good stuff as always

Quote from kart-36 :

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

attention whore

Quote from baSh0r :

attention whore

It must be correct

Just a little post about the last GTAL race (tho I am sure some great report is on the way), you did a great race, your pace has improved a lot and it is great to see the Tigers progressing fast...keep up the good work guys!

Quote from Framaris :

Just a little post about the last GTAL race (tho I am sure some great report is on the way), you did a great race, your pace has improved a lot and it is great to see the Tigers progressing fast...keep up the good work guys!

Thanks

Nice stuff from you guys too, very strong season so far. Good luck for the title chase, hopefully we're gonna get as close as possible from that stuff.

And yea, a GTAL mid-season report might be on the to-do list... Though it won't come before official results and stuff get announced

Great review as always. Good job in GTAL.

After a poor season start in both Grand Touring Amateur League and LFS Endurance Series, Tiger Express Motorsports did everything necessary to get back into business before the last rounds. Let’s review what happened during the last 3 months in those two leagues, from TEM’s point of view.
















“Fortunately” the huge amount of retirements(12) made the things a less bad than they could have been. TEM took 13th overall, though a top 5 could have definitely have been possible in optimal conditions.

The XCite Inferno took their maiden victory, despite being down to last place after turn 1. The Danish Racing Team finished 2nd despite a time-out. Very surprising cargame.nl were set for 3rd, but a crash at a few minutes to go ruined their hopes. Championship leaders Sonicrealms finished 3rd on track, but were obliged to give it up to Raptor Racing because of an after race penalty. The race also saw the retirement of several championship contenders, such as Genuine Racing, GraVT Racing and Team Identity, which represented a massive blow to their respective title hopes.







Vince Lombardi’s and Tamer Yapar’s departure to break away Deep Drive Racing team and Lims Chebbi weaknesses on that combo meant that TEM was seeking for a free agent for this round. Michael Booth was chosenfor the task of teaming-up with Yann Laprevotte.

This round was a great example of the “show up and drive” attitude for TEM. Final race set was built 10 minutes before race start, after only a few short runs. It didn’t mean that the two drivers were going to struggle badly at the back, no sir. Starting 16th, Yann had a sensational first stint, overtaking a few teams and taking benefit from incidents here and here, to end up in 7th. Tyres were still in an excellent shape however, thanks(?) to the Frenchman’s persistent puncture paranoia. So much that commentator Chris Ford pretended that “it looks like he didn’t drive with them at all“.



Michael Booth took over the car for the second stint. It was quite downwards and upwards: The Scottish had an epic pass on the outside of 2010 runner-ups 7Karat in the first laps, but also a few offs, including a spin at turn 1. He still managed to maintain TEM on the bottom of the top 10, before a server failure brought the red flag.

The race re-started for a whole hour, with TEM 7th on the grid this time. Yann took the wheel again. TEM’s manager couldn’t do anything against faster CoRe Racing and Smocking Team, but managed to pass Serbian Chromed Pistons and the badly damaged FXR of GraVT, and successfully resisted against Team Identity. The first and only caution of the day, at 10 minutes to go, grouped the field again for a massive sprint race to the line. TEM had to surrender to Identity, but passed TDRT’s FXR, spun from 2nd by newcomers Deep Drive Racing, in what probably remains the most controversial incident of the season so far. Yann then passed DRUNK Team in the final lap to take 6th, before inheriting of 5th thanks to Deep Drive’s penalty for the TDRT incident.



Genuine Racing came back stronger after the round 3 disaster to take the win. CoRe Racing follows in 2nd thanks to a great performance from TEM’s friend Sascha Riegler, while surprising Smocking Team completes a podium featuring all 3 different car models.







This round saw the come back of Oskari Rinne in GTAL, who had to sit out the first 4 rounds due to no internet week-ends. The Finn would team-up with Yann Laprevotte.

This time the TEM squad at least made the effort of doing a whole test-stint on race set. As a bonus Oskari showed his mighty pace in qualifying, taking 6th and first of the buses, only 3 tenths away from Raptor Gaming.
Oskari then did a great job in the first stint, overtaking DRUNK Team straight away, before fighting for 2nd with RAPTOR and Genuine in a battle to remember. A shorter stop than his rivals meant that TEM would exit the pits in 2nd, with Yann at the wheel for the second stint. The Frenchman was under RAPTOR’s pressure for the first few laps, before the German team suffered from a time-out. Yann then kept it clean in 2nd for the rest of the stint, before giving the car back to Osku.



Chances for a podium seemed to drop out significantly as Osku received a Drive Through for an incident with Team Identity 2 hours ago, in lap 2. Oskari rejoined the track in 4th at the bottom of a bus trio composed of GraVT, AMG and TEM. With damage carried over the whole race(not repairing it was part of the strategy), Osku couldn’t push mush, and was obliged to bring the car home in a slightly disappointing 4th place.

However TEM would inherit of an extremely satisfacting 3rd place in the official results, thanks to an after race penalty for AMG. This was the first GTAL podium of the team, since its official debuts in the championship, in December 2009! (This, though sister team White Dinamo Tiger finished 3rd in round 5 in 2010.) A great way for Oskari to celbrate his 13th birthday.
Up front Sonicrealms took the win, after being on a class of their own this day. GraVT finishes 2nd, in front of TEM then.

This means that Sonicrealms takes the championship lead at two races to go. Genuine follows 26 points behind. Then, 43 points away from SR, a huge train of teams between 3rd and 12th, all grouped in 21 points. TEM is in that group, in 9th. With still 179 points to take in this season, no need to say that everything is still wide open.










After a slightly disappointing round 1, Tiger Express made the difficult choice to switch its two cars to XRRs(from one FXR and one FZR), which resulted in the loss of all its points so far. However it later appeared to be a wise decision.

Round 2 was the first “long” race of the season, with a predicted race duration of roughly 5 hours. A 100% French line-up could be seen in the #105 car, with Lims Chebbi teaming-up once again with Yann Laprevotte, while #106 was shared by Turkey’s Vince Lombardi and Tamer Yapar.
Qualifying wasn’t so bad for both squads, which took 5th and 6th out of the 11 GT500 present this day.

Vince Lombardi had a great stint, picking up a few places straight away and standing in 2nd place for a short while. It was more troubled for Yann Laprevotte, who lost a few places and could only do his best to follow the strong mid-field.



The turning point of the race came shortly after the first round of pitstops, as the server crashed totally. The race was restarted for 76 laps, which wasn’t so bad news for the TEM cars, which could as a matter of fact have an opportunity do one fewer stop than rivals due to superior tyre management. However the team more or less lost the #106 car straight away, as Tamer Yapar got several time-outs from the back-up server, forcing the Turkians to give up any hope for a good result. It was going good for the #105 car meanwhile, as Yann could follow the train of cars battling for 2nd. The #105 then lost a bit or ground, and was aiming to keep 5th against Magic Turtles-2F2F. Sadly a time-out at more than one hour to go made this impossible, which meant that #105 would have to cruise until the end to get a disappointing 6th.

The race was won by newcomers Duck Racing, in front of Adenoids Racing and PLZ Team. The 4 cars GT500 class was taken by Inferno.






With Vince Lombardi and Tamer Yapar leaving to form break-away Deep Drive Racing team, TEM decided to give #106 to the expert hands of ringers Timo Höfer and Radek Muller. Yann Laprevotte would be all alone in the #105 car.

Radek and Yann got 6th and 8th in qualifying, out of an impressive 15 cars GT500 field. Pole was taken by ex-TEM member Vince Lombardi.
The #105 and #106 cars were very close together during the first stint, making their way through the field. Despite a small foot injury he contracted while playing soccer, Timo was 3rd by the end of stint one, while Yann was following in 4th. Disaster struck #106 a few minutes after the beginning of stint 2, as Radek’s PC crashed, which resulted on a time-out. Timo was obliged to do the rest of the race on his own, getting a lap down after this.



The second part of the race was incident filled. Yann took 2nd after Duck Racing’s Goik lost time due to an incident with backmarkers Crazy Drivers. He then took the lead from Conquest Racing’s Daszkiewicz thanks to a smart pit strategy during a Safety Car period. But both Polish drivers were on a charge during the last stint. Goik took over the lead after overtaking Laprevotte at a restart, before the 2 hours mark. The Frenchman looked to be able to control Daszkiewicz during the last hour however, but a Safety Car at 30 minutes to go gave the Conquest driver a golden opportunity to pass his opponent at the restart – again. It seemed at this point that the trio Duck-Conquest-TEM #105 was going to be the podium of the day, but an unbeliveble spin from Goik at 10 minutes to go made Duck Racing drop from 1st to 4th in the standings.

This meant that Conquest would win in front of the #105 TEM car of Yann Laprevotte. The final podium slot was amazingly taken by the #106 TEM car, as Timo managed to recover nicely from Radek’s time-out: the German took benefit from one of the many cautions to unlap himself, get back on the lead lap and make his way again through the field, until he got 3rd. That double podium was what Tiger Express needed to get back in the championship.

Short mention to the GT350 class, taken by PLZ-Team’s #223 FX2, despite a roll during their second stint.






The second “long” race of the season occured in February 2011. It saw a consequent turn-out drop, with only 7 cars lining-up in each class.
TEM would this time imitate its opponents and get back to only one car. The #105 XRR was shared this time by Yann Laprevotte and Timo Höfer. Trial member David Jundt was supposed to drive aswell, but had to sit-out this round due to connection issues.

Yann took 3rd in qualifying, behind spdo Racing and new entrants LFSIF Team. The Frenchman was struggling quite a lot during his first stint: even though he managed to overtake LFSIF early on for 2nd, he then couldn’t find the pace and lost 3 places during his stint. Fortunately 2 were gained back as the #105 car got back in front of LFSIF and Magic Turtles-2F2F after the first round of pitstop. Timo then managed to make up a nice and safe gap over the chasing group, but couldn’t do anything against the spdo-Duck Racing Conquest up duet up front.



The turning point came at around 1 hours and 20 minutes to go. Timo took benefit from a caution caused by the beached XRR of Crazy Drivers GT350 and unlapped himself, to get in the lead lap again. Duck Racing Conquest decided to pit and attempted to go until the end. Both Timo and Yann belived that he would have to pit again(especially due to the fact that its FZR was carrying the usual 25kg plus 15kg of success ballast), this is why Timo decided to keep a small enough gap to get back in front when he would get in, but the Polish squad maintained themselves on track until the end with no trouble. TEM was still satisfacted with another podium, behind spdo Racing and Duck Racing Conquest.

Mention to the GT350 class, overpowered by Team Inferno, back after their one round break.

At the GT500 championship, TEM is a close 2nd, several points behind Magic Turtles. However, Duck Racing stands further back in 3rd, ready to take benefit of any weak round from the leaders. Small regrets for TEM though: should the team had taken the XRR from round 1, they would very probably be leading the championship heavily. But chances for a maiden endurance crown are far from being over yet. Meanwhile, the drivers’ championship is led by TEM’s Yann Laprevotte after former leader Magic Turtles’ Ace had to miss round 4.

Epic report Yann :o

Always nice to read

Nice report, as always

Coincidence you miswrote Lombardi the first time you mentioned him?xD

I suddenly feel the need for hamburger...hmmm

btw nice report Yann!

Quote from Swiss-Spirit :

Coincidence you miswrote Lombardi the first time you mentioned him?xD

:hide:

Fixed.

Thanks otherwise

Always nice to read ... almoust i want read more

Tiger Express Motorsports welcomes its first full-time recruit in more than 10 months, as Swiss driver David “Swiss-Spirit” Jundt joins the team.



David, 21, is a former Epic Racing member. Though he started being involved in LFS rather late(November 2009), he quickly made himself a name after taking part in some of LFS’ finest leagues. Out of his most notable drives, we would mention the few points he scored in both 2010 and 2011 iTCC seasons, his 9 GTAL races for both Epic Racing(2010) and Gentles on Circuit(2011), and his overall top 5 in the 2010 Mini-FBM season. It didn’t take much time for David to become one of Swizerland’s most famous LFS driver still in activity, among names such as Kevin Leu or Kevin Egloff.

David is also known to be a massive anime fan, a passion he likes to wear on his cars. If you are seeking him on a race track, just search for a proud and loud anime-based livery - that’s probably him!

PS: We just opened on our site the TEM Media Center, showing the teams’ great moments in both photos and videos. Keep in mind that it still is highly Work In Progress, but you should already be able to find nice contents here.

Nice one David! GL to you and TEM

congrats!

Congrats David! Good luck to you and TEM!

gratz and all luck

gratz david and TEM

Gratz David Good luck to you and TEM!

Nice to see TEM getting an active driver for their team rooster.

Congrats to the crazy Swiss David as well!

Grats to both

Congratz

Viel Glück und Spaß dort, David

Congrats, both of you. And a great result for you in GTAL

[Nice skin too!!! :P]

Grats David and TEM