Grand Prix Rejects

The LDM Car Controller complete with Hogs Breath Cafe Mascot head has to be one of the highlights of the season so far

And once again Pye becomes the punching bag. The poor guy just can't catch a break.

No kidding, the Masked Lapwing. He has been caught up in far too many incidents, most of which are kinda unfortunate.

McLaughlin reckons the softs are good for 20-25 laps. I reckon he's just bullshitting Larko

Larko's got a bonnet open again. What are the odds Engel's engine blows?

the Masked Lapwing wrote:Larko's got a bonnet open again. What are the odds Engel's engine blows?

It's only a matter of time before he starts playing around with the Triple 8 cars. Hopefully

Premat and out and something clearly broken on McLaughlin's car. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

It was the wrong LDM on its side though, normally the Punching Bag would've done that

My "expert" description of what happened:

It started on the line when McLaughlin spun his wheels at the start. Tander was a bit optimistic going down the inside into turn 1, Whincup followed him through. This forces McLaughlin wide, and thus Bright wider thanks to him being on the outside. Both lift, letting Whincup through and Slade gets down the inside. Bright tries to rejoin, forces McLaughlin to the left, where Slade hasn't quite cleared him. Slade spins in front of traffic. Wall panics, takes to the grass and spins, collecting (I believe) Holdsworth and Moffat. Fiore hits Moffat, Premat hits Fiore, which puts him off the track and (almost) rolling.

If I'm correct, they're restarting from their original grid positions, which gives a huge advantage to McLaughlin but screws Whincup (what a shame ), Tander and Pye ( ), who all made fantastic starts.

Credit goes where credit's due to Maro Engal for surviving the chaos to end up P9 at the conclusion of the madness. Although how much of it was down to D'Alberto behind him having even less pace and being even more difficult to pass than usual remains to be seen.

And what on earth were Kelly and Mostert trying to achieve with that barging match near the end?

Wizzie wrote:Credit goes where credit's due to Maro Engal for surviving the chaos to end up P9 at the conclusion of the madness. Although how much of it was down to D'Alberto behind him having even less pace and being even more difficult to pass than usual remains to be seen.

And what on earth were Kelly and Mostert trying to achieve with that barging match near the end?

I think it was Mostert seeing Blanchard make light work Kelly and thinking "If that muppet can do it so can I!"
It didn't end well

the Masked Lapwing wrote:My "expert" description of what happened:

It started on the line when McLaughlin spun his wheels at the start. Tander was a bit optimistic going down the inside into turn 1, Whincup followed him through. This forces McLaughlin wide, and thus Bright wider thanks to him being on the outside. Both lift, letting Whincup through and Slade gets down the inside. Bright tries to rejoin, forces McLaughlin to the left, where Slade hasn't quite cleared him. Slade spins in front of traffic. Wall panics, takes to the grass and spins, collecting (I believe) Holdsworth and Moffat. Fiore hits Moffat, Premat hits Fiore, which puts him off the track and (almost) rolling.

And here is the visual of the above description

EDIT: Having just seen it properly again, it looked like Mostert drilled the back of Wall in the melee, sending him hard right into the barrier, rather that Wall taking avoiding action.

Wizzie wrote:

the Masked Lapwing wrote:My "expert" description of what happened:

It started on the line when McLaughlin spun his wheels at the start. Tander was a bit optimistic going down the inside into turn 1, Whincup followed him through. This forces McLaughlin wide, and thus Bright wider thanks to him being on the outside. Both lift, letting Whincup through and Slade gets down the inside. Bright tries to rejoin, forces McLaughlin to the left, where Slade hasn't quite cleared him. Slade spins in front of traffic. Wall panics, takes to the grass and spins, collecting (I believe) Holdsworth and Moffat. Fiore hits Moffat, Premat hits Fiore, which puts him off the track and (almost) rolling.

And here is the visual of the above description

EDIT: Having just seen it properly again, it looked like Mostert drilled the back of Wall in the melee, sending him hard right into the barrier, rather that Wall taking avoiding action.

Yep, Mostert definitely hit him there. We only saw that angle once, so I had no clue what Wall did

I can't quite figure out what happened to Fiore and Premat though. My guess is that Davison slowed to avoid Wall and Mostert, where he got hit by Moffat, who got hit by Holdsworth, who got hit by Ingall. Moffat got sent left, and I believe, based on the angle from the hairpin, he forced Fiore into the fence. I can't see anything for Premat though, so I assume he was collected by Ingall, based on where they wound up.

It does bring up the issue of the safety that fence though. Tyres with a dirt embankment right behind never end well, and that was the second time that day that the wall needed to be fixed during a race, after an eerily similar accident in the last V8 Utes race (at about 3:00). We saw how bad Pye's crash at Symmons Plains was, and that used to be a similar fence until only a few years ago. With the Valley getting a lot of money for upgrades, I hope something gets done about it, as does Fiore.

Garry is not pleased

It's official - Volvo Polestar Racing is now a thing. I have a feeling that this is the beginning of the end for Holden...

the Masked Lapwing wrote:It's official - Volvo Polestar Racing is now a thing. I have a feeling that this is the beginning of the end for Holden...

I hope that Volvo have learned the lesson of Incompetence Inc down at Erebus and make a competitive car right out of the box for next year.

Or, knowing Garry's history as a used car salesman, they could simply recycle this year's car and put some Volvo badges on it to get the same job done at a fraction of the price

There are a few things I like about this deal.

1) The money. Volvo are supposedly paying the most of any manufacturer at the moment. Either they're desperate or Garry is the greatest salesman of all time
2) Sponsors are no problem, with Fujitsu and Valvoline both sticking around
3) McLaughlin and Premat both have contracts for next year, so drivers are no problem
4) The engine isn't the generic hack that V8SC offered, Volvo are building their own.
5) Time. All that has to be done is the engine and the body panels, ahead of parity testing. The main advantage GRM has over the Kellys and Erebus is that they already have two perfectly good COTFs (and a third which is almost complete) which means they can focus on racing and getting good results this year, not building 2 brand new cars.

Wizzie wrote:I hope that Volvo have learned the lesson of Incompetence Inc down at Erebus and make a competitive car right out of the box for next year.

The problem with the Erebus Mercedes them was how late the whole deal came together, they were screwed from day one. This likely won't be a problem here

the Masked Lapwing wrote:There are a few things I like about this deal.

1) The money. Volvo are supposedly paying the most of any manufacturer at the moment. Either they're desperate or Garry is the greatest salesman of all time
2) Sponsors are no problem, with Fujitsu and Valvoline both sticking around
3) McLaughlin and Premat both have contracts for next year, so drivers are no problem
4) The engine isn't the generic hack that V8SC offered, Volvo are building their own.
5) Time. All that has to be done is the engine and the body panels, ahead of parity testing. The main advantage GRM has over the Kellys and Erebus is that they already have two perfectly good COTFs (and a third which is almost complete) which means they can focus on racing and getting good results this year, not building 2 brand new cars.

Happy they have McLaughlin but over a season Premat is midfield at best. Does he bring some money to the team?

DG

Divina_Galica wrote:

the Masked Lapwing wrote:There are a few things I like about this deal.

1) The money. Volvo are supposedly paying the most of any manufacturer at the moment. Either they're desperate or Garry is the greatest salesman of all time
2) Sponsors are no problem, with Fujitsu and Valvoline both sticking around
3) McLaughlin and Premat both have contracts for next year, so drivers are no problem
4) The engine isn't the generic hack that V8SC offered, Volvo are building their own.
5) Time. All that has to be done is the engine and the body panels, ahead of parity testing. The main advantage GRM has over the Kellys and Erebus is that they already have two perfectly good COTFs (and a third which is almost complete) which means they can focus on racing and getting good results this year, not building 2 brand new cars.

3) Happy they have Mclaughlin but over a season Premat is midfield at best. Does he bring some money to the team?

Premat's actually become a half-decent wheelman in the #34 car. When he isn't too busy being punted off the road. Or when he isn't too busy punting people off the road either for that matter.

Interesting. Tekno's gone for international co-drivers. This could either be a brilliant move, or a stupid one. Considering how well Lieb did at Surfers last year, I'm leaning toward the brilliant idea.

the Masked Lapwing wrote:Interesting. Tekno's gone for international co-drivers. This could either be a brilliant move, or a stupid one. Considering how well Lieb did at Surfers last year, I'm leaning toward the brilliant idea.

There are good calls, and then there are great calls. All we need is for Patrick Long and Joey Hand to return and we'd be set

East Londoner wrote:Oh dear...

If this happens, there won't be any Fords on the grid at all next year (well, maybe DJR, but that's it).

this was posted in February and not a peep from anybody? this was in the middle of all the speculation for the V8 Supercars preseason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZsheqkeEac
i know it's an NZV8 Tourer, but seriously it's VERY CLOSELY SKIMMING V8 Supercars regulations!
nobody? really? no? what? alright it isn't relevant. i mean, it won its debut race, but i guess aussie v8 supercars don't need it. they've gone NASCAR enough by hitting two rounds in Texas.

nome66 wrote:this was posted in February and not a peep from anybody? this was in the middle of all the speculation for the V8 Supercars preseason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZsheqkeEac
i know it's an NZV8 Tourer, but seriously it's VERY CLOSELY SKIMMING V8 Supercars regulations!
nobody? really? no? what? alright it isn't relevant. i mean, it won its debut race, but i guess aussie v8 supercars don't need it. they've gone NASCAR enough by hitting two rounds in Texas.

I did think it slightly strange at the time that Toyota entered the NZV8s, rather than V8 Supercars or the V8Supertourers (which is essentially V8 Supercars but with cars slightly close to DTM). Consider the fact that the V8 Supercars has much more marketing power at the moment, and the Supertourers have been quite popular (a lot more so than NZV8s).

Apart from body panels the NZV8 cars are quite different from V8 Supercars, both the Project Blueprint cars and the COTF. The cars are a lot more basic in terms of technology, and is focused more on keeping costs down and parity. Toyota had a much higher chance of winning their first race than Nissan or Merc, because V8SCA has botched the parity somewhat, whereas the NZV8s managed to get it level with Holden and Ford straight away. Also, the Nissans and Mercs have to beat 24/25 others to win - there were only 3 cars competing in the top NZV8 class, one of which was the Toyota (with the exception of the last few rounds, where there 5 cars of which 2 were Toyotas). It should also be noted that the race winning Toyota finished well behind one Holden and losing to the second on countback (4 wins for the Holden, 3 for the Toyota).

East Londoner wrote:Oh dear...

Is this to prevent Triple 8 from winning again?

Andrew Thompson to team up with Slade.

Which means that the only cars yet to be confirmed are the two Lucas Dumbrell machines, the third Walkinshaw car, and the third BJR car.

You know you could be on for a cracking weekend when the Triple 8 A-team spend the entire first day doing a grand-total of sod all

Meanwhile, the two Norton Datsuns of Caruso and Moffat have been absolutely flying so far. Not that I'm complaining, as they're the likable half of Kelly Racing

It'd be too suspicious if Mad Nephew Ryan's mob went an entire weekend without any problems

Dunlop Series + Townsville = Chaos

In 14 laps, we had muppets at the back taking each other out and wrecking their suspension, three drives replicating Liuzzi in three laps, Stoner's front left Dunlop deciding it was actually made by Pirelli, several drivers fighting through the field, and OWENWINSLOL (the only real complaint)

Also, yay for no T8s in the Shootout!

A thought's just occurred to me. With Webber moving to the Porsche LMP1 project next year, what are the odds of him doing racing V8s at Bathurst at some point in the future?

The Tekno airjack operator has just gotten the easiest ROTR award in recent memory

So, FPR score a 1-2. And then Will decides to clout the wall while doing victory doughnuts

JDub continues to achieve absolutely nothing this weekend

And he's under investigation for an unsafe release to boot.

Wizzie wrote:A thought's just occurred to me. With Webber moving to the Porsche LMP1 project next year, what are the odds of him doing racing V8s at Bathurst at some point in the future?

I don't know, but it'd be quite the show

After 11 laps and a SC, we now have a split strategy thing going between the front runners and the midfielders. This is gonna be interesting

That was easily one of the best races all year. And it's about damn time Walkinshaw broke the drought.

HRTWINSLOL! Been a while since I could say that

Also, Ingall is an idiot sometimes