RDHGP S4 - Race 1 - Albert Park Melbourne, 29/10/09

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Stuart Thomson

The Stoat Without Fear ™
Premium
Welcome to the Race Department Historic Grand Prix Season 4 (RDHGP S4)

The RDHGP League staff welcome you to the 2009 RDHGP S4. Some of you we welcome for the first time in this league, while to some we bid a welcome return.

We have moved up a class from last year’s GTC65s, and are using a selected field of 9 cars conforming to the FIA GTC-TC-76 specifications & regulations. The season will run over 8 races, 7 races over a distance of 100km, plus the season finale over a distance of 200km on the world famous Circuit de la Sarthe at Le Mans in its 1977 configuration.

The 100km races will be run on alternating Thursdays commencing 29th October 09, with the season finale running on Saturday 20th February 10. There will be a Christmas and New Year break after round 4 on 10th December 09, with round 5 on 14th January 10.

This season, we continue with our policy of travelling the globe to some of the world’s finest circuits, keeping to a strict one race per country policy. We will be driving in 8 countries across 3 continents, all with hopefully a unique challenge to present to our drivers, and so allow the extremely varied vehicles to shine as the circumstances allow.

While by its very nature, the League environment is more competitive than the Club environment, please remember what makes the GTL Club so unique – our consideration for all other competitors at all times. Let’s try and carry this tradition of clean, fun and considerate racing over into a League environment. It worked well last season, and I will be demanding the same level of sportsmanship and courtesy this season. I would expect people to wait for someone they have taken off, even if it was accidental. In addition, if anyone has a problem with another driver, I will be just as hard on the person with the grievance if they do not adhere to the guidelines.

As with last season, discussions about laptimes - even if it is to say what has been achieved with an uploaded setup - is forbidden. Turning up last season and seeing roughly who you would be battling against only added to the anticipation, so we will keep this rule in place for S4.

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Circuit Notes


Australia’s Albert Park was re-opened for racing in 1996, the makeover including a complete resurfacing, making it one of the smoothest tracks on the calendar. It is an ideal opening venue, as it is fast, relatively simple to learn, without any overly difficult or awkward corners. The downside to that is that you may have to wait for mistakes to allow a clean overtake – and I expect all overtakes to be as clean as possible.

In our 76 cars, we will not be troubling Michael Schumacher’s track record of 1.24.125, set in his 2004 Ferrari, and maybe Stirling Moss’s original circuit record of 1.50.000, set in 1958 in a Cooper Climax, is still outside our scope of performance, but I expect some very fast, close racing, with the relative car performance differences on various parts of the track making the gaps very much a variable to give some interesting challenges and battles.

For some this is the first RDHGP event, as they missed the Testing event, and so I would hope that they use the Practice session to the maximum to assess the difference in braking points and acceleration performance across the field. I won’t be too impressed at people wiping out swathes of competitors because they under- or over-estimated their own cars braking performance, or the cars around them.

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The Race Director has some notes for drivers. Please see the track map above for location of Race Direction note:-
  • The Start / Finish straight is wide, with scope for manouever, and a relatively long run down to T1R. This, coupled with the disparity in car performance off the line, may mean that this is seen by some people as a good opportunity to make some cheap places. I would hope that we are all calm enough to realise that you can only lose a race in the first corner, and not win it. I will not be posing a non-overtake rule there, but people who charge in recklessly and ruin other people’s races will be penalised – whether there is an incident report filed or not.

  • T1R, T3R & T11R are guarded on the outside by gravel traps, and so drivers recovering the tracks will need to be aware and vigilant of race traffic.

  • T10R is the second half of a set of fast Esses – two wheels within the white lines on exit at all times.

  • The Pitlane Entrance is on the outside of the penultimate turn, and people may choose to pit for damage repair, so all drivers should keep 2 wheels within the white lines unless pitting.
Incidents, Investigations and Penalties

As this is round 1 there are no outstanding Incidents, Investigations nor Penalties.
Please remember, the League staff will only review incidents if they are reported to them.

No report = no review.

Please try and remember the incident reporting guidelines: review, cool off, review again. Only after following the above process, and if you are convinced you still need to report it, should you let the League staff know. Please give as much information as possible during the report (time of incident, drivers involved etc.)

Any accusations or complaints aired in the Chat during or after a race will mean a penalty levied on the person complaining or making the accusations, even if a subsequent official complaint gets found in their favour. I simply will NOT tolerate any post race finger pointing.

Liveries

You have chosen your car and livery already, and you must only drive your chosen car at any time during an RDHGP event. Every driver has a unique livery in this season of RDHGP.

Scoring System

I have extended the points distribution method down to P20 (75% distance completion required) so people can fight for some points no matter where they are on the track, and hopefully have a season long battle with people around them in the League.
 
I have the 190 drivers on my 9800GT and no problems whatsoever on any gmotor2 games or any for that matter.

rFactor and RACE games are all gmotor2 engines, and GTL is more similar to rFactor in structure, so it's weird you get these problems.
 
Will there also be a results page with the nice charts showing how people's position changed and all that?

I mean the results page Stuart introduced for the Club Races!!!

This would be great..... :D

Stu..... ????? What do you say :party2:
 
A mixed feeling ,
Great to see a starting field like this with all the nice skins,already seeing some
nice pics here an there.

The first race of the league, not a success for me could not in grip with this track.
Trying diff. setups bud what ever I do not faster then 2.18 in Quali and in the race,starting pl 20 and passing some cars after the start (P16 ?) bud not for long,had some nice scrambles with Carlos Bert and Tom until lap 11 or so when I lost concentration for one second breaking to late and went strait in to the wall killing the engine so race over:disapointed:

Watching the rest of the race from the pits,not much fights ad the front more at the back,Peter in great style to victory with a big lead,first 10 places all Porsche?
So up to Watglen and forget this race fast.
Hans
 
Funny thing, I downloaded the track into my other PC, running the same card, an HD3870, with XP Pro instead of Vista, an old Athlon 4000, and the older graphics drivers, and it WORKS!!!

So it looks like I will be using the older PC for the next event, I hope i don't have any more issues like this, it's frusterating.
 
Firstly I would like to write: it was amzing feeling and huge fun!

I used to start in many leagues but here is really big fun comparing to others. The race was definetely too short ;)

I joined server in the last moment caused I was sure in Poland is GMT+2 but forgot we changed to GMT+1 and must have started in quali without any practice and was P13 with the bad time that I beated in the race for more than second.

One indication for the drivers: If you are on outlap and behind you is the car that is making measure lap, let him pass and do not fight.

Race:

I started very good but on T1 Ivo Simons pushed iJari who made a spin of Amir Margalit just in front of me and I must have escaped outside the track loosing many seconds and finnally back to the track on P18.

Later very nice fight with Arkadiusz and having him just behind me made a huge mistake nad spun in T10 and later with the nerves on T11 that caused I came back to P18.

I started the big pursuit, first I moved Bert van Waes, later the fight with Ivo Simons he was much faster on the straights, but finally I did it.

Then very long alone race and finally very nice fight with my team m8 - Kris and I moved him. After again long alone race I moved Uli after his mistakes and pursuit Arkadiusz again who I finally moved this time after his mistake.

Finally I was behind Stuart who made a mistkae and let me him pass and I am on P12. Later Gary Lenno was in pit and I moved him and promoted to P11.

On the last lap I made huge mistake and had big spun but my advantage was enough to have Uli one second behind me and finally finished on P11.

It could have been much better but I am satisfied taking into account all circumstances.
 
Will there also be a results page with the nice charts showing how people's position changed and all that?

I mean the results page Stuart introduced for the Club Races!!!

This would be great..... :D

Have a closer look at GPCOS: it's all there :)
Go to Control center and click the little 'R' icon next to your name.
You will see a list of all races you participated (only 1 now: Melbourne)
then you can see road to the grid with all qualy laps & also a lapchart etcetera. I do have to admit that the AutosimAnalyzer thing look better then GPCOS, but it's there. (ASA doesn't handle leagues)
 
  • Bert Van Waes

Race report

RDHGP S4

Event 1: Melbourne

Qualifying went pretty bad. Although i managed to get alot of laps in, none was decent enough. i got my PB, and it brought me the 21st spot on the grid. The car itself felt allright, although i was unable to tune the snappy oversteer out.

When it became time to start i bolted myself in the cockpit with a srange feeling, we did some testing with the car but not enough for sure. I need to be calm...

On the grid, and countdown starts. Green!!

gtl2009110918133217.png



I had a good start. Went next to Hans when we fly by Lee who went for the grass. At T1 Amir gets the roughest ride and spun, but we got a save squeeze through with half the field.

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And there we go! Hans passed me and flys away. I position myself next to Krzysztof on the inside and went for it. Under braking i could take the spot. P 18 that is.

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Hans and Arkadiusz got it locked up under a braking moment and one waited the other while i got a clear passage. 16th with Krzysztof in my back now. Exciting stuff here! Next turn he's at my side and we dive into the fast chicane.

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I keep the spot. But on the last turn of the track in lap 1... I see alot off smoke and enter the braking zone a bit too fast. Keeping a defence line was already something, but then trying to avoid smoking stuff and not seeing where to go was hard wright there.

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as a result, i locked it up pretty hard the moment i saw Ivo's car in the mist. Ouch! And sorry Ivo!

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I got spoiler damage at the front, and that's not good on the aero front downforce with this car. Hans went off a turn later and i claimed 19th.

Next lap the car felt very understeery through T1, so i set my mind on finishing this race without pitting. I just have to accomodate myself to this new handling part. Some people fell out off the race and it gave me some spots. But Ivo is slowly reeling in on me, a battle for 16th spot now.

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Next thing i know he passes me with a beauty of a manoever on the outside in the second righthander. Great stuff!

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I tried to keep it up with him on the long straight but boy, that Vette knows it cylinders! 17th, and after a big spin a lap later 19th. And now the back group is closing in. Hans and Carlos behind me, and Tom, "out there".

gtl2009110918423098.png



We had some crazy battles, me with Hans and Carlos. And it almost always ended up sideways, haha. But that was until the last spin came for Hans, Carlos was gone and Hans somewhere behind me. After that it stayed like this. here and there i saw a topdog about to lap me. or sometimes even a whole train. But otherwise rather quiet.

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But eventually i spun it again, and again. And then Lee came out of nowhere. And flys by me after another spin.

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At the end off the race we formed another little group again, where i was the frontrunner from, but somehow i lost it at the final turns. And became 21st instead of 18th. A hard lesson in BMW driving this was!

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But being the first one off the season, and a track that wasn't suited for the BMW, it was quite allright. I have to admit my concentration level wasn't at its highest too, you know. On to Round 2 in my books. Thank you all for the fun and competition on the track, this season is quite the shake around eh. :)

Tx Stuart, for all the effort in here. Awesome!!!
 
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