Welcome back to Round 6 of the RD Historic Grand Prix, Season 5
The heart of the season now lies behind us, along with arguably the most balanced tracks on our schedule. I hope you agree with me when I say that the last 3 events produced some classic RDHGP racing, the layouts and profiles of the 3 circuits giving most of the cars in the League a shot at some close racing.
One more thing to mention is that there is to be no post race chat until the last running driver has crossed the line for the final time.
We depart the North American continent, and head north-east over 4,250 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, back into Europe and a famous, flowing track that certainly favours the powerful over the nimble, especially in the configuration we will be driving.
Welcome to Silverstone.
Circuit Notes
Silverstone Circuit straddles two English counties, with half the circuit in Northamptonshire, and the other half in Buckinghamshire. Built on the site of a World War II bomber station, by the very nature of it’s original purpose, there aren’t any sudden changes in gradient, but that doesn’t mean that there are no challenges.
Silverstone has hosted the British Grand Prix off and on for 60 years now, and you don’t get to do that if you are a simple or boring circuit.
This Silverstone layout, the one used from 1987-1990, has only one real change from the circuit used for the 1950 Grand Prix. It is very much a brute force and momentum conservation circuit, rather than a late braking, hairpin and acceleration proposition. Some of the cars that have not been quite so comfortable on the recent circuits will find this much more their cup of tea.
The 88 layout has just 10 corners, some of which are more accurately gentle curves taken flat out than real corners, but getting them right is vitally important for your lap. The track starts with a gently curved grid across the Starts/Finish line, followed by a straight long enough to build up a high rate of knots before T1R, Copse. This is a fast 90° turn, made more difficult by the high entry speed and the exit being masked until after the apex by the pit lane Armco. The exit of Copse begins a long period of full acceleration, which carried on through the first of the fast curves, T2L, Maggots.
Taken flat out, Maggots needs to be negotiated as tight as possible without compromising your speed, as it leads to another short straight and then the first piece of heavy braking on the lap for T3R, Becketts.
Becketts is deceptively tight, the off-camber nature throwing you wide if you apex too late, or if you get on the accelerator too early, but you do need to be aggressive here as it leads to a short straight and another of those high speed kinks, T4L, Chapel.
Through Chapel at full tilt, you hit the slightly downhill Hangar Straight, where you will reach your top speed on the lap, before braking slightly and throwing the nose into T5R, Stowe.
Stowe is a classic momentum conservation corner, you need to keep the speed up as much as possible to benefit down the straight following Stowe, before you come to another similar corner, T6R, Club.
Club is one of the trickier corners here, as there is a lack of reference points for braking, turn in and apex. If you go in too soon, you will find a cut warning waiting on the inside, go in too late, or take too much speed through and drift wide, and you will find yourself on some rather slippery grass. As with most of the turns at Silverstone, you can ill afford to lose momentum here, there is always a high speed straight following. Out of Club, the straight leads to T7L, Abbey, another high speed curve that may need a lift or a drift to navigate at full speed.
Abbey leads into the Farm Straight, under the bridge and the heaviest braking zone on the lap for T8L & T9R, the Luffield chicane.
Luffield, like all the other corners, is made harder by the need to carry as much speed through the exit as possible, as it opens up to the curved and –again– full acceleration curve of T10R Woodcote. Not a corner to be trifled with, Woodcote is bumpy, which when combined with the curve and the full acceleration, can easily kick the unwary driver off line.
An exhilarating high speed lap, the full throttle nature and long straights to reach those top velocities, this promises to be one of the shorter races, time wise, but I expect everyone to have a whale of a time.
The Race Director has some notes for drivers. Please see the track map above for location of Race Direction note:-
All Corners Without Exception – The kerbs are not deemed as track, therefore 2 wheels must be within the white lines, on the tarmac, At All Times. Again, there are NO exceptions to this rule at any point on the circuit. Any exception to this rule is deemed illegal, any advantage gained by this method must be ceded immediately. Report people deliberately and excessively cutting.
T3R – Becketts. This is the first real braking zone in the lap, and so it is easy to get fooled into forgetting the disparities in relative braking distances. Also the inside kerb will unsettle cars if too much is taken, so not only is there the danger of a cut, but also being thrown across that negative camber, and across the circuit causing a potential hazard.
T8L & T9R – Luffield. This chicane is approached at full speed, and with a slightly curved braking zone. It is very easy to lock up and slide through which would very easily clean out some totally innocent and unsuspecting drivers leaving Luffield.
All points on the track – General Items
No lights are to be flashed at any stage, under any circumstances, during the race.
The Track must be re-entered safely so as not to ruin other peoples races.
Car damage must be assessed realistically to know if it is possible to make the pits or not.
There is to be NO post race chat until the last running driver has crossed the line for the final time.
Incidents, Investigations and Penalties
There is 1 new No-show infractions now being levied on Drivers after Round 4.
Manuel Spierenberg
This infraction will be carried for 1 race and then rescinded. Any further infraction of this type by this driver will result in removal from the League.
--------------
1 driver removed from the League after a second No-show infraction.
Jakub Borucki
--------------
Neil Gault raised a Driving Incident Report against Ondrej Kapal in Round 5.
The Report against Ondrej found him at fault for an unsafe and unnecessary blocking manouever, causing a wholly unnecessary accident and damage to several other competitors vehicles. This results in a 20 sec penalty applied for the Birmingham GP classification.
--------------
Bob Hutchins raised a Driving Incident Report against Ryan Callan in Round 5.
The Report against Ryan found him at fault for unnecessary and entirely avoidable contact, causing a wholly unnecessary accident and damage to another competitor’s vehicle. As Ryan DNF-ed, it has been decided that, instead of a time penalty for Birmingham, he will serve a “No Quali” penalty for the next RDHGP event in which he competes.
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.
The Distribution is as follows for 100km events :
P1 - 25 pts
P2 - 22
P3 - 20
P4 - 18
P5 - 16
P6 - 15
P7 - 14
P8 - 13
P9 - 12
P10 - 11
P11 - 10
P12 - 9
P13 - 8
P14 - 7
P15 - 6
P16 - 5
P17 - 4
P18 - 3
P19 - 2
P20 - 1
1 point for fastest race lap
1 point for qualifying on Pole
The heart of the season now lies behind us, along with arguably the most balanced tracks on our schedule. I hope you agree with me when I say that the last 3 events produced some classic RDHGP racing, the layouts and profiles of the 3 circuits giving most of the cars in the League a shot at some close racing.
One more thing to mention is that there is to be no post race chat until the last running driver has crossed the line for the final time.
We depart the North American continent, and head north-east over 4,250 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, back into Europe and a famous, flowing track that certainly favours the powerful over the nimble, especially in the configuration we will be driving.
Welcome to Silverstone.
Circuit Notes
Silverstone Circuit straddles two English counties, with half the circuit in Northamptonshire, and the other half in Buckinghamshire. Built on the site of a World War II bomber station, by the very nature of it’s original purpose, there aren’t any sudden changes in gradient, but that doesn’t mean that there are no challenges.
Silverstone has hosted the British Grand Prix off and on for 60 years now, and you don’t get to do that if you are a simple or boring circuit.
This Silverstone layout, the one used from 1987-1990, has only one real change from the circuit used for the 1950 Grand Prix. It is very much a brute force and momentum conservation circuit, rather than a late braking, hairpin and acceleration proposition. Some of the cars that have not been quite so comfortable on the recent circuits will find this much more their cup of tea.
The 88 layout has just 10 corners, some of which are more accurately gentle curves taken flat out than real corners, but getting them right is vitally important for your lap. The track starts with a gently curved grid across the Starts/Finish line, followed by a straight long enough to build up a high rate of knots before T1R, Copse. This is a fast 90° turn, made more difficult by the high entry speed and the exit being masked until after the apex by the pit lane Armco. The exit of Copse begins a long period of full acceleration, which carried on through the first of the fast curves, T2L, Maggots.
Taken flat out, Maggots needs to be negotiated as tight as possible without compromising your speed, as it leads to another short straight and then the first piece of heavy braking on the lap for T3R, Becketts.
Becketts is deceptively tight, the off-camber nature throwing you wide if you apex too late, or if you get on the accelerator too early, but you do need to be aggressive here as it leads to a short straight and another of those high speed kinks, T4L, Chapel.
Through Chapel at full tilt, you hit the slightly downhill Hangar Straight, where you will reach your top speed on the lap, before braking slightly and throwing the nose into T5R, Stowe.
Stowe is a classic momentum conservation corner, you need to keep the speed up as much as possible to benefit down the straight following Stowe, before you come to another similar corner, T6R, Club.
Club is one of the trickier corners here, as there is a lack of reference points for braking, turn in and apex. If you go in too soon, you will find a cut warning waiting on the inside, go in too late, or take too much speed through and drift wide, and you will find yourself on some rather slippery grass. As with most of the turns at Silverstone, you can ill afford to lose momentum here, there is always a high speed straight following. Out of Club, the straight leads to T7L, Abbey, another high speed curve that may need a lift or a drift to navigate at full speed.
Abbey leads into the Farm Straight, under the bridge and the heaviest braking zone on the lap for T8L & T9R, the Luffield chicane.
Luffield, like all the other corners, is made harder by the need to carry as much speed through the exit as possible, as it opens up to the curved and –again– full acceleration curve of T10R Woodcote. Not a corner to be trifled with, Woodcote is bumpy, which when combined with the curve and the full acceleration, can easily kick the unwary driver off line.
An exhilarating high speed lap, the full throttle nature and long straights to reach those top velocities, this promises to be one of the shorter races, time wise, but I expect everyone to have a whale of a time.
The Race Director has some notes for drivers. Please see the track map above for location of Race Direction note:-
All Corners Without Exception – The kerbs are not deemed as track, therefore 2 wheels must be within the white lines, on the tarmac, At All Times. Again, there are NO exceptions to this rule at any point on the circuit. Any exception to this rule is deemed illegal, any advantage gained by this method must be ceded immediately. Report people deliberately and excessively cutting.
T3R – Becketts. This is the first real braking zone in the lap, and so it is easy to get fooled into forgetting the disparities in relative braking distances. Also the inside kerb will unsettle cars if too much is taken, so not only is there the danger of a cut, but also being thrown across that negative camber, and across the circuit causing a potential hazard.
T8L & T9R – Luffield. This chicane is approached at full speed, and with a slightly curved braking zone. It is very easy to lock up and slide through which would very easily clean out some totally innocent and unsuspecting drivers leaving Luffield.
All points on the track – General Items
No lights are to be flashed at any stage, under any circumstances, during the race.
The Track must be re-entered safely so as not to ruin other peoples races.
Car damage must be assessed realistically to know if it is possible to make the pits or not.
There is to be NO post race chat until the last running driver has crossed the line for the final time.
Incidents, Investigations and Penalties
There is 1 new No-show infractions now being levied on Drivers after Round 4.
Manuel Spierenberg
This infraction will be carried for 1 race and then rescinded. Any further infraction of this type by this driver will result in removal from the League.
--------------
1 driver removed from the League after a second No-show infraction.
Jakub Borucki
--------------
Neil Gault raised a Driving Incident Report against Ondrej Kapal in Round 5.
The Report against Ondrej found him at fault for an unsafe and unnecessary blocking manouever, causing a wholly unnecessary accident and damage to several other competitors vehicles. This results in a 20 sec penalty applied for the Birmingham GP classification.
--------------
Bob Hutchins raised a Driving Incident Report against Ryan Callan in Round 5.
The Report against Ryan found him at fault for unnecessary and entirely avoidable contact, causing a wholly unnecessary accident and damage to another competitor’s vehicle. As Ryan DNF-ed, it has been decided that, instead of a time penalty for Birmingham, he will serve a “No Quali” penalty for the next RDHGP event in which he competes.
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.
The Distribution is as follows for 100km events :
P1 - 25 pts
P2 - 22
P3 - 20
P4 - 18
P5 - 16
P6 - 15
P7 - 14
P8 - 13
P9 - 12
P10 - 11
P11 - 10
P12 - 9
P13 - 8
P14 - 7
P15 - 6
P16 - 5
P17 - 4
P18 - 3
P19 - 2
P20 - 1
1 point for fastest race lap
1 point for qualifying on Pole
