AC RDGT4 Championship Round 4 - Brands Hatch - 10th April 2022

[Chris Down]

Such an enjoyable race, thanks to @Interslice for organising! I might be the only one that loves this track, but I love it a lot, so it averages out Finally managed to do a 1:27 during the race, not sure why I was so much slower than the last race we had here but still decent consistency, so I'm happy.

Congrats to @Axel Moebius and @JoelK on the podium. And it's really great to see @JoelK back! Welcome back mate.

Simresults: https://simresults.net/220410-o2W

My VR onboard:

 

[Fiberoptix]

Good race everyone. My second bad start here this week, then a spin at Sheene about 1/2 way through saw my podium hopes dashed. Had some fun chasing Joel early on and pushing to try and catch up with Ramus at the end, I wondered if you saw me closing when you told the blue flags to stay put, if you did that was cool as a cucumber with the timing as I was closing pretty quickly once you stayed behind them..

Congratulations Chris, Axel and Joel!!

Brian as always thanks for setting it up.

 

[RasmusP]

That was some awesome and pretty flawless race for me this time!
Had a crash during qualy that had the brakemarkers in Sector 3 laying around on the track and all over the place. Decided to reconnect but then couldn't get a clean and fast lap in anymore.
So started P10 instead of P4 and was super hot for the race start!

Did indeed a great start and was ready to pounce against Ernie and Brian, which lead to me getting a good exit out of Surtees and going side by side to Ernie into Hawthorn while I blocked off Brian in our slipstream.
It really was a game of nerves and to my surprise, Ernie had none of it so we were still side by side into the corner. I saw a small gap opening right behind Ernie and tried my best to try a switchback at the apex without hitting Ernie's rear or Brian's front end.
Again to my surprise that worked and I had the inside for the next turn and was ahead at the exit to then "pull away".
That was probably my best move since starting to race!

That pulling away meant Ernie in my mirrors with 0.4-1.2s behind me for the next 30 minutes. The pressure was real for sure... I decided to pit when starting to lose concentration completely after a few mistakes and came out in the gap behind Han, who then nicely allowed me to finally drive behind someone safely instead of getting hunted!
Sadly he decided to pit after only 2 laps...

I think Ernie stopped for 50/50 fuel or something since he came out quite far behind me...
At least the pressure was off for a moment.

So I tried to close the gap to Joel in front, when Tim decided to give me some interesting last 20 minutes after his spin, closing the gap to me steadily.
Pressure was on again after barely 5-10 minutes in peace and my pulse back up!

pushing to try and catch up with Ramus at the end, I wondered if you saw me closing when you told the blue flags to stay put, if you did that was cool as a cucumber with the timing as I was closing pretty quickly once you stayed behind them..

And then this happened, yeah!
I looked at the gap and thought the race would be one lap shorter. When I figured out we had to go another time around, the adrenaline kicked in.
I was debating in my head to ask you to stay behind me since you wouldn't have caught me without me sticking behind but I'll quote Micheal Masi:
"..We went car racing!"

Then Pat started to push a bit too much over the top and I saw my delta getting worse and worse and the gap closing.. Tim appeared in my mirrors and I was super afraid to bin it in the last few corners...
I also thought about trying to pass Pat but I wanted to stick to my words and I was really enjoying Pat and Paul having an awesome final laps battle and didn't want to interfere.

"Cool as a cucumber"... More like a cucumber laying square in my stomach

But I brought it home and I'm very happy with my championship so far!
(apart from the whoopsie's at Silverstone...)

 

[Kek700]

Well out of this championship with two DNF , so it was just for fun, which it was.
Enjoyed chasing Rasmus, decided on a full pit stop, tyres and fuel.
When Tim finally caught up I was looking to let him go, completely forgot about the corner, so busy looking in the mirror, it was an easy pass and I just about managed to hang on to the G55.

So it was a good job done even though it was not intentional.

Thankyou @Interslice for this event , plus nice racing with you too. Well done to podiums
and all I came across for some great racing.

 

[HF2000]

Not much to say about my race. My only goal was to stay on track for once on Brands. So I didn't try to defend in the battle with Hape in the first stint. Couldn 't keep up with Brian. You have to have real confidence in the car and in yourself on this track and I didn't have both. I was praying for every corner. But I managed to stay on track until the last lap in Stirlings where I got a blue flag from Chris and looked in the mirror instead of concentrating on the brakepoint. Fortunately the gap with Hape was big enough.
So the result with 8th was not too bad although I didn't succeed in my goal.
I hope we stay away for a long time from this track.

Congrats to the podium and thanks to Brian for organizing.

 

[Interslice]

Made a decent qualy lap and was happy enough with the race. Definitely my best outing at brands.

I had full fuel load starting and came under alot of early pressure from ernie and rasmus. I got a little wide out of graham hill and it let them both get through on the next one, surtees. Probably my worst corner, still not consistent with it. Ernie got up the inside and i decided to let rasmus through aswell. Parallel parking it between rasmus and ernie mid corner could have gone badly! It felt slippy early on.

I was following them ok and had a long term plan for an undercut. But surtees struck again about 10 minutes in costing me 5 seconds. Didn't spin around but came to almost a complete stop to keep it pointing the right way. Ran a little to wide and it got 'floaty' on the kerb.

Druids through surtees was slow for me. Maybe could have risked a grippier front end. But it was quick through the high speed stuff as it was.

Mistake 2 was missing the pit box requiring a reverse. I wouldn't mind but i made my best senna at monaco impression on the entry and definitely was in with a shout of getting side by side with ernie into paddock hill. I think you changed tyres ernie?

Wasn't to be. Couldn't close the 4 second gap. Nice drive from @Kek700. @RasmusP opened a big gap to both of us by the end of it.

All in all i feel like i'm getting a bit better in the car and at brands.

Congrats to @Chris Down and the podium guys.

Thanks to all for racing. I think the cleanest race i've seen at brands. Didn't see much of the usual off-road carnage!

See you guys at Donington for the last one. Current standings. Looks like enzo needs a P7 to be guaranteed the championship.

 

[JoelK]

A really nice race from my end as well !

Managed to get a decent start and jump Tim into Druids, and after that i just had to turn survival mode on, since I just didn't have the pace to pull away from him(maybe I shouldn't have shared that setup ).

I was just way too uncomfortable to push hard with the last-minute setup changes especially when making the car more unstable. One of those things when you can't get within personal best lap-times you did during the week, and now you suspect that the problem is in the car and not in your own driving

Managed to keep him behind for longer than I thought was possible, but then I had huge triple tank-slapper(which I somehow managed to hold on to) coming out of Stirlings, and he got me
(Un)luckily, he also had moment which made me almost have a brown-pants situation, but somehow managed not to hit him whilst he was facing backwards in the middle of Sheene
After that I was just running in no-mans land for the rest of the race, but at least got a really good practice session out of it, whilst trying to get back up to speed.

But in conclusion, a really fun race ! Gongrats to @Chris Down for the W and @Axel Moebius for the 2nd ! Blistering pace from both of y'all !

And thanks @Interslice for organising !

 

[RasmusP]

After that I was just running in no-mans land for the rest of the race

My nerves when someone stays 5s behind me for 20 minutes disagree with it being no-man's land when I tried to close that gap yesterday
One mistake at surtees or the two fast right links and it might've become quite interesting towards the end

 

[JoelK]

My nerves when someone stays 5s behind me for 20 minutes disagree with it being no-man's land when I tried to close that gap yesterday
One mistake at surtees or the two fast right links and it might've become quite interesting towards the end

One could say I was managing the gap

 

[Kek700]

I was also managing the gap to Chris.