| GTAL 2010 Round 3: Race Report |
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| Written by Jack Atkinson |
| Sunday, 31 January 2010 16:08 |
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Round 3 of the 2010 GTAL was the 3 Hours of South City Long Reversed. In qualification, Rui Santos put the Core Racing FZR on the pole position - the only team to set a "legal" 1:34 lap. The newly fused Xcite-LRT Team took the second front row slot in their FZR. 7Karat proved the pace of the FXR around the tight twisty streets with an impressive 3rd position. The top XRR was Estonian Endurance Racers in 7th place.
The tight funnelling T1 was expected to cause issues on the initial rolling start, but a small incident between VM Racing and FUBAR Racing was the only issue here. At the front, Rui Santos used the NA engine in the FZR to his advantage, pulling away from the rest of the field at the start. 7Karat overtook Xcite before T1 to take 2nd place, and Tommy Østgaard got a superb start from 6th place to take 3rd from Xcite into T2. However, the inevitable schmozzles started at T3, where Xcite had got back infront of T7R and then collided with the blue FZR coming into the kink. The #2 car span across the track and hit the wall hard. The EER XRR had no time to avoid them, and slammed into their stationary car, whilst at the same time lagging slightly. This put the EER and Xcite cars into outer space, but not before causing the #5 SR FZR and the Conedodgers car to spin also. This incident caused the first Safety Car Period of the day. This was unfortunately immediately followed by another one, as the #11 WWR FXR was launched into the air by a lag collision on the restart, landing on the roof of the Team IRM Car. Rui got another excellent start off of this restart, however as this section of the race progressed it became clear that the 7Karat and TDRT [who had by now overtaken T7R for 3rd] had better pace in their FXRs than Rui's FZR and were closing him down at a good rate of knots. Rui made a mistake at Turn 10 on lap 24, which let the 7Karat car into the lead. TDRT were now the 2nd fastest car on track and eat into Core's advantage. There was no need, however, as Rui Santos clipped the CAPO FZR as it span whilst he was lapping them, and span himself. Now the race, being 1 hour old, was getting into the pit stop stage. 7Karat held a good lead over TDRT and then T7R, who had also overtaken Core after their spin. Ministry of Speed, lead by the ever charismatic Andy O'Brien, had produced a superb drive to get to 6th place at this stage from 18th on the grid. Even more impressive given the amount of fuel that we would soon see that he had on board. McKenzie in the VM Racing FXR had also done superbly to get up to 8th place after crashing at both T1 and T3 on lap 1. On lap 37, the eve of the pit stops, Core overtook T7R down the home straight to get back into 3rd place. Rui then pitted at the end of this lap to be the first of the frontrunners to blink. This then started a flood of FZR pitstops, with T7R, CD and SR all stopping this next lap. 7Karat changed their driver on the next lap, Dahl taking over from Gebauer. However, Dahl crossed the pit blend line on pit exit and so the net leaders would have to come in again to serve it. TDRT now took the lead, although surrendered it with their driver change the lap after this; Farmer took over from White. Whilst this was happening, the light MoS FZR overtook 7Karat on the home straight to take the lead, yet to make their first pit stop. Indeed it would be another 15 minutes until Andy pitted the Green Machine - showing how impressive his high-fuel charge through the field had been. Whist serving their DT Penalty, 7Karat crossed the blend line at pit exit again and so got another DT to add to their woes. It would now be an uphill struggle for them to regain their previous leading position. Positions after 1h 15: 1) TDRT - FXR - D.Farmer (+1 from before pits) 2) Core - FZR - R.Santos (+1) 3) 7Karat - FXR - A.Dahl (-2) 4) T7R - FZR - C.McKowen (=) 5) MoS - FZR - A.O'Brien (=) 6) VM - FXR - S.McKenzie (+2) During this second part of the race, it was clear that Rui had the legs on the leader, and began catching him and looking for a way past. He took the lead with a draft on lap 48, and immediately started to pull out a good lead on the FXR. 7Karat were also fast in this section of the race, and slowly but surely they too came up to TDRT's rear bumper. On lap 58, the two teams collided when 7Karat tried to overtake around the outside. TDRT span and had severely overheated rear tyres. This caused them to spin again at the next corner, giving 3rd place to T7R and 4th to MoS, still going quickly after their pitstop. Farmer was forced to back off in the TDRT FXR and was come upon by a charging Scott McKenzie. However, the two cars collided at Turn 9 and caused VM to lose lots of time. Meanwhile, Andy O'Brien had overtaken the T7R FZR for 3rd place, and had his eyes set on the other Green Machine, the 7Karat FXR, just up the road and it's 2nd place. McKenzie at this point had managed to re-pass the TDRT car after catching back up after spinning. Meanwhile, Timo Höfer had worked his way up to an impressive 7th place in the Tiger Express Motorsports FXR, meaning that FXRs were in positions 2,5,6 and 7 - showing its capabilities at this tight, twisty track. It was now time for the second pit stop run of the race, with 2 hours having passed. MoS were again pitting late so it was up to the other teams to minimise their disadvantage to the charging Andy O'Brien. However before this could happen, Scott McKenzie was launched out of the track by LFS minimising - a sad end to what had been a fantastic run by the VM Racing Team. T7R were the first team to pit in this second round of stops, with the Østgaard taking over the team in blue. TEM also stopped at this point, with the Finnish Flyer Niko Puntola getting into the car. Both our leaders, Core and 7Karat, stopped on lap 53, with Kristensen getting in for Core and Gerbauer returning for 7Karat. Once again the late stopping Andy O'Brien took the lead, and worked to build up an advantage to pressurise 7Karat in the final stint. TDRT had a particuarly long pit stop, and dropped behind both TEM and Deadline in the grand scheme of things. Indeed it had gone so badly for TDRT that they got lapped by 7Karat - a team who an hour before they had been battling for position with. It looked like MoS would go over their 75% distance with just Andy driving, but eventually he pitted handing over to Kevran. It looked like the Green Machine would come out in an easy 3rd place, however Kevran had control issues and had to stop at the end of the pit lane to rectify them. This put them in the clutches on T7R in 4th. Tommy passed Kevran halfway around the lap to grab 3rd. Core had a 10s lead over 7Karat with 45 mins to go, however Gebauer was on a charge and cutting it at the rate of 1 or sometimes 2 seconds per lap. Christensen appeared to have issues with the car, and at the start of lap 87, the SRLT team tried to unlap themselves from the Core car at turn 1. SRLT left no-where near enough space for Core on the outside and slammed them into the outside barrier at 140mph. SRLT span across the track and nearly hit the 7Karat car as it came through to take the lead, and Core now had severe damage. 7Karat were now back in the position they were in before their pit line issues, having driven superbly to keep in touch with the leaders. Core now dropped down to 6th place due to their long pit stop to repair the damage, and were being caught by SCP and a rampaging TDRT who were looking to get back after their poor pit stop. This quickly turned into a 3-car battle as they were held up by the slower Core car. TDRT passed SCP on lap 93 and then Core on lap 100. This order looked to be what the race would finish in, with 15 mins to go. 7Karat lead T7R by half a lap, with MoS another half lap behind them. Conquest were comfortably in 4th after starting last, and TDRT had overtaken TEM for 5th place. Then there was a Core-train for 7th, with Core, SCP, Deadline, Clockwork and SD all almost line astern and struggling to overtake each other. Todorovic finally barged past Core on lap 105, and Deadline overtook around the outside at the same place on the following lap to leave Core in 9th with about 2 laps to go. Christensen started to struggle with his left rear tyre, and was sliding on the exit of left handers, meaning SD and Clockwork started to catch also. Schneiders passed on the penultimate lap, but Core held on to take 10th place. 7Karat won the race by over half a minute from T7R, with MoS an impressive 3rd on their debut. Conquest held onto 4th place, followed by TDRT and TEM in their FXRs. Next round is 6h of Westhill International Reversed on Saturday 27th February. |
| Last Updated on Sunday, 31 January 2010 17:09 |
