GTP 7th F1 World Championship - Round 7 - Turkey
Weather - Dry
Qualifying Results:
Pole -
Pipeslice (Jordan) -
1:23.885 (10 pts)
2nd. - Shaggy Alonso (Tyrrell) - 1:24.015 (8 pts)
3rd. -
Baumi27 (Brawn) -
1:24.948 (6 pts)
4th. - DarkPSI (Benetton)- 1:24.985 (5 pts)
5th. -
MikeTheHockeyFan (Benetton)-
1:26.955 (4 pts)
6th. - Tombrooks97 (Jordan) - 1:27.275 (3 pts)
7th. -
kcheeb (Hesketh)-
1:27.392 (2 pts)
8th. - jordy7777 (Hesketh)- 1:30.187 (1 pts)
9th. -
Upuaut (Brabham)-
1:34.893
10th. - Mutu20 (Tyrrell)- N/A
Race Results:
1st.
Pipeslice (Jordan) (25 pts) - 42m17.314s
2nd.
Shaggy Alonso (Tyrrell) (18 pts) + 3.8s
3rd.
DarkPSI (Benetton) (15 pts) + 29.7s
4th.
Mutu20 (Tyrrell) (12 pts) + 57.8s
5th.
Baumi27 (Brawn) (10 pts) + 82.1s
6th.
MikeTheHockeyFan (Benetton) (8 pts) + 1 lap
7th.
Tombrooks97 (Jordan) (6 pts) + 1 lap
8th.
kcheeb (Hesketh) (4 pts) + 1 lap
9th.
Upuaut (Brabham) (2 pts) + 2 laps
10th.
jordy7777 (Hesketh)(1 pts) + 2 laps
Qualifying:
It's really tough to hook up a good lap at Istanbul Park because there's so many different types of corners, especially the blind downhill ones in the first sector which are hard to nail consistently. Still, it's a track I really enjoy so I was hopeful for a good result. My first two laps were pretty cautious efforts but still put me at the top of the tree. Then out of nowhere
Pipeslice who had shown promising pace in previous races that never translated into results, banged in a stunning lap of
1:23.8. I knew I was beaten at that moment. My second low fuel run was only good enough for a 1:24 flat, which I believe is still a PB there under those racing conditions, but not enough to worry Pipe. Interestingly, I was nearly 4 tenths down in the first two sectors, but pulled back almost 3 tenths in the final sector, which was a trend that would carry on into the race.
DarkPSI had a difficult session. Adopting my set up in order to cure an oversteer problem, he found it to be even more difficult and was pipped for 3rd place by
Baumi27, falling 4 tenths shy of his pace set in practice.
Mutu20 Wasn't able to make it in time for the session so we took the qualifying results and restarted the race under a random grid.
Race:
Starting from 3rd wasn't the worst place to be, I was ahead of Pipeslice who was stuck back in 7th and could follow DarkPSI and hopefully catch and pass him. I got a better start than Dark and sought to pull up the inside of him but there wasn't a lot of room with
MikeTheHockeyFan occupying the inside line, so I had to back out to avoid a certain accident - 3 don't go into one. Braking early and getting a better exit than the other two, I pulled out to the left just as
kcheeb who started from 4th, was exiting the corner and his tight angle of approach meant he just tagged the back of me spinning me round and damaging his front wing. He let me through and I set about making my way through the field.
I got past
Upuaut on the drag into turn 8, then drove past
Jordy7777 and
tombrooks97 at turn 2 on the second lap which put me up to 6th. On lap 3 I then got past my team mate
Mutu20 going into turn 8, then past
MikeTheHockeyFan on the same lap to move up to 4th. I then had a scrap with
Baumi27 for a couple of laps trying to get past him, I found it difficult to slipstream him because of the kink of turn 11 so I wasn't usually close enough to outbrake him into 12. Eventually I got past when I seem to remember carrying much more speed into turn one so that I was able to drive past into turn 2, though when you're in race mode it's hard to remember exactly what went on. This put me into third and I was now chasing down
DarkPSI, who disliked the option tyres so strongly that he pitted as early as lap 7. Up to second now, and I hoped that my pace on the options would stretch out enough to have a chance of leapfrogging him after my stop.
Before
Pipeslice pitted from the lead on lap 10, I was 13 seconds behind him. I pitted a lap later and came out a second closer than I was before which was encouraging, as I was now on marginally fresher tyres than his as well. I had also successfully leaped Dark who must have hit rush hour traffic after his stop as I had expected him to be much closer than he actually was.
I started to catch Pipeslice hand over fist, reeling him in 3-4 seconds a lap as he was clearly in trouble. Turned out he was driving one handed trying to fix his mic. He got it sorted out just in the nick of time though and the gap between us stabilized at 4 seconds. I tried to exert as much pressure as I could in the hope that he would make a mistake but he wasn't obliging. We always seemed to have an answer for each other's pace and it became a stalemate with him having an edge in the second sector, and me having an edge in the final sector. This reminded me of Catalunya where the same pattern occurred when racing Dark there. I don't know if it's something to do with my style or set-up, but I seem to have an advantage in the slower corners but lose out perhaps in some of the faster ones.
In the last few laps I could sense that Pipe was either struggling with his tyres or he was just backing off in the natural way you do when approaching the end of the race in the lead, so I started to push extra hard but unfortunately had a massive oversteer moment on the exit of turn 5 and lost a second and a half to him. Who knows, if I hadn't made that mistake and he was able to hear my engine noise in the background it may have pressured him into making a mistake, although I highly doubt it as he's an accomplished racer. I closed the gap back down to 3.8 seconds by the end of the race, but Pipeslice always had it under control it seemed. Kudos to him, he drove a great race and fully deserved his maximum haul of 35 points 👍
Dark's set-up woes meant he couldn't challenge for the win but salvaged 3rd place ahead of Mutu20 who once again had the upper hand over Baumi in the race, even if he didn't have the one lap pace of him. Onwards and upwards to Montreal where i'll be pushing for the win!
Race Footage
courtesy of tombrooks97 & kcheeb:
kcheeb's race:
Qualifying :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75gGREzwi9I
Race Clip 1 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdfx4P5OLoY
Race Clip 2 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgRvlHkx3nU
Race Clip 3 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP4GHbRWkSc
Race Clip 4 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ1G0UAkX0M
Tombrooks97's race:
Race Clip 1 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2egcFyXTCNQ
Race Clip 2 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_vwG7Rm8Kk
Race Clip 3 : Coming soon
Here's the tables:
Drivers Championship
1st.
Shaggy Alonso - 224 pts
2nd.
DarkPSI - 163 pts
3rd.
Baumi27 - 118 pts
4th.
Mutu20 - 96 pts
5th.
Pipeslice - 91 pts
6th.
Tombrooks97 - 44 pts
7th.
MikeTheHockeyFan - 36 pts
8th.
Upuaut - 36 pts
9th.
NumbPhase - 34 pts
10th.
Ardius - 30 pts
11th.
kcheeb - 24 pts
12th.
DOUQA - 19 pts
13th.
AliT12 - 17 pts
14th
Jerry786 - 12 pts
15th.
Shark33 - 3 pts
16th.
Manios22DC - 2 pts
17th.
jordy7777 - 2 pts
Teams Championship
1st.
Tyrrell - 320 pts (Shaggy Alonso, Mutu20)
2nd.
Benetton - 199 pts (DarkPSI, MikeTheHockeyFan)
3rd.
Jordan - 150 pts (Tombrooks97, Pipeslice, Jerry786, Shark33)
4rd.
Brawn - 150 pts (Baumi27, Manios22DC, Ardius)
5th.
Hesketh - 79 pts (kcheeb, NumbPhase, DOUQA, jordy7777)
6th.
Brabham - 53 pts (Upuaut, AliT12)