Here is our report from the 24 Hour race at Spa. Things could have been better for us but this is how it unfolded for each car.
Car 49
Alex Gal first in the car after a good effort in qualifying, placing him in 25th for the race start. The flag drops and Alex plays it safe, avoiding any damage inflictions, a great start. A few laps would pass after losing a few positions, and Alex began to up the pace, clawing back some positions putting him up into 23rd. A few laps later Alex would also benefit from an incident gaining him 2 positions before the introduction of the first code 80 of the race. Later into the first stint, after gaining many more positions into 18th, Gal had caught the 235 car and with his pace the 235 let him by, a smart move that would help both cars in the long run, promoting 49 into 17th. Just after the 1 hour mark, Gal would end 49s first stint in the race successfully promoting us to 18th position on track. A great effort. By the end of the 2nd stint, Gal was able to promote 49 into 13th before entering the box. At which point Jack Smith would take the reins of 49 for the next 2 hours. Beginning the stint where Gal left off with very consistent lap times, and maintaining the pace Gal was laying down. By the end of his first stint Smith was able to promote 49 into 17th on track. A further burst of pace in the 2nd stint allowed the gap in front to be reduced, which segwayed into Maximilian Junger’s next 2 stints. A perfect two stints from Junger with consistent, quick lap times in the high 16s, low 17s promoted 49 into 16th, a great first stint from him, and a sign of things to come later on.
Smith jumped into the car after Junger’s stint, progressing from where he left off and setting the pace. It was a great first stint, with high 15s even being shown at the beginning of the stint, a great effort. However, the perfect running was too good to be true as a glitch with the radiator would doom 49 at the start of Smith’s 2nd stint. After some more blinding laps, during the 3rd lap and coming out of Bruxelles, Smith would lose all power, reducing him to a crawl through no-name and having no other choice but to park it on the inside of Pouhon. A monumental blow to the team, who at the time thought it was all over. However, a stroke of luck brought the team back with the director allowing the team to rejoin. Smith would eagerly get back in the car and immediately get back on the pace. Now in 34th and a few laps down, 49 had it all to do for the rest of the race. Agnis Rozitis was the next pilot for 49, and after the, let's say, eventful stint from Smith, Rozitis had it all to do. Some great first few laps gained 49 some time to the car in front, getting within a lap of 33rd. However the pace would soon be shadowed by disconnection issues. Rozitis would unfortunately be hindered by a connection problem that would drop him out of the race multiple times, which significantly lost time for 49. After this though, the team had nothing to lose, and after Rozitis, who still put in some quick laps for the team, had pitted and swapped for Gal, it was time to put the hammer down. And Gal did just that.
A great next few stints with consistently quick times placing us as the 3rd quickest car on track, found us many positions and brought us in contention for a top 30 finish. Junger and Gal shared the night stints and put in the pace needed and promoted us up even more to 27th. Smith would then hop back in the car after some rest, and the “stamina man” immediately smashed his previous pace, dropping in a 2:15.6 in the first few laps. And continued to set the pace across the track becoming the 2nd fastest car promoting the car to 25th before handing the car back to Rozitis for the next 2 hours. He would continue to lay down the pace needed to gain to the cars in front, reducing the gaps exponentially as needed which would lead perfectly for the last few stints where Junger would once again take the reins of 49. Junger would exit the pits, the last driver in 49 before the end, and boy did he deliver. Junger would lay down some absurd times catching P24 as the first stint went on, and even taking the position later on. Junger would continue to lay down the pace, closing in on 23rd in the closing stages of the race, and towards the end Junger would take P23 at the flag, drawing to a close a quite hectic, but memorable 24 hours of Spa. It was a fantastic effort from every single team member of car 49, just leaving us with a thought of “what if” at the end as to where we’d be without the issues. But the pace we showed confirmed we had the pace to take it to the top, and with that we should be proud. Jack Smith
Car 235
Damien DeGrasse had a decent starting stint with the car performing nicely, running in front of the 48 car P18. With both cars settled into a nice rythmn, Damien pitting put the car back into P22 at around the 2 hour mark, quickly ending back in front of the 48 car after several cars in front pitting a lap or two later. With less than a second between the two cars. The 48 being faster at this stage overtook the 235 on track. Paul Magzire took over from Damien, with Paul not being in teamspeak he misses the call of a safety car and continued at full speed under caution, which got the 235 a huge penalty of a 60 second stop go. But the drama didn't end there when Paul ploughed into another car in the pit lane, acruing another huge penaly and dropping the car way way down the field. With the 235 now being threatened with disqualification, the car is handed back to Damien to try and recover.
Damien drives valiantly but loses his force feedback on his wheel mid stint forcing the 235 to disconnect to restore it, dropping us further back. At this point the 235 car is looking cursed or just underprepared. Damien drives hard and determined as he managed to get the car around p27 before the next round of driver swaps. With Matthijs De Wolf jumping into the seat, the 235 car is warned for an infringment with the name on the server as for some reason Matthijs' name is incorrect and the race director threatened to disqualify the car again.
After so many issues and feeling like a mobile chicane it was decided that we would retire the car as it was running second to last at this point, damage on the car was unfixable. Again in a game of what if's, we actually had good pace and maybe could have been top 10 by the end of the race, but the lack of prep and the mistakes really showed us up.
Triple Eight VDT Car 888
Triple Eight already were slightly hindered by the fact only three drivers would be racing the car the entire 24 hours. Alex Cochrane took the first stint, a spin at Eau Rouge cost some time but no damage luckily, then it was a steady drive from all three drivers with no real issues, Ciprian Stoian taking over driving duties and working the car nicely running P??, with Alex taking back over for his next stint again keeping things clean and steady until Karlis Skirmanis tries to take over from Alex. Karlis has some connection issues which forces Alex to continue driving an unscheduled stint.
The driver swap then costs us 2 laps as there are still issues when Karlis takes over the car is still running just outside the top 20 in P21 after 10 hours. Alex is back in the seat for his next stint but just before the driver stops, Ciprian has a similar connection issues and Alex is again forced to drive an extra part, about half way into that stint for Alex a red flag is called, forcing a restart which a very exhausted Alex has to take on until the next driver swap window. The red flag allows us to close right up on our rivals and puts Ciprian in a good place when he manages to get behind the steering wheel, which gives Alex a well deserved rest.
Another issue causes the car to lose more laps after a good fighting come back from Ciprian, with just 6 and a half hours left the car is running in P19 6 laps down. Karlis returns to driving duties but is now suffering with feeling ill and can't drive properly struggling to maintain his regular pace. Alex promptly takes back control for another stint in the car. then we are informed that the car supposidly was speeding under the safety car, when it was not, so we argued that penalty. Going into the last hour with Ciprian back in the car the 888 was back into the top 20 where he would cross the line at the end in P20.
In total the 888 lost around 7 laps due to pitstop and connection issues which again in the game of hindsight with a perfect run maybe the car would have been around P12 but fighting back to P20 and the best of all three entries was an amazing job and commitment shown.
In general we mainly were struck by the "Rfactor 2" bugs which really cost us hugely for the 49 and 888. 235 was just a lot of silly mistakes by us which we should have managed better, but still great efforts from the drivers.
We will be doing more endurance events in the future as we look to expand but more on this when we have our plans outlined.
If you want to watch the race replays check out these links:
Thank you to all the drivers who drove for us and the entire team who put this together and for VSRA for organising the event.
Richard.
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