BTCC 2004 - Croft Race 18 Results Up

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 24 Jan 2013, 21:09

Medium chassis and engine upgrade please

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 28 Jan 2013, 23:46

Italia 400 Preview

Saturday
Race 6 Qualifying
Race 6, 200 km, 48 Laps

Sunday
Race 7 Qualifying
Race 7, 200 km, 48 Laps

Entry List (39 cars)

So to please the tifosi we have nine Italian entries including the entire Alfa Romeo ETCC squad as well as Alessandro Zanardi who returned to full time racing this season in a modified BMW after his horrifying Lautizring shunt in 2001 which saw him loose his legs. This will be his BTCC debut.

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 28 Jan 2013, 23:55

Hoping to get the wild card liveries done tomorrow evening. You have until then to post your upgrade requests if you haven't already.

TomWazzleshaw · Post by **TomWazzleshaw** » 28 Jan 2013, 23:57

Samster wrote:Hoping to get the wild card liveries done tomorrow evening. You have until then to post your upgrade requests if you haven't already.

Is it possible to put upgrades on Larkham's car only? And what can we upgrade (As you can probably tell by now, I'm mostly keeping this series at arm's length while I focus on the RWRS operations)

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 29 Jan 2013, 00:11

Wizzie wrote:
Samster wrote:Hoping to get the wild card liveries done tomorrow evening. You have until then to post your upgrade requests if you haven't already.

Is it possible to put upgrades on Larkham's car only? And what can we upgrade (As you can probably tell by now, I'm mostly keeping this series at arm's length while I focus on the RWRS operations)

Details are on page 1, a few posts down. I've not thought of just giving upgrades to one single car. Since I have operated under this assumption thus far then upgrades will cost the same whatever the amount of cars you want to give them to. Otherwise I would have to rethink costs depending on how big each team is as that way they would cost more for the three car teams.

TomWazzleshaw · Post by **TomWazzleshaw** » 29 Jan 2013, 00:16

Samster wrote:
Wizzie wrote:
Samster wrote:Hoping to get the wild card liveries done tomorrow evening. You have until then to post your upgrade requests if you haven't already.

Is it possible to put upgrades on Larkham's car only? And what can we upgrade (As you can probably tell by now, I'm mostly keeping this series at arm's length while I focus on the RWRS operations)

Details are on page 1, a few posts down. I've not thought of just giving upgrades to one single car. Since I have operated under this assumption thus far then upgrades will cost the same whatever the amount of cars you want to give them to. Otherwise I would have to rethink costs depending on how big each team is as that way they would cost more for the three car teams.

I'd half the current numbers to give a cost per car, change the limit to 300 000 pounds per car rather than 300 000 per team, give the teams the option to play blatant favouritism, and recalculate the budges from there. Job done.

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 29 Jan 2013, 00:24

Wizzie wrote:
I'd half the current numbers to give a cost per car, change the limit to 300 000 pounds per car rather than 300 000 per team, give the teams the option to play blatant favouritism, and recalculate the budges from there. Job done.

I may consider making that a feature from next season. Will please a certain Mr. Plato anyway.

TomWazzleshaw · Post by **TomWazzleshaw** » 29 Jan 2013, 00:29

But seriously, I'll put a small chassis and small reliability upgrade on the cars.

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 29 Jan 2013, 00:37

Small aero upgrade for Tech-Speed pls.

FMecha · Post by **FMecha** » 29 Jan 2013, 10:29

Stramala [kostas22] wrote:Small aero upgrade for Tech-Speed pls.

Ditto for GA.

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 30 Jan 2013, 21:25

No more upgrades please. Budgets updated going into Monza on the wiki.

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 09 Feb 2013, 19:40

Monza Saturday Race 6 Qualifying

James Thompson continues his near invincible start to 2004 with his first pole of the season by over half a second. Alain Menu and Jason Plato take their best qualifying efforts of the season in 2nd and 3rd ahead of home hero Fabrizio Giovanardi. Top wildcard is a surprising Augusto Farfus for Alfa Romeo in 6th, the young Brazilian in his first season of touring cars.

pi314159 · Post by **pi314159** » 09 Feb 2013, 19:46

Great job, Thompson. Motoyama continues being diappointing. If only Takagi had been interested. And WHAT was Gareth Howell doing?

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 09 Feb 2013, 19:47

Samster wrote:Monza Saturday Race 6 Qualifying

James Thompson continues his near invincible start to 2004 with his first pole of the season by over half a second. Alain Menu and Jason Plato take their best qualifying efforts of the season in 2nd and 3rd ahead of home hero Fabrizio Giovanardi. Top wildcard is a surprising Augusto Farfus for Alfa Romeo in 6th, the young Brazilian in his first season of touring cars.

Go Menu! This is what we hired him for.

Considering Andy Neate failed to set a time, can we DNQ him and remove him from the starting grid?

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 09 Feb 2013, 19:54

Stramala [kostas22] wrote:
Samster wrote:Monza Saturday Race 6 Qualifying

James Thompson continues his near invincible start to 2004 with his first pole of the season by over half a second. Alain Menu and Jason Plato take their best qualifying efforts of the season in 2nd and 3rd ahead of home hero Fabrizio Giovanardi. Top wildcard is a surprising Augusto Farfus for Alfa Romeo in 6th, the young Brazilian in his first season of touring cars.

Go Menu! This is what we hired him for.

Considering Andy Neate failed to set a time, can we DNQ him and remove him from the starting grid?

He did set a reasonably competent time in practice. Besides the Cadwell 1000 will be the only event with DNQs, unless any other event manages an entry list of over 42.

Gerudo Dragon · Post by **Gerudo Dragon** » 09 Feb 2013, 19:57

What the bathplug happened to Howell??

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 09 Feb 2013, 20:24

darkapprentice77 wrote:What the bathplug happened to Howell??

I guess mechanical troubles?

FloProAct · Post by **FloProAct** » 09 Feb 2013, 20:44

Okay, I don't know what's going on with Howell but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm more concerned about Pyper. I'd envisioned him as team leader, but at the moment he's third of our three cars...

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 09 Feb 2013, 21:09

Samster wrote:
darkapprentice77 wrote:What the bathplug happened to Howell??

I guess mechanical troubles?

I had something like that happen in a race today, where Jimmie Johnson was like 200% of the pole time, and he was fine in the race, so I wouldn't worry too much.

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 10 Feb 2013, 01:05

Results and updated points are on the wiki. I'll post more detailed results here tomorrow.

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 10 Feb 2013, 16:13

Monza Saturday Race 6 Results

Well James Thompson smoked em. And thanks to Fabrizio Giovanardi's Astra giving up on him while in contention for the podium, Thompson now has a massive 89 point lead while Honda reclaim the lead in the Teams Standings. From the start Thompson held off Alain Menu through the chicane and never looked back since. His ability to maintain good lap times on worn out tyres compared to the others meant that he was virtually impossible to catch and from lap 30 onwards his lead was kept stable at around 35 seconds.

But without Thompson this would have been a very closely fought race. Jason Plato managed to get by Menu on the first lap but wasn't able to escape the Swiss double champion as they fought throughout the first stint (Of 5! The tyres worn out very quickly.) Meanwhile Luke Hines took himself out when he rear ended Warren Hughes at Della Rogia after outbraking himself, yet another DNF for the 3rd Team Dynamics driver.

After a few laps, an alternate strategy emerged when Hughes made his first pitstop, he was followed in by Satoshi Motoyama, Rob Collard, Mike Jordan and John George. This gave them the opportunity to gain a bit of time on their rivals when they were on fresher tyres but also meant that they would have to make an extra stop. Though Hughes and Motoyama were both up in the top 5 (Hughes in the lead) after the rest made their pitstops around lap 10, only Hughes really made it work, gradually rising up the field even with his extra stop.

Gabriele Tarquini managed to emerge in second midway through after a couple of great stops ahead of Menu, Plato, Giovanardi, Farfus, Neal and Zanardi. The latter two unfortunately collided with Neal losing a bit of time and Zanardi being forced to repair his car. A little while later Giovanardi would drop out from 4th with camshaft problems while Plato suffered a significant delay in a pitstop which dropped him down into the midfield, costing him a chance for his first podium of the season.

Tarquini would eventually hold on for 2nd from Hughes who was closing in on fresher tyres. Alfa Romeo ended up having a solid showing with Farfus finishing an impressive 4th and Muller a somewhat disappointed 9th, though they would have wanted to challenge for the win in-front of the Italian crowds. They always have Sunday's race to improve. Tech-Speed finally managed to get all three of their cars to the finish though Menu lost out on 4th on the final lap when the lapped Mark Larkham clumsily tagged the rear of his car into Ascari. Menu was lucky to drag his car through the gravel but by the time he managed that he'd dropped to 8th.

SEAT had a mixed showing, while Tom Chilton, along with Robert Huff managed a solid effort to climb through the field after poor qualifying sessions, Matt Neal did the opposite and gradually slipped down the order ending up just behind Chilton. Colin Turkington meanwhile had a rather underwhelming showing spending most of the race just outside of the top ten, eventually managing 10th.

West Surrey Racing had another disappointing race, though Anthony Reid had a decent showing in qualifying, he was another driver that dropped down the order throughout the race, ending up down in 12th. Dan Eaves suffered yet another DNF after spending the race nowhere near where he ought to be. Proton were another big team that struggled today, though Gavin Pyper managed to drag his Impian up to 17th, James Kaye remained stagnant in the mid 20s throughout the race. Gareth Howell had a day to forget, first having to start way down in 38th after failing to set an actual time he had managed to make his way through the tail enders, almost reaching his teammates until more mechanical issues lost him 3 laps in the garage.

So will Thompson continue his domination of 2004 tomorrow, or will someone get their act together and give him a challenge. I bloody hope so otherwise we are in for a dull title fight.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 10 Feb 2013, 16:25

I think maybe you made Thompson too good. And goddamn it, Neal really had better up his game if he wants to stay for another year.

HonoraryNortherner · Post by **HonoraryNortherner** » 10 Feb 2013, 21:00

Bloody pit crew. Not what we needed :/ And if Luke Hines keeps crashing, I'm gonna have to start charging that boy more money....

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 10 Feb 2013, 21:23

I agree with BCS, the Honda was really too old in 2004 to dominate like that

andrew · Post by **andrew** » 11 Feb 2013, 16:05

Still leading the Indi's but Plato is closing in, have to up my game with Dan as well.

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 12 Feb 2013, 23:36

Monza Sunday Race 7 Qualifying Results

Much closer grid today with the top 14 all within one second. Warren Hughes takes his first pole for Vauxhall leading a 1-2 with Fabrizio Giovanardi, will they finally win their first race of 2004? Gianni Morbidelli has an impressive performance to qualify the wildcard SEAT 3rd ahead of championship dominator, James Thompson.

FloProAct · Post by **FloProAct** » 12 Feb 2013, 23:44

Every time you put a result up I look at the top in the vain hope that somehow one of my drivers has managed to get the Proton into a good position, and every time they seem to be lower down the field...

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 13 Feb 2013, 22:18

Monza Sunday Race 7 Results

Thompson didn't win! In fact not only did he make a poor start which saw him drop to 7th but he failed to keep up with the lead group, then delayed himself further by sliding off at Lesmo 1 around lap 20 eventually finishing down in 9th. Warren Hughes would lead the whole race but it was a much closer one today. The first stint saw Hughes lead a train of six from Gianni Morbidelli, Fabrizio Giovanardi, Robert Huff, Matt Neal and Gabriele Tarquini. But then this group imploded a little during the first round of pitstops. The VX Racing pit crew stuffed up and stupidly released Giovanardi straight into the path of Neal which saw the SEAT's front crumpled up and its driver out of another race. Then things went further wrong for Vauxhall when Huff tangled with Yvan Muller on their out lap. Huff was stuck in the gravel while Muller's Alfa was crippled for the rest of the race, causing the defending champion to plummet through the field before eventually dropping out with suspension failure.

So this left Hughes and Morbidelli battling for the lead during the second stint, both pulling away from Tarquini, Giovanardi and Jason Plato. Morbidelli's pace was much better today as he was consistently the quickest of the SEATs in every Sunday session and here he was challenging Hughes for the lead, even setting the fastest lap of the race. Unfortunately, Hughes managed to drop him during the second round of pitstops and he was eventually overhauled for 2nd by Tarquini who completes an impressive cameo appearance for Alfa Romeo. Giovanardi ended a disappointing home weekend by loosing out on 4th to Plato during the pitstops while Alain Menu and Tom Chilton ran together all day to finish 6th and 7th.

WSR managed a slightly less pathetic showing with Anthony Reid running in the lower top 10 throughout the day to wind up 8th, though Dan Eaves again was in the garage by lap 6, continuing his absolute pig of a start to his season. Team Dynamics however were back to their unreliable best, though Plato managed his first top five of the season, Darren Turner had to make two trips to the garage early on and thus spent most of the race two laps down (a similar fate befell Colin Turkington), while Luke Hines yet again managed to rear end someone, even managing to do it in the same corner as his Saturday collision with Hughes. This time he hit Augusto Farfus on lap 4, causing the Alfa to spin off and lightly back into the tyres, leaving the Brazilian youngster to play catch up for the rest of the day. Hines himself managed to get a little further before having to bring his Civic into the garage to record his 4th consecutive DNF.

Further down the field, Luca Rangoni performed brilliantly to finish 12th in a competitive field while Proton had a solid race (at least by their usual standards) with all three of their drivers comfortably within the top 20. Charlie Butler-Henderson completed his best weekend to date by adding a 16th to go with yesterday's 18th, he outperformed his more experienced teammate, Carl Breeze. Andy Neate meanwhile, finally managed to finish for the first time since the season opener.

So VX Racing will see a £100,000 fine for their unsafe pit release while Luke Hines has been placed on probation for the rest of the season, any more high-jinks and its a month's ban coming his way.

You may start ordering upgrades for Silverstone, the BTCDS will also be running in support for their second event of the season. If you wish to enter your Development Series team as a wild card, let me know either here or on the BTCDS thread.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 13 Feb 2013, 22:43

SEAT Sport UK would like to petition the officials to give VX Racing a harsher penalty; this was a clear attempt by them to sabotage Matt Neal's race. Clearly.

At least Chilton had another solid day, but we're going to need some results soon if we're ever going to factor into any of the championships. To that end, we'll have medium aerodynamics and engine upgrades.

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 13 Feb 2013, 22:52

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:SEAT Sport UK would like to petition the officials to give VX Racing a harsher penalty; this was a clear attempt by them to sabotage Matt Neal's race. Clearly.

Vauxhall strongly disagree, we have absolutely no reason to sabotage SEAT when there is a much bigger threat in the 7 car. And even if Vauxhall did (which we wouldn't anyway) it would be stupid to use our lead driver

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 13 Feb 2013, 22:56

eurobrun wrote:
BlindCaveSalamander wrote:SEAT Sport UK would like to petition the officials to give VX Racing a harsher penalty; this was a clear attempt by them to sabotage Matt Neal's race. Clearly.

Vauxhall strongly disagree, we have absolutely no reason to sabotage SEAT when there is a much bigger threat in the 7 car. And even if Vauxhall did (which we wouldn't anyway) it would be stupid to use our lead driver

But clearly it had no effect on your performance and you clearly had something to gain by eliminating one of Giovanardi's biggest competitors in the race. Clearly.

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 13 Feb 2013, 23:13

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:
eurobrun wrote:
BlindCaveSalamander wrote:SEAT Sport UK would like to petition the officials to give VX Racing a harsher penalty; this was a clear attempt by them to sabotage Matt Neal's race. Clearly.

Vauxhall strongly disagree, we have absolutely no reason to sabotage SEAT when there is a much bigger threat in the 7 car. And even if Vauxhall did (which we wouldn't anyway) it would be stupid to use our lead driver

But clearly it had no effect on your performance and you clearly had something to gain by eliminating one of Giovanardi's biggest competitors in the race. Clearly.

1. It did slightly affect Gio's performance as well as creating some damage to the car.
2. At this stage Neal is not a threat for the championship so we at Vauxhall have no reason to sabotage him at all

So it was an honest mistake, nothing more

HonoraryNortherner · Post by **HonoraryNortherner** » 13 Feb 2013, 23:30

Hines is being bathpluging bad. He better get his act together soon. Samster, what are the rules concerning mid-season driver changes? I'm not firing him yet but... if the crashing continues I'll look for other options.

Small engine and medium reliability upgrades, please.

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 13 Feb 2013, 23:33

HonoraryNortherner wrote:Hines is being bathpluging bad. He better get his act together soon. Samster, what are the rules concerning mid-season driver changes? I'm not firing him yet but... if the crashing continues I'll look for other options.

Small engine and medium reliability upgrades, please.

You can changes drivers whenever, even during a race weekend but that will mean that you start at the back. I'll still use random.org to determine whether the replacement would sign.

HonoraryNortherner · Post by **HonoraryNortherner** » 13 Feb 2013, 23:35

Samster wrote:
HonoraryNortherner wrote:Hines is being bathpluging bad. He better get his act together soon. Samster, what are the rules concerning mid-season driver changes? I'm not firing him yet but... if the crashing continues I'll look for other options.

Small engine and medium reliability upgrades, please.

You can changes drivers whenever, even during a race weekend but that will mean that you start at the back. I'll still use random.org to determine whether the replacement would sign.

I see. How would this affect his sponsorship money?

Samster · Post by **Samster** » 13 Feb 2013, 23:53

He would want a certain percentage of it back, depending on how much of the season has passed. He has lawyers. 8-)

FMecha · Post by **FMecha** » 14 Feb 2013, 05:01

Medium engine upgrade, please

FloProAct · Post by **FloProAct** » 14 Feb 2013, 14:48

A half decent result! Small engine upgrade please...

andrew · Post by **andrew** » 14 Feb 2013, 15:25

medium engine upgrade please

pi314159 · Post by **pi314159** » 14 Feb 2013, 15:29

Don't worry about Thompson. I've run out of money and all I can afford is a small upgrade on aerodynamics.