1-2-3 Team Redline Watkins Wonder!
April 5, 2010Team Redline headed to Watkins Glen for the 4th round of the iRacing Drivers World Championship. With Greger Huttu sealing the first 3 races of the season the pressure was on to make it a fourth in a row.
This weekend saw the full compliment of our World Championship drivers taking place and Team Redline secured 5 out of the top 6 positions. Greger took pole with a stunning 1.30.6, Bastien(1.31.00) lay behind Richard Towler in 3rd, Luke McLean sat in 4th(1.31.200), Dom Duhan in 5th(1.31.4) and Ben Cornett taking 6th place with a 1.31.6.
With the race dominated by fuel strategy, it was touch and go whether our drivers could make the race on 1 pit stop alone - this meant that the drivers had to shortshift to try and save fuel. That didn't stop Greger however as he managed to rack up impressive race times. Greger managed to build a small lead over Towler with Bastien in 3rd, Luke in 4th and Dom retiring on lap 2 due to damage into T1, Ben remained in 6th conserving fuel.
The fuel strategy played perfectly into the teams hands as Richard pitted on lap 15 and was on a 2 stopper, this allowed Greger to build a clear lead with Ben and Luke now in 2nd and 3rd, Bastien unfortunately had a disconnection as his computer crashed - a great pity as it would have been a certain 2nd place.
This left Greger to take a well deserved win, with Ben in 2nd place and Luke in 3rd - webba was on pole as well!
Greger later had this to say "I struggled in qual with getting a clean lap in. I had a couple of good laps going but on the first one I made a mistake and spun in T7 and on the second I had some random ground collision which I've never had before. On my last lap I got a really good lap together though so I was happy with that.
In the start I think I went early enough this time! I didn't really know what kind of strategy Rich was on but I knew I had to save some fuel on the first stint to make it to halfway to do a one stopper. After Rich pitted I saved some more fuel and just managed to make it.
After pitting Rich was again right behind me but he didn't get close enough to go for a pass and after he pitted for the second time I was able to take it easy. I had one scary moment with Andrea in the left hander after the Carousel. I was planning on passing him on the following straights and was surprised when he slowed down more than I had thought. I locked up the LF and ran into the back of him. For a while I thought I had lost the race because I hit the wall slightly too. The damage wasn't bad though. In the end it was my fault, I should have braked earlier so I'm sorry for that Andrea.
It was cool to see Ben and Luke in 2nd and 3rd and get a 1-2-3 for the team. Our strategy worked really well. It was so disappointing for Bastien who had a great race going to have it finish with a PC problem. Shawn also apparently had connection problems so that sucks as well.
Again thanks to Fanatec! "
Ben had this to say "As usual, I qualified poorly. 0.4 off my PB which is about par for the course for me. This put in in 6th position on the grid which is probably lucky, as alot of other guys like Darren Marsh where very close in pace so I could have easily been a few rows further back.
The start was about ensuring that Darren especially didnt get past, so I moved right a bit and tried to sit beside dom. First lap went OK, drove it flat out but then I had to begin the painful process of saving fuel to make the 1 stop work. My lap analysis suggested 1 stopping was about 12 seconds faster than 2 stopping as long as I made a certain laptime however fighting with other cars was going to ruin it so I paid close attention to the drivers behind me. I figured if anyone behind was significantly faster they would be 2 stopping so I would have just let them by.
Darren was matching my pace for a while, before he was caught by the 2 stoppers and passed. Derek Wood came up behind me, however he was unable to pass me in the dirty air so I just focussed on my lap schedule. A few laps later derek binned it and I had clear track.
I was behind Luke who had done an incredible job considering he hadn't done a single lap until yesterday. Luke had pulled away initially, however towards the end of stint 1 I calculated that I had saved enough fuel so started to push. On lap 20, luke ran out of fuel and started to sputter. This resulted in him entering the pits very slowly, allowing me to catch up massively from about 6 seconds behind, to right behind. In the pits i hit my marks and got out infront of luke.
Due have more prac under my belt I knew stint 2 would require no fuel saving so i pushed from the get go, doing qualify lap after qualify lap. I pulled away from luke quickly to build a good gap. About lap 33/40 though I saw that I believed I had 9 laps to go. But only 8.9 gals! I started to panic a bit and began short shifting something fierce. In trying to calculate my fuel burn to the end i lost focus and made many mistakes. My laptimes went all over the place and luke hunted me down something fierce. About 3 to go I realised that just below where it says "37/40", it says "LAPS TO GO".
I just looked at that and realised I had plenty of fuel. Maths fail. Picked up the speed and finished 2nd, which im very happy with.
Thanks to Fanatec our great sponsors and look forward to the next round.
Luke has this to say"I did my first laps the night before the race still unsure whether I could make the race. I was quite a bit off the pace initially but clawed back that time with a bit of practise and making a PB in qualifying
Onto the race, I had a normal start and held position in and out of T1. I knew I had to save fuel and that it was extremely tight so I was short shifting and trying to roll into the corners as much as possible. I kind of kept up with Bastien which I was delighted with until I started chugging with 3 corners until the pits. I had a 5-6 second gap on Ben behind me before that and most of that was lost due to the fuel but also myself overshooting my crew which cost me a couple of seconds. After that it was just a matter of staying consistant as I really needed a finish.
After Towler pitted I noticed I was gaining rapidly on Ben, and at that stage I was not sure if he had a problem. So I ramped up my pace as much as I could to apply pressure to Ben but also to not allow Towler to get on my rear.
So I was really happy with 3rd after so little practise, and I have found some motivation again
Thanks to Team Redline and Fanatec! "
And finally, Dom "Firstly I was kinda pleased with 5th considering my q lap wasnt that hot.
The race was all about saving fuel which is something I'm awful at:) Anyway wheel on the grass going into t1 , spin , fail. However, I was asked to get rid of a spider 3 minutes before the race by the girlfriend, i think this contributed... :()
Fantastic result for the team 1-2-3 and unlucky for Bastien whos computer crashed,, looking forward to one of the greatest tracks in racing next. "
The team head to Road America next, with the ability to draft it will be a close race.
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