GTP WRS-Online : Special XI - Fujissan Mixed Class Enduro - Jan 26/27

[gm matthew]

Great race, everyone. Congratulations to Bart and Kevin for their respective victories.

Commiserations to Wes, Ren and Will for being DCed.

Looks like the 4-stop strategy in the LMP was actually quite good, Bart beat me by 35 seconds and Mohit wasn't too far behind me. I really don't know whether 3 stops or 4 stops were better in the end.

I wasn't expecting to do one more lap, so I ended up dangerously low on fuel. Fortunately I was just able to make it to the line (and it looks like everyone else did too).

I was never going to beat Bart (or Wes), so I'm pretty happy about finishing second.

See you all next time 👍

 

[PASM]

Great race everyone! Congratulations to Kevin for the GT class win, to the podium finishers and everyone who made it to the end. It's a tough one to finish.

I feel for Wes, Ren and Will, who all got disconnected. And for Frank too, very unlucky to miss out on the race like that.

Wes was pushing me very hard and it was hard to keep in front and not make a mistake. We had a deja vu in the first pit stop from one of Frank's practice races as Wes took the lead while I took a little more fuel.

In Wes' draft it was difficult to keep up. When Wes made a mini spin in turn one I had a bit of breathing space, around 5 seconds. But then I hit heavy traffic in bad places a couple of times and the lead was down to 1 second again. After the second pit we exited the pits just as we came in: Wes was within striking distance. As he got disconnected I said "Nooooo" and continued with the race.

I knew that I had to keep at it in order to win the race as Matthew was on a different strategy and didn't know how that would pan out. I tried to do a few good laps and drove a few 1.28.3's. I saw a few 45.3 splits but couldn't make the lap, either because of traffic or a scruffy final sector. Fastest lap came later with a 1.28.05x.

I'm very happy with the win, but preferred to have battled it to the end with Wes.

Edit: pit stops at lap 19, 37, 55 and 73. 55 is the simulated driver change.

 

[EDK]

Congrats to Bart on the overall win, and congrats as well to the podium finishers. 👍

I believe I was fortunate to take the GT win, as Ren was certainly quicker than me, and Litchi might very well have had the pace to keep up.

My pit stops were on laps 17, 33, 50 and 67. My driver change was on lap 50.

Writeup to come at some point, but no time at the moment.

 

[Ealirendur]

Congrats Bart and Kev 👍

At least I can't blame my connection or the servers - bit of a cyclone in the region, so lots of wind and rain. Some flooding in areas in the district (not ours). I was expecting the outages, if any, to occur overnight, but the wind was still taking out trees &/ power lines, apparently.

How many laps did it wind up being in GT? Was not able to run the supports or long practices, but I was headed for a 3-stop (22,44-45, 65-68ish). I bunged some math together for the fuel and timing, but I was very curious to see how it went "for reals", so to speak.

Looks like I won't be able to get to the offline TT today either, power still dead (still on phone). So much for that holiday!

 

[EDK]

I ran 84 laps, that's what I had in my pre-race calculations. My math was scary accurate for this one, I was within 10 seconds of the projected time at every stop.

I had a 4 stop being 20 seconds faster than a 3 stop, with the math I did. Figuring for the longer fuel fill and the additional slow laps. I normally do an actual calculation in excel before running these. But I went ahead and wrote my plan down and put it on my wheel for this one. I included forecasted fuel fill, it helped keep me from being distracted by calculations mid race.

 

[WRP001]

Results are unofficial until all 5 minute pit pauses are verified:

 

[mohitraina91]

Congrats Bart and Kev for the wins, and to Matthew, Christophe, and Daniel for the podiums.

I ran a very good race from my side. The only issue was my TV plug came loose from the power bar, and turned off in the middle of the race. I scrambled to plug it in, wait for the TV to come on (takes a surprising amount of time), and then recover. Had a few LMPs and GTs pass me so had to get through them all over again. Without it I could have *potentially* challenged for 2nd place.

Race report might be up later when I don't feel so lazy .

 

[PASM]

Verifying simulated driver change:

PASM
gmmatthew 👍
gooners_17 👍
JTV 👍
WRP001
Hasslemoff

---------------

EDK 👍
Speedy6543
n0ize
Allibubba99
StraffeStef
b00gee60

(quote this when you verify more drivers)

 

[hasslemoff]

Verifying simulated driver change:

PASM 👍
gmmatthew 👍
gooners_17 👍
JTV 👍
WRP001 👍
Hasslemoff

---------------

EDK 👍
Speedy6543 👍
n0ize 👍
Allibubba99 👍
StraffeStef 👍
b00gee60 👎

(quote this when you verify more drivers)

Only mine left to check

 

[WRP001]

Verifying simulated driver change:

PASM 👍
gmmatthew 👍
gooners_17 👍
JTV 👍
WRP001 👍
Hasslemoff 👍

---------------

EDK 👍
Speedy6543 👍
n0ize 👍
Allibubba99 👍
StraffeStef 👍
b00gee60 👎

You are good Paul and that completes the pit stop checks.

Note that b00gee60 stopped and paused for 5 minutes, but started his timer at the beginning of his stop instead of after the fuel fill was completed (after the lollipop is raised) so his pit is "red flagged".

However, since he finished off the lead lap (and on his own lap) and the penalty wouldn't impact the results we're just going to leave the results as they stand.

I'm not aware of any reported incidents and if none are reported by the end of today we'll consider the results official.

 

[Speedy6543]

Verifying simulated driver change:

PASM 👍
gmmatthew 👍
gooners_17 👍
JTV 👍
WRP001 👍
Hasslemoff 👍

---------------

EDK 👍
Speedy6543 👍
n0ize 👍
Allibubba99 👍
StraffeStef 👍
b00gee60 👎

(quote this when you verify more drivers)

EDIT: Tree'd by Tim, I'm losing my Mojo

 

[mohitraina91]

was checking Paul's right now, but tree'd by two people. Annoyingly you have to watch 4 laps to get to his pit.

 

[WRP001]

was checking Paul's right now, but tree'd by two people. Annoyingly you have to watch 4 laps to get to his pit.

Yes we were both doing our pit pauses just before his so we didn't have proper fast forward points in our replay. Go figure. I kept thinking Paul was going to pit and he kept doing one more lap.

 

[n0iZe83]

Verifying simulated driver change:

PASM 👍
gmmatthew 👍
gooners_17 👍
JTV 👍
WRP001 👍
Hasslemoff 👍

---------------

EDK 👍
Speedy6543 👍
n0ize 👍
Allibubba99 👍
StraffeStef 👍
b00gee60 👎

Thanks Tim for checking, sorry I didn't help.

Just saw that I did my personal best and best race lap in the event
Still mad about my spin in lap 74, the Enduro was going through my head over and over today. Was great fun and again thanks for organizing.

 

[hasslemoff]

was checking Paul's right now, but tree'd by two people. Annoyingly you have to watch 4 laps to get to his pit.

Yes we were both doing our pit pauses just before his so we didn't have proper fast forward points in our replay. Go figure. I kept thinking Paul was going to pit and he kept doing one more lap.

Hope you took note's of how to drive SLOW .

Thanks for checking 👍

 

[EDK]

I had a great time in yesterday's event.

After the support race Saturday, I knew I had some work to do on my tune. I went into my own lounge and messed around with it for a bit. The change that made the biggest difference was ride height. I changed from 0/10 to 5/0. I immediately set a PB lap of 1:34.7xx.

Sunday morning, I created my race plan. This is something I've done for past enduros, but this time, I decided to write down the critical information, including lap number, projected time on race clock, and fuel liters for each stop. I timed out a 4 stop strategy, and a 3 stop. My initial calculations were for 4 stop to be faster, so I went with it.

Once in race, Litchi overtook me within the first couple of laps. And then I settled into a groove in 5th place. Mistakes by the drivers in front of me allowed me to climb to 2nd by my first stop. It was quickly apparent that I was in the minority on my 4 stop strategy, as most of the other GT drivers stayed out until lap 21.

Ren disconnected while I was in my second stint. IIRC, he was also tracking to a 4 stop strategy, but also had more pace than I did. Too bad for him that his power went out, I think he had this one in the bag.

From there, I did not see many GT cars, so it's a good thing I had all the LMP cars passing me to give me something to keep my focus.

I was reasonably confident that my pace was keeping me in the race. I caught most of the other GT competitors before their last stop with roughly 21 laps to go, and so I knew I would have some laps with pace advantage over them when they were on older tires.

As it turned out, I exited the pits a few seconds ahead of Speedy, on cold tires. I managed to stay ahead until turn 1 of the next lap, and I spent too much time watching my mirror and ran deep into the over run tarmac.

I reeled Speedy back in, passed him with about 8 or 10 laps to go, and then had an incident in the hairpin with an LMP car, which let Speedy by again.

I reeled him back in and was past him for the 3rd time, but managed to keep the car on track and pull out a gap before the end of the race.

It was nice to finally have a bit of a battle going after a lonely middle section of the race. These are far and away my favorite events, I think my consistency and focus are stronger attributes for me than outright pace.

We'll see you guys next month, I might even run LMP next time.

Who am I kidding? I always say that.

 

[Bravojon]

Verifying simulated driver change:

PASM 👍
gmmatthew 👍
gooners_17 👍
JTV 👍
WRP001 👍
Hasslemoff

---------------

EDK 👍
Speedy6543 👍
n0ize 👍
Allibubba99 👍
StraffeStef 👍
b00gee60 👎

(quote this when you verify more drivers)

Only mine left to check

I stopped for 5min but apparently didn't hit the start button at the right time

 

[WRP001]

The key is your 5 minutes doesn't start until the pit stop work is complete. So after choosing fuel and tires you hit start and then watch the lap timer during your stop until they release you from the pits -- when the crew raise the lollipop -- and at that moment jot down the time. For me it was at 0:47 on my current lap - after tires were changed and all fuel was added. Add 5 minutes to that and I was free to hit start to release my car at 5:47.

I once hit the start button by accident when I got up from my seat to take my break... stuff happens.

 

[PASM]

Thanks Tim for checking, sorry I didn't help.

Just saw that I did my personal best and best race lap in the event
Still mad about my spin in lap 74, the Enduro was going through my head over and over today. Was great fun and again thanks for organizing.

Thanks for checking guys 👍

You're right, Daniel. A lot of people drove a personal best in the race I think. Or at least almost everyone improved on his qualifying time!

 

[Racingworld68]

Hey guys, I am happy you all had a good time. I was really disappointed sunday night....as I really had been looking forward to this. On top of it I got ill monday morning, resulting in a 3 days stuck under the whool.

Ah there is always next time....

 

[n0iZe83]

Hey guys, I am happy you all had a good time. I was really disappointed sunday night....as I really had been looking forward to this. On top of it I got ill monday morning, resulting in a 3 days stuck under the whool.

Ah there is always next time....

Sorry to hear that Frank, we missed you on track. Better luck next time 👍

 

[WRP001]

Yah Frank. We left one spot open on the grid for you in tribute. Hope you are feeling better... the next opportunity is not far away now...

PS> Here you go Frank, start scheduling your full length practice sessions.

GTP WRS-Online : Special XII - WRS 2.4 at Daytona - Feb 23/24

Seriously though I'd like to schedule a couple hour test session (open session with short races like we do for our weekly events) for early this Sunday if anyone is interested. We'll discuss in the other thread and drivers can come and go as they please, but definitely want to include some 20 minute race sessions in the practice. Your also free to switch cars between class to get an idea what the racing will be like. There are starter tunes for both cars linked in the thread and they'll be a good place to start.

PPS> No picture uploads for the Fuji race yet?

 

[WRP001]

Maybe the following feeble attempt at capturing some of the action in images will inspire a few with real talent to post some highlight pics...

​

 

[PASM]

Thanks for posting the pictures, Tim 👍 Always funny to see a packed pit lane.