Team Redline - The World's most Successful Sim Racing Team

Infineon 1-2-3!

May 3, 2010

A stunning drive once again saw Greger Huttu take his 6th win out of 6! With Bastien Bartsch in 2nd, Dom Duhan 3rd and Ben Cornett sealing 5th it was another fantastic team result. The story really lay in qualifying however.

With all 34 competitors having 20 minutes to qualify on this notoriously tight and twisty track, no one was quite prepared for the lack of clean laps. Greger Huttu quickly set a steady 16.9 with ex- Team Redline driver Richard Towler in 2nd with a 17.1. Bastien lay in 3rd with a 17.28 and Dom was in 5th with a 17.3.

Then things changed suddenly, Dom sneaked in a low 17.2 and took 3rd spot on the grid, Richard managed to get a good 16.8 in which took pole with 20 secs to go - Greger managed to get a final lap in and secured pole with a 16.7! This lap saw Greger get his 6th pole in a row also and was crucial for track position.

Now the race. The field got away cleanly, and Bastien managed to leapfrog Ilkka into Turn 1 taking 4th place behind Dom. Ben and Luke stayed in formation to try and remain in touch and eventually started to creep up the order. Meanwhile Greger was setting the pace upfront, setting lap records to set a healthy gap back to Richard in 2nd place, Dom also settled into his flow and was pulling away for Bastien in 4th.

The pit stops were eventful, Dom's 3rd place was in jeopardy after a small spin on cold tyres out of the pits - losing him over 10 seconds. Luke had passed Ben and was hunting down Bastien. Greger was leading by a good margin when Richard made an error in the Carusel heavily damaging his car. With this everyone moved up a place and Bastien now held 2nd with Luke in 3rd behind. Dom had caught Shawn who was in 4th with a storming drive, as the 4 cars got closer Shawn collected Luke at the hairpin, damaging them both, this allowed Dom to get back into 3rd place.

Greger relaxed in the final laps to take an impressive 6th win and extend his championship position. Bastien moved closer to Richard in 2nd place and Dom moved up once again. After missing the first couple of races Ben has shown he is a contender with a string of impressive results. Luke consolidated his position.

Here's what Greger had to say:

"Qualifying was mega tough, there always seemed to be a pack of cars slowing down in the last sector when I thought I had found some clean track. Once there was a QUEUE of cars coming out of the pits when I started a hotlap. Other times cars went off and rejoined right in front of me. I think I only got two relatively clean laps in and even on those I had a car some way in front of me. I luckily got a pretty good lap in on the final lap to get pole, I hadn't even noticed that Rich had gotten P1 before that!

I knew traffic in the race would be much worse than the last couple of races so I needed to get some good laps in on the first stint. I was pretty happy with my pace as it was close to my offline pace. I got a good gap before the pit stops but as always I hit some traffic right before my stop. I was going to pit on lap 26 but there was a group of cars some way out in front of me so I pitted on lap 25.

I was right behind John into the pits and made a slower entry which was a good thing because otherwise I might have killed John and probably myself too. On the second stint of the race there was a lot of traffic so it was hard to get any kind of a rhythm going. At some point I noticed that Rich had dropped back so I was able to take it easy from there on. Congrats to Bast and Dom for the podium and cheeers to Fanatec."

Here's what Dom had to say:

"Well, firstly qual was crazy - i dont think any of us expected to be in each others ways so much. I pulled out a 17.2 which i was reasonably satisfied with mainly due to the fact it gave me 3rd on the grid.

I didnt have high hopes of doing well in the race despite my qual, I just didnt have confidence to really push. At the start I was slightly late on the power with Richard and Greger steaming away, I also had problems with huge understeer. Anyway, after a few laps I settled down and was pulling away slightly from Bastien in 4th. Then the drama started, after pitting on lap 25 I exited the pits and saw a car in my mirrors, but the time I looked back I was deep into T2, I spun... I lost around 10 seconds or so and my chance of 3rd place, I just managed to hold off Ilkka on the lap and started to try and hunt down Shawn, Luke, Bastien.

After driving hard for 10 laps I finally caught them (thx Jp!), unfortunately Shawn and Luke came together and this allow me to get back in 3rd place. Overall I'm pleased to finish this race and get a nice points haul.

Congrats to Greger, Bastien and a good result for Ben in 5th - Thanks to Fanatec:) "

Here's what Ben had to say:

"Well I had an interesting weekend.

I arrived home saturday afternoon. Did a few laps in the V8 and then went to bed. Woke up 7, did a couple of laps and then qualify time.

Qualifying as has been stated, was horrible. I tried to send you a PM for rage blocking you Darren as I didn't know it was you, but it wouldn't go through. Anyway, my apologies, I thought you were someone slightly more Italian in origin after you exited the pits infront of me.

Qualified poorly, raced just as poorly. Couldn't focus, no consistency, no plan. ha! Dom told me before the race to stop on 25/26. I read the lap counter wrong and kept going! Why not! So I went over the s/f and realised it was lap 27. Well that was fun, drove the lap and ran out of fuel in the pit lane. Rolled into my box and the engine stalled, but JUST started again as fuel went into it. Literally couldn't have been closer.

Exited the pits and amazingly closed a 6 second gap to Illka to come out ahead! HA! Pushed hard and immediately crashed. HA! Circulated for the rest of the race and did my best to avoid the front runners who decided to make today international demolition derby day, and came home for an entirely undeserved 5th place.

GOODBYE INFINEON. I WONT MISS YOU. "

The team head off to Sebring on the 15th May - don't forget you can watch the race live.