find the problem. Unfortunately, my race was over before I could complete a lap due to an unfound electical gremlin. This is a terrible shame and it seems our badluck in the GTC series continues. Hopefully we can catch a break and comeback with a strong performance in the next race."

A dissapointing race for me.

Qualy went good and got pole with a decent 1.08.2.

In race i started with hard-med combination. I lost the start to Sam and dropped to 2nd. Me, Kent and Sam had like same speed and driving close to each other. My tyres started to worn and i was falling behind. Sam made 8 secs gap coz of my mistakes till my pits. It looked hard-med combination wasnt good enough to race like 25 laps, so i decided to go for hard-hard in my pits.
I was expecting to be ahead of Kent but as George mentioned i went to gravel with a misunderstanding between each other and lost like 10 secs there. After Kent pitted he came the track 2 secs ahead of me and his tyres were new. I didnt have any chance to pass him after that time and got 2nd place behind Kent after Sam's problem.

Grats Kent, looked like double stop strategy wasnt good for that track or at least with my setup :)