GTP 7th F1 World Championship - Round 4 - China
Weather - Light rain during qualifying, dry race
Qualifying Results:
Pole -
Baumi27 (Brawn) -
1:35.706
2nd. - Shaggy Alonso (Tyrrell) - 1:35.763
3rd. -
Pipeslice (Jordan) -
1:37.011
4th. - Mutu20 (Tyrrell)- 1:37.699
5th. -
DarkPSI (Benetton)-
1:37.868
6th. - Tombrooks97 (Jordan)- 1:40.007
7th. -
Upuaut (Brabham)-
1:42.566
8th. - AliT12 (Brabham)- 1:42.769
9th. -
kcheeb (Hesketh)-
1:45.635
Race Results:
1st.
Shaggy Alonso (Tyrrell) - 45:26.703
2nd.
DarkPSI (Benetton) + 29.4 secs
3rd.
Pipeslice (Jordan) + 30.0 secs
4th.
Mutu20 (Tyrrell) + 39.6 secs
5th.
Baumi27 (Brawn) + 1 lap
6th.
Tombrooks97 (Jordan) + 1 lap
7th.
Upuaut (Brabham) + 1 lap
8th.
AliT12 (Brabham) + 1 lap
9th.
kcheeb (Hesketh) + 2 laps
Race Footage
courtesy of DarkPSI:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Qualifying:
Being confident of my pace this weekend, rain was the last thing I wanted really, but I got on with it and fuelled up for a 2 lap run. I caught traffic towards the end of my first lap so backed off but my next lap got me provisional pole with a 1:36.3. I came back into the pits and saw Baumi was just 4 tenths off my lap so i'd definitely have to go out and improve.
I fuelled up for 3 flying laps and got a fresh set of tyres and went out again. My first lap improved by about a tenth, my second lap hit traffic again so I backed off and as I was winding myself up for my final flier, I saw
Baumi27 pumped in a 1:35.7 with another one of his quali specials
With this in mind I launched the car over the final curb to carry good speed onto the pit-straight but unfortunately had a big oversteer moment and instead I lost quite a bit of time
As a result, I was 0.25 seconds down on my best first sector alone but put in purple 2nd and 3rd sectors to close within 6 hundredths of Baumi's time, but his lap was too much to beat. However I was glad to have secured a front row slot 👍
Race:
Most of the runners opted to start on the options with the exceptions of
Mutu20 (Internet_User) and pole man,
Baumi. With this in mind, and partly inspired by Lewis Hamilton's move on Sebastian Vettel at the start of the GP earlier in the day, I set about nailing Baumi into turn 1 with my extra traction off the line
This went according to plan as I got up his inside and made the move stick. I hung him out to dry going round the corner, though i'm certain we never made contact - I hope this was fair 👍
When I turned into two, I was tagged by
Pipeslice who must have slithered up the inside of Baumi as well. This spun us right round and most of the field passed us. Pipeslice courteously ceded position and let me go and I was pleased to see my team mate,
Mutu20 was in the lead 👍
As in Malaysia, the next phase of the race is a little hazy for me as I was in 'race mode' and was just focused on braking points and apexes and not the bigger picture of the race. I do remember getting past Baumi around the outside of turn 6 (fresh options vs primes = no contest).
Tombrooks97 was having a great run and spent several laps up in 4th place before he went deep into the turn 14 hairpin and I took his position.
If I remember correctly,
DarkPSI had got by Mutu20 and when my team mate took a really slow line through turn 13 I thought he was letting me through (Rob Smedley had nothing to do with this) but although I got ahead of him on the backstraight and assumed the racing line, Mutu totally outbraked himself into 14 and as I could see what was happening, I avoided turning in so that I wasn't collected in the manoeuvre
This was an unfortunate error by James as he spun rejoining the track and lost 10 seconds - without this he would almost certainly have finished on the podium.
Then in clean air, I started catching DarkPSI who was leading and followed him closely down the pit-straight where he went off taking too much speed into turn 1. This was a pity as I was looking forward to doing battle with him
Dark pitted behind me on lap 10, but since we all started on brand new tyres because of the wet qualifying, I stayed out until lap 12 to pit for fresh boots. I came out in second, a few seconds behind my team mate who was on a different strategy and was yet to pit. When I closed up on him he gave me the position on the back straight because it would have slowed us both down had we fought for position.
From there on in I just settled down and put in consistent lap times on the primes, starting in the 1:35's, then dipping gradually into the 1:34's before setting a 1:33.9 on the very last lap.
Pipeslice easily had the pace to win this race so it's a credit to DarkPSI that he held him back for so long. Also, congratulations to Tom who showed an enormous improvement - if he can combine his qualifying pace from Malaysia with his race pace and discipline in China then it won't be long before he's on the podium 👍
Also congrats to Baumi on a stunning pole position - you're quite the qualifying specialist 👍
And finally a big thank you to those who were a lap behind for being so courteous with letting the front-runners through. There were no such problems like we had in Malaysia which made the whole experience much better for everyone.
Thanks again to everyone who took part. Next race is
2 weeks from now because of Easter. Look forward to racing you all then. Hope you enjoy your break in the mean time
👍
Here's the tables:
Drivers Championship
1st.
Shaggy Alonso - 128 pts
2nd.
DarkPSI - 99 pts
3rd.
Baumi27 - 82 pts
4th.
Pipeslice - 44 pts
5th.
Mutu20 - 43 pts
6th.
NumbPhase - 34 pts
7th.
Upuaut - 34 pts
8th.
tombrooks97 - 27 pts
9th.
DOUQA - 19 pts
10th.
Jerry786 - 12 pts
11th
AliT12 - 11 pts
12th.
kcheeb - 7 pts
13th.
Shark33 - 3 pts
14th.
Manios22DC - 2 pts
Teams Championship
1st.
Tyrrell - 171 pts (Shaggy Alonso, Mutu20)
2nd.
Benetton - 99 pts (DarkPSI, DonkeyFuzz)
3rd.
Jordan - 86 pts (Tombrooks97, Pipeslice, Jerry786, Shark33)
4th.
Brawn - 84 pts (Baumi27, Manios22DC)
5th.
Hesketh - 60 pts (kcheeb, Mattymc96, NumbPhase, DOUQA)
6th.
Brabham - 45 pts (Upuaut, AliT12)