Five out of Five!
April 18, 2010Greger Huttu continued his stunning form by taking pole position and the win at Road America in the iRacing Drivers World Championship. Team mates, Bastien Bartsch, Luke Mclean, Dom Duhan and Ben Cornett made it a special Team Redline day as they filled 5 of the top 6 positions.
The result consolidated Greger Huttu at the top of the table. The team head to Infineon in 2 weeks time.
Greger had this to say...
"I had another great race in which everything went smoothly. First of all in qual I got a good lap in on the first go which was nice. I was pretty consistent and finally I was really happy with the pole lap.
I thought the race would be tough with the huge slipstreaming but I got a bit of gap again in the start and on the first lap which allowed me to start pulling away slightly from Rich. My race pace was really good so I was able to just focus on getting clean runs out of the corners which helped with consistency.
I hit the pits a couple of laps later than Rich so it was looking good at that point and I did a long second stint too. There wasn't much lapped traffic in this race so I didn't have any scary moments there this time! I pitted for the second time on lap 31 and with only nine laps to go and fresh tyres the car was pretty fast on that stint. I had a big lead though so didn't have to go crazy and I just made sure that I don't do anything silly.
I can't really believe that I've won the first five races but everything's worked out perfectly so far. It was also a great team result again in this race. Thanks to Fanatec."
Bastien:
For the start, Greger started a bit before I expected. That explains my bad start, sorry to all drivers in the left line !
It was a bad move for me since Richard managed to pass me at T1.
Then, I was under Luke pressure during the two firsts stints. I wasn't as fast as I wanted. It was better for the last stint, with less fuel, but it wasn't enough to catch Rich !
Congrats to Greger and Rich for the podium, to my team-mates for a new great team result and to our sponsor Fanatec.
Luke:
I was a bit disappointed with my qualifying effort, however I felt from a brief test that my race pace was stronger.
At the beginning I got a run on Ilkka into turn 2 and passed him for 5th. After that I hounded Shawn for a few laps right in his gearbox to try and force an error. Luckily Shawn got loose into T1 and I got passed (Props to Shawn for saving it!). After that I had a gap to Bastien, so I knuckled down and tried to catch him. I was quite happy with how the car was handling and was able to reel him in. I did my best to pressure him but after Rich pitted I decided to try and give him some room so we could try and jump him in the pits. Rich must have had some good outlaps as the gap after the first pit was a tiny bit bigger.
The second stint was uneventful, I was once again hounding Bastien but not going to take any crazy risks. I decided at the last minute to take no fresh rubber and try to leapfrog Bastien in the pits. I got him JUST, it was very epic leaving the pits and I was stressing if I went over the pit exit line After that I was in 3rd and not far behind 2nd place. I had a moment on the gas out of a slow turn and lost 3rd. I am happy with 4th, I am hoping I find that something extra to be able to step it up to the next level in Infineon!
Grats to the podium Thank you Team Redline, and our great sponsor Fanatec!
Dom:
A fun race for me despite my poor qual. After posting a 47.6 10 mins before qual, I thought I would be in excellent shape to get a top 3, but I seemed to overdrive too much in the last sector and my first lap of 48.1 stood.
The race was entertaining, Luke managed to get past Ilkka straight away and I was hoping to capitalise, but Ilkka was very good out of T2 always and I had terrific understeer through the carusel. Meanwhile, Ben managed to catch us both which was suprising, so with this added pressure I had to try harder to pass Ilkka, on lap 10 I finally had quite a good run into T3 and we were side by side for a few corners - not easy! and credit to Ilkka and Ben for all 3 of us racing clean and fair.
After passing Ilkka Shawn was 4-5 secs up the road and it was a case of trying to hunt him down, my race pace seemed slow and it seemed we kept parity until the 1st stop, I went a lap further and managed to gain some time. This was a good omen for the second stop as I went 3 laps further and put in some fast times to leapfrog Shawn in the pits (seemed he had some traffic issues as well).
I managed to reel in Luke after his incident and was happy to finish quite close behind.
Great job to the podium:) and great result again for our team, thanks to fanatec:)
Ben:
I had a great race today, one of the best I've had in iRacing. Qualify is 07:30am my time, I woke up at 7:00am and did my very first laps of practice. I have a new job that ive been prepraring for and just no time at all.
Smashed out an impressive 1.50.3 in my laps, then qualified somewhere amusing, 10th or 11th or something.
At the start, i was on the outside and got demolished in the first few turns. I took it easy as I was low on testing km's and didnt want to ruin someone elses race. Ended up down the field somewhere. I then for some reason, most likely gregers epic setup, found massive race trim speed. Started lapping in the mid 49's and making passes up through the field. Eventually cleared the mid fielders and had Dom and Illka ahead of me.
I managed to keep my focus the entire race this time, which is a first, usually i start daydreaming and losing time, and started to real in dom and illka. This surpised me more than them, I'm sure. They were battling and lapping slowly, I was driving qualifying laps and eventually caught them. The 2 of htem had some epic side by side duals. On lap 11 the side by side shens went on for about 4 corners and I was right inside. I thought about forcing it webber stylz however, webber Australia turn 14 stylz also results in an accident, so i backed off. I settled in behind illka, however going into turn 1, I drove across his line whilst behind him. This upset his balance on the critical turn in and he looped it. Very bad luck.
Initially dom drove away from me but then i matched, and eventually started to reel him in. Got to about 2.5 sec behind from memory before i pitted. Decent pit stop, half decent outlap and thought I should be looking good. Dom came out of the pits 6.5 ahead of me. How that happneed ill never know.
2nd stint was just head down qualifying laps. Mananged to real dom in again. My setup was much better iwht heavier fuel. The lighter we got, the closer in pace we became. Again though, he stayed out later than I did, and again he came out far ahead. Catching him now wasn't an option.
I came out of my last stop about 5-6 seconds behind shawn. Pushed hard, too hard to catch him. I eventually got behind him and watched him for a lap or so. On the long downhill straight after turn 2 I stayed far right, then at the last minute jinked hard left and brake as late as I dared. I just slid by. At the rate I was catching shawn, I thought it to be a simple process to drive away from him.
I didn't count on my tyres having cooked by this point in catching him in the first place. I started making mistakes and shawn was all over me. Defending but trying to be fair, I used my 1 move and held the inside to hold my finishing position by the smallest of margins.
Great battle Shawn, WD to the podium and a tip of the hat to our sponsors Fanatec.
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