S2 Endurance: Race 1 - Barcelona race report
Ah! A shiny new season. Endless possibilities of winning lie ahead... until the harsh realities of racing set in!
Three of the team (Don, Mark & I) took to the track in our shiny NGT Legends skinned GT3's for the new format of 80 minute endurance races.
A sigh of relief when the track was dry for qualifying and the new season was up & running. A PB by me of 1:45.7 put me in 2nd place on the NGT grid with Jakob Schmidt just a fraction of a second behind me in his Mosler.
I was feeling pretty confident from my pre-race practice, but that evaporated all too quickly as Jakob immediately put me under intense pressure. Less than a lap into the race I made a stupid error of watching him too closely in my rear view, missed a gear change and sailed into the gravel, throwing away my 2nd place.
Re-joining back in 20th overall, at least there was another 75 mins to try to make amends!
Unfortunately, things didn't get much better...
After passing a couple of cars, a bit of contact with an overtaking GT car saw me into the gravel again but I pushed on and was slowly getting back into running when it came to pit-stop.
Listening too closely to my pit crew after requesting a pit stop, I missed my breaking point on the start / finish straight and sailed into the wall. Miraculously the car was undamaged and I made my pit-stop, somewhat flustered after a very poor 40 mins of driving. Eager to get back on the track I mistakenly turned my pit limiter off (it was already on!) and immediately recieved a 10s stop / go penalty which I came in for on the next lap.
The race had been well & truly chucked away by now and I failed to make much impression in the 2nd half of the race, passing a struggling Tyf and an out of fuel Don.
An NGT 5th was hugely disappointing, Magny-Cours next week and a big improvement from me!
Ah! A shiny new season. Endless possibilities of winning lie ahead... until the harsh realities of racing set in!
Three of the team (Don, Mark & I) took to the track in our shiny NGT Legends skinned GT3's for the new format of 80 minute endurance races.
A sigh of relief when the track was dry for qualifying and the new season was up & running. A PB by me of 1:45.7 put me in 2nd place on the NGT grid with Jakob Schmidt just a fraction of a second behind me in his Mosler.
I was feeling pretty confident from my pre-race practice, but that evaporated all too quickly as Jakob immediately put me under intense pressure. Less than a lap into the race I made a stupid error of watching him too closely in my rear view, missed a gear change and sailed into the gravel, throwing away my 2nd place.
Re-joining back in 20th overall, at least there was another 75 mins to try to make amends!
Unfortunately, things didn't get much better...
After passing a couple of cars, a bit of contact with an overtaking GT car saw me into the gravel again but I pushed on and was slowly getting back into running when it came to pit-stop.
Listening too closely to my pit crew after requesting a pit stop, I missed my breaking point on the start / finish straight and sailed into the wall. Miraculously the car was undamaged and I made my pit-stop, somewhat flustered after a very poor 40 mins of driving. Eager to get back on the track I mistakenly turned my pit limiter off (it was already on!) and immediately recieved a 10s stop / go penalty which I came in for on the next lap.
The race had been well & truly chucked away by now and I failed to make much impression in the 2nd half of the race, passing a struggling Tyf and an out of fuel Don.
An NGT 5th was hugely disappointing, Magny-Cours next week and a big improvement from me!
posted by popabawa at
11:39 am
