GTAL 2010 news from 3rd and 4th rounds (3 Hours of South City Long Reversed and 6 Hours of Whesthill International Reversed)
3 Hours of South City Long Reversed (Round 3)
We qualified 12th because of lack of time for training. On racing day we faced another problem, driver who was supposed to drive said that he couldn‘t make it, so the other driver had about half a day to prepare for race.
After race start in first corner we‘ve already gained 2 positions, in the same lap we luckily got away from crash, which caused safety car. Because of crash we gained 4 more positions, which was very good for us. After about 20 minutes after race start we were fighting with S.Rose from Something Awful Racing and after some time we gained our position. Furthermore, we were fighting with D.Schmitt from RAPTOR-RACING, who was defending his position very doggedly but we again won the fight and we were in 5th position. About 20 minutes to the end of first hour, A.O‘Brein from Ministry of Speed catched us up and after few laps overtook us successfully. After making a pit stop we came back to track in 10th position and after 15 minutes we gained 2 positions. After second pit stop we returned to 10th position again. After few fights we were in 9th position, and 2 minutes to the end of the race we successfully made maneuver and overtook J.Christensen from CoRe Racing team. We finished in 8th position, but after giving out all the penalties we were 7th in official results.
Even though we haven‘t had enough training, we managed to finish in 7th position. It must be so because we weren‘t involved in any accident, which was pretty surprising for us as in previous rounds we had quit a lot of accidents.
6 Hours of Whesthill International Reversed (Round 4)
We started in 8th position and after first turning we were already in 5th position, in the same lap we gained 1 more position by overtaking E.Smith from Something Awful Racing. After about 20 minutes E.Smith retook his previous position. Before making our late pit stop we were 1st and after it we returned into 3rd position. After a while F.Gehammar from GraVt Racing overtook us. Unfortunately, we had an awful accident, when in last sector B.Holmberg spun and crashed into the wall after the contact he flew away from the wall towards us. Our front was pretty smashed, as speed just before accident was about 185 km/h. Happily suspension was damaged just a little. After this accident we lost 3 positions and were 4th, after a while we made our second pit stop. And after it we returned into 6th position, just before N.Gebauer from 7Karat team. He overtook us immediately. Just before making our 3rd pit stop, in first turning our front right tyre got punctured, because of it we lost many positions and lost hopes to fight for podium. After the pit we returned to 11th position. 1 hour to race end we were in 10th position and whole left time we tried to keep fast pace to get our positions back. After 20 minutes we got 2 positions back as those 2 drivers made pit stops. Whole left time we were feeling strong pressure from T.Østgaard from Triple 7 Racing, which doggedly tried to gain position. After a while, Estonian Endurance Racers, who were driving in 2nd position, got time out and after some more time Serbian Chromed Pistons, who were driving just in front of us, got timeout too, so we gained 2 positions.
After 6 surprising hours, after standing T.Østgaard‘s pressure we finished in 6th position. We have compassion for EER and SCP teams as they timed out in last hour of race. Congratulations to Maximum Racing, GraVt Racing and Something Awful Racing, which had podium.
After round 4 we are in 3rd position in standings with 175 points. We are very happy with it and we will try to maintain this position till the end of this season. Good luck in future rounds!