good report, go on!

Great write-up Yann,as always, though /me dislikes 3rd picture, but that's another story Great stuff.

Quote from prOmo_LTU :

though /me dislikes 3rd picture, but that's another story

Haha, epic fail for E

Otherwise nice report

Maybe you will write a new one because me and you at mini fbm last week-end

Great report , good luck in GTAL.

Nice report, Yann. GL!

Nice report Yann

well:clapclap:done, good work mate

After one season as midfielders in both Grand Touring Amateur League and International GT Championship(with a poduim in both leagues), the next logical step for Tiger Express Motorsports was the legendary Masters of Endurance(MoE), the pinacle of endurance racing in Live for Speed. It is now done, as Tiger Express has received a seat in GT2 for the 2010-2011 Season. The result of more than a year of hard work in endurance racing.




The MoE has been, over the years, the LFS league with the best standards by far. It has always been the place to be, and where all prestigious teams have fought, since its creation back in 2005. n!faculty, Cyber Racing, Mercury Racing Team, CoRe Racing, F1RST Racing, Team Sirius, #low-racing, SK Gaming, spdoRacing, Sonicrealms Racing, they’ve all came there and won.

The 2010-2011 season will not change the classics. Once again, there will be six races(four of 6 Hours, one of 12 Hours, plus the legendary 24 Hours of Aston GP), for an insane amount of 60 hours of racing overall. The traditional GT1 and GT2 classes will stay, aswell as most of the usual procedures. But one main change will be seen in the sixth ever season of MoE: the introduction of a brand new class, the GT0, composed of 600+ hp GTRs.

Tiger Express has been given the #51 entry, and will drive an XRR-GT2. It will compete against 10 other teams in its class: Sonicrealms Racing GT2, RAPTOR-GAMING, Team Inferno GT2, SimRacing-LA, Conquest Racing GT2, Xcite-Racing, ineX Racing GT2, Team ev0» GT2, and former MoE-GT2 champions CoRe Racing GT2.




“Entering in MoE is a great opportunity for us.” said Tiger Express'manager Yann Laprevotte. “Sure, we don’t expect to come there and fight in front of the field straight away, we still lack of pace for that. Standards are just huge, and our opponents are far more experienced than us. Finishing all races will be enough of an aim for this first season, though we might readjust this if the first rounds go better than expected for us.”

The season officially kicked off on 28th November, with the first qualifying session of round 1, the 12 Hours of Kyoto GP Long. 12 years old talent Oskari Rinne did an excellent job for TEM, getting the 5th time out of the 7 present GT2 qualifiers, less than a quarter of a second behind provisional pole set by Sonicrealms‘ Isaac Price(2:22:36). GT0 provisional pole was taken by E-Team’s Joni Törmälä(2:10:15), while Team Sirius‘ Johannes Scheuerle has set the best time in GT1(2:14:96).

The second qualifying session will be held on Friday 3rd December, while the 12 Hours of Kyoto GP Long will start on Saturday 4th December, at 12:00 UTC. The race should be broadcasted by famous simracing broadcaster MultiBC.
Masters of Endurance Website | Full entry list | Season schedule and cars specifications



Tiger Express Motorsports recently took its 5th LFS team title, its 2nd in New Dimension Racing events after the 2010 LFSCART Light Summer Series. The achievement has been done in the 2010 Mini-FBM Series, a league featuring the 25% intake-restricted Formula BMW in several autocross and road courses.




This was already the 3rd season of the Mini-FBM series, which were created back in 2008. This season saw the first team championship of the league’s history. Standards were clearly higher as the 2 last seasons, as the field was more crowded as ever, reaching a peak of 31 cars in round 1.

Tiger Express Motorsports engaged 2 cars for most rounds, one for TEM’s manager Yann Laprevotte, and the other for his countryman and guest driver from FSR, Alexis Georg.

Rik de Jong, Sascha Riegler and Ramos Dario, the three men who would dominate the championship, would be part of only 1 car entries, which weren’t eligible for points in the teams’ championship. Therefore it quickly looked like the teams’ championship would be played between 3 midfield teams: Tiger Express, Call to Arms(with Luke Marchant and Chris Palmer) and Last Lap Motorsports(with Chris Kasch, Ray Kings and Juliano Flores).




It looked like Last Lap Motorsports had a slight edge on its rivals, until round 5 at Fern Bay Club, where TEM took the lead after a strong performance from Yann, who took 3rd place in feature race, while LLM and C2A had a lot of problems. TEM then capitalised on this small lead in the two final rounds, with the help of Lims Chebbi who raced in the two last rounds. TEM finished in front, with an healthy 45 points lead on C2A and 88 points on LLM. Consistance was the keyword once again, as TEM could only take one podium in the whole season, but was constantly there in upper mid-field.

The drivers’ championship was taken by My3id Gaming’s Rik de Jong. A well deserved achievement, as he lost it in 2009 by a very small margin, after a very controversed last round. He also was one of the most impressive driver in 2008, taking 4 track records out of 5, but couldn’t have his chance at the championship because of being involved in various incidents during the season. 2nd place goes to TEM’s friend Sascha Riegler, followed closely by Argentina’s Ramos Dario. Yann Laprevotte comes in 4th, Alexis Georg in 9th.




Drivers’ quotes:

Yann Laprevotte(4th of the championship, 1 podium): “First of all I was very satisfacted to be able to do the whole season this time, as I had to miss a few rounds in 2008 and 2009, which compromised my chances at the championship in both seasons. I have been following this concept since its beginning almost, and its nice to see that it finally reached the maximum of its potential, more than 2 years after its creation. I mean, the first 2 seasons were held with very small grids, and this year we had a huge interrest boost, with full grids most of the time. I am of course very pleased to reach the teams’ crown with TEM. It was something we weren’t aiming for when we signed-up, but we clickly saw there was an opportunity after round 1, and we went for it. Taking 4th place in the drivers’ championship is also a very satisfacting bonus. Thanks to my team-mates, the organisers and our opponents for this season, I hope to be back for a 4th season next year.“

Alexis Georg(9th at the championship): “I’m happy to have contributed to TEM’s title. It was a correct season for me. I wasn’t with the fastest drivers but I succeeded to be in front of Yann during a few sessions. Otherwise, last round is to forget for me: I don’t understand where my disqualification came from. But it is like that. I could take part to the next season, if there is.“

Championship standings | Mini-FBM on spdo Database




Round 2 of the 2011 Grand Touring Amateur League season took part on the 20th November 2010 at the very FXR-unfriendly Westhill International circuit, for a 3 Hours race. No miracle for Tiger Express: it was an hard race, with a frustrating result in the end.




Qualifying was done by Frenchman Yann Laprevotte. TEM’s leader decided that his chances weren’t much high in that session, and therefore decided to focus only on race preparations. This and very good standards(all 28 cars grouped in less than 2 seconds) are the reasons why TEM could only take the 27th and penultimate seat on the grid, just in front of 2010 IGTC champions Conquest Racing.




The start, as everyone expected, was messy. First of all, a bit of coming together between newcomers from Belgium, Crazy Drivers Team, and Canada’s Great White Nord Racing sent the latters’ XRR into a spin a few seconds after the start, but nothing serious. The first big incident came at Turn 1, when the 2 Sud-Americans Kaique Piropo(CoRe Racing) and Eduardo Leyton(Just Driving) clashed and went into the barriers in a very dramatic fashion, and both got bad suspension damage. The chaos continued as a few seconds later, as several teams went off at the very infamous sector 2 chicane.




TEM’s starting driver Yann Laprevotte had no issue avoiding that mess. But unfortunately, he quickly got stuck in the back of the pack, and hadn’t the pace to climb up. He finished his stint at the 1 Hour mark around 20th position, and gave his car to his countryman Lims Chebbi, who turned 32 a few days before the race.

The Safety Car came for the first and only time of the day not long after the 1 Hour mark, to let Sweden’s Independant Racing Mates’s very damaged FXR to get back to the pits. This was a very bad timing for Tiger Express, as Lims had just been lapped by leaders Adenoids Racing. This meant that Lims would see all the people he was chasing taking almost a whole lap on him, while he would loose all the gap he built on the cars behind. Though struggling for pace, Lims would manage to not loose many positions later in his stint.

Lims would give the car to Vince Lombardi at the second hour mark, for the last stint of the race. Though Vince had the best pace of the squad, it was to lat to gain back the ground lost earlier in the race. Tiger Express eventually finished in 19th place out of 27 finishers.




The race was won by 2009 and 2010 champions E-Team, gaining their 3rd victory in GTAL history, and getting back to the 2011 title chase after a catastrophic round 1. Guest team Adenoids Racing finished less than a second behind, while Sonicrealms took the points for 2nd for the second time in a row, which allows them to take the championship lead, partly thanks to ex-TEM member Dominik Engel’s current good shape. The XCite Inferno takes 3rd and climbs to 2nd at the championship.

With 2 rounds out of 7 completed, TEM lies only 20th at the championship. Next round, the 6 Hours of Fern Bay Black, held on the 18th December, will be a good opportunity to gain vital championship points.

Now THATS a report! nice achievments guys, keep it up and good luck in MoE.

Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

...

tl;dr

Quote from J@tko :

tl;dr

:chair:

Haha, this smiley make me rofl :P

Otherwise nice report yann ;D

Saturday 4th 2010 saw Tiger Express‘ first ever participation in the Masters of Endurance leauge, with round 1 of the 2010-2011 season, the 12 Hours of Kyoto GP Long.Even if this wasn’t a perfect round for TEM, the orange and black team has fullfilled its aim: to prove it deserves its MoE GT2 seat.



The event started with Qualifying 1, 6 days before the race. 13 years old Finn Oskari Rinne was sent for that duty, and posted a very promising 2:22:60, only 0.24 second from provisional pole. But Osku wasn’t as much happy as some would think, as he had the potential to do much better, with the best theorical lap of the session, 1.5 tenth faster than the Q1 pole.



Final grid was as following:



TEM would plan to do the whole race with only 3 drivers: Vince Lombardi, Yann Laprevotte and Lims Chebbi. Osku wanted to race aswell, but wasn’t available for the race either. However, this line-up didn’t look that much strong, as both Yann and Lims had very little race experience on XRR before this event.

It was planned that Yann would start the race, but misfortune struck, as he realised that his pedals were not responding correctly a few minutes before the start of the race. Because of that, it was decided in last minute that Lims would replace him for the first stint, in far from optimal conditions: “I was totally disorganised, didn’t have my wheel pluged, just waked up from bed, didn’t have any warm-up with half of my eyes open and find myself in the grid with the wrong car.” confessed the 32 years old afterwards.



TEM would start from last after missing the grid call because of those problems. Turn 1 was rather messy: a contact between Sonicrealms GT2 and ineX Raing GT2 spreaded the confusion among the GT2 field. Fortunately Lims would avoid the mey-hem and gain a few positions, and kept in going, even after a lag-related tangle with Sim-Racing LA in the Boothy chicane at lap 1. Sadly, all those early efforts would be vain, as TEM would be given a Drive Through penalty for wrong numberplate, and would rejoin from the back. Nevertheless, Lims would finish his stint in 8th/10 position, after former MoE GT2 champions CoRe Racing GT2 had to pit for damage, and Team ev0>> GT2 had a time-out.

Yann then did a double stint, before giving the car to Vince for another double stint. TEM was looking good at the 5 hours mark, standing in 6th position, after getting in front of Conquest Racing GT2 and Sim-Racing LA. Lims then did his 2nd stint of the race, before another double stint from a busy Vince, who would drive 42% of the race distance on his own eventually. Yann, Vince, and Lims then did one mini-stint each in the last 3 hours of the race.



TEM eventually finished the race in 9th position in GT2, 5 laps behind winners Team Inferno GT2, after dropping back in the last stints. But more importantly, TEM wasn’t involved in any major incident, didn’t get any puncture, and was noticed by many observers to be one of he cleanest teams when it came to lapping.



“The race was a very interresting experience.” said driver and manager Yann Laprevotte. “Obviously we had some concerns before the season start, since very few of us really knew the XRR. However, we managed to look decent in this opening round, and fought with much more experienced teams than us. Sure, we still have to work on some points, especially on pace and tyre management. But this is a promising season start for us.”

Next round of the Masters of Endurance will be the 6 Hours of Westhill International, on the 7th of January.

Another great report Yann

Well done on the race and good luck for the rest of the season

I really enjoyed reading that Yann, as i always enjoy reading your reports!

Good luck for the future

2010 has definitely been a very strong season for Tiger Express Motorsports. We began the year as a confidential racing alliance, to finish it a well known and established team.


Members wise, we started the season with Yann Laprevotte, Lims Chebbi, Michal Saidl,Dominik Engel, Niko Puntola, Vince Lombardi, Karl Raudsepp and Laurynas Matonis. If TEM had to waive good bye to Michal, Dominik, Laurynas and Lombardi, for different reasons, we are glad to see they managed to improve nicely during their stay, and became strong and well known drivers in the community. Our squad did not fade much however, as we recruited during the first part of the year Belgium’s Vince Verstreken, and the very impressive 13 years old talent from Finland Oskari Rinne.

Endurance racing wise, TEM began in the Grand Touring Amateur League. The team entered the 2010 season before round 2, and extended its involvement after taking over the dieing Dinamo Motorsports entry(which became White Dinamo Tigers). The season ended with 15th and 16th positions overall, although both teams missed a round. More importantly, both showed a good pace, and took 1 podium and 3 top 5.



Next step was the International GT Championship. TEM had a disastrous season start, with 2 retirements and only 1 top 10 in the first 4 rounds, which led into a very disappointing 23th place in the standings at half-way point. However, the team made a big jump in the standings, after round 5(pole+second place), and round 6(top 10). The season ended with a 12th position overall.



Meanwhile, TEM was also involved in the LFS Endurance Series, which were holding their 4th annual season. Despite missing the first two rounds, the squad managed to take a satisfying 3rd position at the standings, with 2 podiums(including one in the 12 hours finale).

We also were involved massively in Racing Minds’ annual 16 hours race, fielding one car in all 3 classes. If the GT1 car(Michal Saidl-Rik de Jong) had to retire early, the GT2 car(Oskari Rinne-Vince Lombardi-Niko Puntola) has put a great show, holding 3rd for a few hours, however, Niko was struck by an electricity cut during the night, with no substitute available, meaning that the team would drop to 17th/22. Fortunately the NGT squad was there to take the honors, with Yann Laprevotte and Alexis Georg bringing their NGT to 5th.



All of those strong performances meant the team would gain a GT2 seat in the 2010-2011 of t ... ious Masters of Endurance. Vince Lombardi, Yann Laprevotte and Lims Chebbi finished the opening round in 9th position out of 10th, after holding 6th for a little while.



We also were involved in oval racing, fielding five cars in both Kyoto 250 and Kyoto 500. 3 of them saw the finish in the 250 miles race, including one on the podium(Michal Saidl) and another one in the top 10(Yann Laprevotte). Only 2 took the chequered flag for the 500, Lims Chebbi(7th) and Dominik Engel(9th), after the 3 other drivers all timed-out from the server.

Earlier in the year, Yann Laprevotte and Lims Chebbi took the team title in the Speedsims FOX on the Run series.



It was quickly followed by another one in the SRLT Private League, while our guest driver Jonas Baksys claimed the drivers’ crown.



Yann and Lims also drove in the two road car leagues organized by NDR, the TBO Challenge and the Road Sports Cup, taking 4th and 3rd in the teams’ standings.

An even bigger involvement was put in NDR’s single seater leagues. We had 4 cars in the drivers’ championship top 6 of the LFSCART series, taking 2nd and 3rd in the teams’ standings, behind Sonicrealms. We took our revenge on the latter in the LFSCART Light Summer Series, after clinching the teams’ title, while ringer Sascha Riegler brought the drivers’ title to us.

Yann Laprevotte, Lims Chebbi, and ringer Alexis Georg then topped the teams’ standings in the Mini-FBM Series.



We also were involved in the FSR Championship, a semi-international FXR league. With 8 poles, 9 wins, and 20 podiums out of 11 races, TEM totally dominated the opening season of the league. The team took an easy teams title, and made a one-two in the drivers’ standings, with ringer Tommy Ostgaard and manager Yann Laprevotte respectively in 1st and 2nd. Second season wasn’t as much successful, but it looks like both titles will be kept, as Yann Laprevotte and TEM lead both championship at one round to go.

Oskari Rinne took the runner-up of the 2010 OWRL FBM Trophy(1 win and 4 podiums in 4 races), behind countryman Jarno Lehikoinen, and in front of team-mate Yann Laprevotte. The latter then took another 3rd in OWRL S2 Season 17.



We also organized a few leagues via our banner Tiger Express Events. It also organised our 40 cars birthday event, won by spdo Racing and nFinity eSports. Later, TEM took the teams’ title in the RACCAR league.

____________

The list of the things we’ve done this year is rather long, and we’ve not even gone into details. However things weren’t always easy for us, this is why I’d like to all of those who helped us without being part of the team, should it be by racing for us as “ringers”, helping us to organise leagues, or giving driving or setup building tips.

Anyway, on the behalf of the whole Tiger Express Motorsports team,we would like to wish you a good and successful 2011. We also hope that, update or not, the LFS community will keep a decent shape after stagnating slightly in 2010.

Oi! I see ma' pinky FXR : D Had great time with you guys,and i wish all the best for you in 2011,keep on roar'ing the LFS world!

Alexis Georg like that.


Ooooooooops, we aren't on fb, sry

Btw, nice reports yann ^_^'

The 2010-2011 season of the Masters of Endurance carries on, with still Tiger Express Motorsports doing its best at the back of the GT2 class, in the pinacle of LFS' league racing scene.





MoE was back after the 12 hours opener, followed by the end-year festivities. For TEM, round 2 started with an excellent job by Oskari Rinne in qualifying. The young Finn managed to get 8th place out of 12, only 3 tenths behind pole-sitter Nogiec from CoRe, and 2 behind best XRR time, set by Inferno's Holmes.



Not much to tell about the race. Yann Laprevotte made a good first stint, though being passed by ev0 GT2 in the first laps. The aim for the rest of the race was to keep behind the chasing group composed of Hellenic Racing, SimRacing-LA and one-off entry from Brazil, TNT Racing. Yann and teammates Oskari Rinne and Lims Chebbi did that successfully, after sticking on an ambitious 4 stop strategy, instead of 5 for most other teams. The only main worry was Lims' stint, as the Frenchman had some trouble with tyre management in round 1; however intense training before round 2 was enough for him to do well this time. TEM was set for a 9th place, but got a very satisfying 8th in the end, thanks to new entrants Team Vires' problems at the end of the race. This race remains TEM's best in MoE at this date.



Spdo Racing won in GT0, while Team Sirius overpowered the GT1 class. GT2 was taken by Raptor, who took an early(and surprising) championship lead with this maiden win.





Next round was what arguably remains LFS' most prestigious race ever: the 24 Hours of Aston GP.

Some shocking news(but unsurprising for most of the observers) struck the paddock a few days before Q1: the collapse of the GT0 class, which died due to low interest, after only 2 races of existence. Most GT0 teams decided to move to the GT1 class, though spdo made the move to GT2, as they already had one GT1 entry.

Gloom was flying upon the said paddock, with only 19 entries for this round. This was the least amount of cars MoE had since the start of the multiclass era in late 2007, with the 2009-2010 finale. This, the recent GT0 collapse, and the rumours of departure concerning Team Inferno were enough to start again the endless rumour-mill about the league's future and LFS' community's shape in general. Surprisingly though, only the top (GT1) class was in real crisis, with only 7 remaining cars. The GT2 class was maintained in a decent shape with 12 cars.



TEM was one of the team in trouble before this round, with many of its drivers having other commitments for the week-end. After having considered sitting out of this round, the team eventually managed to finalise a viable line-up less than 24 hours before the race. A "ringer-filled" line-up, in fact. Manager Yann Laprevotte ended-up teaming-up with Lukasz Paszczyk(from Lublin Racing Team), Bert Knops(The Danish Racing Team), Michael Booth(meh Racing), Laurynas Matonis(from Inferno, which decided to not sign-up any car this week-end) and at last but not least, French Street Racers' leader, Alexis Georg. Poor preparation and unexperience for most of the drivers meant that the squad's only aim would be to finish the race.



Yann took the start of the race, at 4pm UTC on Sunday. Despite starting last, he managed to finish first stint in 9th/12. He then finished the day with Laurynas and Boothy, but despite of their efforts the 3 guys quickly dropped to the last positions in the standings. Lukasz and Boothy then covered most of the night, before Yann took the car back at 3am45. One stint, and he gave it back to Alexis, who did a great effort by achieving to do a quadruple stint between 5am and 9am. The hardest part of the race was done by then.



What really motivated the squad was a long and intense battle for 11th(and penultimate) place with SimRacing-LA. The two teams started battling from lap 1, and were very close during the evening and the whole night, despite the big difference of pace between the two teams' respective drivers. The two XRRs even had several on-track battles at times, giving some spectacular broadcast material to the streaming team. SRLA had some trouble in the morning though, and after Yann's double stint from 9am to 11am, TEM had a clear edge on their rivals with 2 laps and a half advantage on them. However, several mistakes from Laurynas in the next stint, and a time-out for Bert Knops in the Dutch's first and only stint of the race put TEM back closely behind SRLA at 3 hours and 30 minutes to go.

Lukasz Paszczyk was then out for a double stint, but couldn't do anything else than maintaining a steady gap. With 1 hour and 30 minutes to go, Yann Laprevotte had the duty to catch them before the chequered flag, in a double 45 minutes stint. The Frenchman climbed back heavily on SRLA in his first stint, but sadly he hit some flying tyres at the last chicane and span sometime before the 23 hours mark, and loosing around 15 seconds. He gained most of them back nevertheless, and ended-up a few seconds behind SRLA after his final pitstop. His task was going to be much tougher than expected, with SRLA's best and most experienced driver, Ramos Dario, finishing the race. Laprevotte and Dario were fairly even and kept a few seconds gap until 15 minutes to go, when Dario found the pace he needed to put his team back in a safe situation. SimRacing-LA eventually took 11th, only 11 seconds in front of TEM, an absolutely ridiculous margin for a 24 hours race.



Up front, it was ineX taking the GT1 victory, gaining the status of new championship favourites. Spdo takes 2nd, while former championship leaders and qualifying aces Team Sirius would get 3rd after a troubled race. Concept Racing finishes 5th after being robbed from a maiden MoE podium in an unbelivably unlucky time-out at only 2 minutes to go.

Another ex-GT0 squad takes the GT2 victory, as Spdo takes the win, and becomes the third championship leader in 3 races. In fact GT2 top 2 is the same than GT1's, in an inverted order, as ineX takes 2nd, earning their first podium of the season after 2 unsuccessful first rounds. Former championship leaders Raptor Racing takes 3rd.

Only three 6 hour races remain in the championship, with the next one in date being the 6 Hours of South City Long, on March 12th.



Other endurance related news:

• GTAL: Yann Laprevotte and Michael Booth take 5th in the fourth round of the season, the 3 Hours of Aston GT Reversed. This allows TEM to get back to 13th in the standings, after a poor season start. With still 3 races and 21 hours of racing to go, and the top of the standings sheet being fairly bunched up, everything can still happen.
  
• LFSES: Tiger Express gets back to endurance racing honours, after taking a double podium in a Safety Car-filled round 3(3 Hours of Blackwood Reversed) in GT500(GT1's name in LFSES). Yann Laprevotte takes 2nd closely behind Conquest Racing's Daszkiewicz, while ringers Timo Höfer and Radek Müller round up the top 3 despite a time-out and a slightly injured foot for Timo.
  

Also read on tigerexpress.net:

• New Horizons, new feats - Tige ... LN Nordschleife Challenge.
  
• TEM Shines in 2010 LFS Community End-Year Awards.
  

Good write up
But at WE1 i set the time, not Golombeck

Quote from kart-36 :

Good write up
But at WE1 i set the time, not Golombeck

This is why we need final grid sheet showing best time holders

Fixed.

Nice write-up,as always Yann! Aswell it was nice to drive the TEM machine again,had some nice time in ts and stuff (stuff=boothy's lessons how to drive,but i mean it,it helped ) Good luck to TEM in upcoming races.

great, Yann, great

Nice report, as always, Yann !

It was a pleasure for me to drive for TEM at MoE's 24h race.

Good report, Yann