It is that time of the year again… As
New Dimension Racing is about to launch the 4th annual edition of the
Kyoto 250. The 250 miles
XRT race arguabily remains one of the two most prestigious oval event of LFS’ history, alongside its bigger brother, the
Kyoto 500.
For the second time in a row,
Tiger Express will be the team lining-up the biggest amount of cars(six), with
Niko Puntola,
Yann Laprevotte,
Lims Chebbi,
David Jundt, plus trial members
Tom Parker and
Liane Solfrank lining-up on the grid next Saturday.
A seventh
TEM driver met the entry requirements in time and was ready to go:
Oskari Rinne. Sadly the young Finn had to pull out in last minutes due to personal reasons.
With 40 drivers showing up for qualifying day for only 30 race slots, everyone would have to fight just to have a chance to race. Qualifying day’s proceudre might sound a bit complex, but it is actually simpler than you would think at first. The day begins with an hotlap session, in which top 2 gets “locked in” and gets front row for race day. Then it is time for the “
Twin 115 races“: even position finishers of the hotlap sessions gets moved to the first one, odd gets moved to the second one. The top 11 of each race is taken to set odd and even rows, from position 3 to 24. The last 6 race slots are then given to the 6 fastest drivers of the hotlap session who did not qualify from the twin races.
Here is a recap from each session:
Qualifying
The big surprise in this session came from young Englishman
Tom Parker: for his first official show up in TEM’s colours, the former
Gentles on Circuit pulled a fabulous 48:03 early in the session, keeping the lead on the timesheet for a long time. Sadly top-2 locked-in dreams ended-up after
nFinity eSports‘
Kenneth O’Keefe(47:91) and
ineX Racing’s
Joe Holmes(47:99) improved at the very end, but Tom nevertheless took a very satisfacting 3rd place.
Good showing also for
Niko Puntola(10th, 48:07),
Yann Laprevotte(16th, 48:13) and
Liane Solfrank(18th, 48:15). On other hand, disapointment for
David Jundt(29th, 48:28) and
Lims Chebbi(37th, 48:42): this leaves them no room for mistake in the twin races.
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Twin 115 n°1
3 TEM drivers were moved to the first twin:
Tom Parker,
David Jundt and
Lims Chebbi.
Tom was starting 2nd. He lost a few places at the start, but made a strong showing around 4th-5th for most of the race. The Englishman then timed-out during the second half of the race sadly, but belive he might have been able to split the 100%
ineX top 3(
Friskopps-
Diaz-
Cattell) if he didn’t.
David had quite an eventful race. The Swiss started 14th, but moved to 9th after a perfect pit-stop. Unfortunately a spin around half-way point ruined his efforts, and made him drop to 16th. This by far wasn’t enough to get a Kyoto 250 slot. The anime fan then tried to fight back, but got caught in a pile-up and had to carry left rear damage until the end because of this. This wasn’t enough to stop him, and the Swiss driver managed to jump back to 9th in the last laps.
Lims was starting in 19th and penultimate place. The Frenchman pulled a safe race around the back of midfield. Until the last quarter of the race:
Lims showed all his experience at a restart, in which he passed several cars around the outside to take 5th. He didn’t keep the place for long, as he got tangled at turn 1 and ended up approximately where he was. Fortunately, like David, he still had enough ressources to climb back to 8th in the last stages of the race, and get his Kyoto 250 slot.
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Twin 115 n°2
3 TEM drivers in this race aswell:
Niko Puntola,
Yann Laprevotte and
Liane Solfrank.
Niko started from 5th. He maintained himself around the front in the first half of the race. He was then part of the 5 cars group getting away from the pack at the last restart, around 30 laps to go. The Finn then managed to break-away from the rest of the pack with
Raptr.com Racing’s
Oscar Hardwick, thanks to some very efficient bumpdrafting.
Oscar eventually finished 1st in front of
Niko, with
ineX Racing’s
Joe Holmes rounding the podium. Also note that this was the second
Twin 115 podium in a row for
Niko, who already finished 3rd in 2010.
Yann started 8th. He lost a few places due to a poor pit-stop, but managed to make his way back to 6th before the last caution, with some help from team-mate
Liane. The Frenchman then passed
Sean Williams in the latter half of the race, to take 5th.
Liane started from 9th. She quickly gained a few positions after staying on track longer than her rivals before her compulsary pitsop. Unfortunately, she quickly had some problems to keep up with the chasing group, due to lag issues. The German was 7th at a dozen laps to go, when a lag hit sent her in the inside barrier at high speed.
Liane then ended up rolling at the other side of the fence, forcing her to retire.
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Race Build-Up
Provisional starting line-up can be found
here.
Strangely, for the second time in a row, two
TEM cars will be from 6th and 10th: this time it will be
Niko Puntola in 6th instead of
Michal Saidl, while
Yann Laprevotte will start from 10th like in 2010.
Lims Chebbi will start 17th, 2 places in front of
David Jundt. Despite their retirement in the twin races,
Tom Parker and
Liane Solfrank will make it to the grid in 25th and 27th, thanks to their strong qualifying performance.
This edition of the Kyoto 250 looks very open overall, with the whole top 5 of 2010 returning, and some very competitive new drivers making their debuts.
Will
Phil Diaz make it 3 out of 3 after moving to
ineX Racing? Will
Kenneth O’Keefe eventually take the race he came so close to over the years? Will 2010 2nd place runner and ex-
TEM member
Michal Saidl make
CoRe Racing’s invincibility last one more year? Tune-in on
MultiBC on Saturday 26th March at 16:00 UTC, and find out.
While waiting, you can check
TEM’s report from the 2010 edition:
http://www.tigerexpress.net/20 ... kes-2nd-without-much-joy/
You may also view the excellent 2010 post-race montage by
Michael Passingham:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w0kqF7szNc
Or the 2011 edition teaser by
Teemu Iivonen:
http://vimeo.com/21333977