Home
1st #66 Erik Teske - BMW Z4
2nd #18 Stephen Bailey - BMW Z4
3rd #00 Jimmy Broadbent - BMW Z4
4th #64 Kjell Stenbeck - Porsche 997
5th #46 Nick Woodbury - Kessel Racing Ferrari 458 Italia
6th #45 Chris James - McLaren MP4-12C
7th #90 Bob van Ingen - Mercedes SLS AMG
8th #5 Paul Schuman - Aston Martin Vantage
9th #23 Garth Buchanan - Feint Motion BMW Z4
10th #51 John Bacho - Audi R8 LMS
11th #35 Nabil Abusharr - Nissan GTR
12th #38 Rino di Lauro - Ferrari 458 Italia
13th #52 Justin Allison - Audi R8 LMS
14th #71 Cam Porter - Lamborghini Gallardo
15th #3 Jon Backof - Marc VDS BMW Z4
16th #47 Dan Minges - McLaren MP4-12C
17th #68 Anders Nilsson - AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia
(DNF)18th #33 Göran Strandh - Pirtek Racing Porsche 997
(DNF)SPRINT RACE
1st #18 Stephen Bailey - BMW Z4
2nd #66 Erik Teske - BMW Z4
3rd #23 Garth Buchanan - Feint Motion BMW Z4
4th #46 Nick Woodbury - Kessel Racing Ferrari 458 Italia
5th #00 Jimmy Broadbent - BMW Z4
6th #52 Justin Allison - Audi R8 LMS
7th #38 Rino di Lauro - Ferrari 458 Italia
8th #64 Kjell Stenbeck - Porsche 997
9th #71 Cam Porter - Lamborghini Gallardo
10th #5 Paul Schuman - Aston Martin Vantage
11th #35 Nabil Abusharr - Nissan GTR
12th #3 Jon Backof - Marc VDS BMW Z4
13th #47 Dan Minges - McLaren MP4-12C
14th #51 John Bacho - Audi R8 LMS
15th #45 Chris James - McLaren MP4-12C
(DNF)16th #90 Bob van Ingen - Mercedes SLS AMG
(DNF)17th #68 Anders Nilsson - AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia
(DNF)MEDIA
STANDINGS
STATISTICS
FEATURE RACE RESULTS
SPRINT RACE RESULTS
SERVER REPLAY
PHOTO GALLERY
RACE REPORT
Sim Race Online just held Round 4 of their GT3 championship on the former RAF bombing station of Silverstone, United Kingdom. Up to this point, we’ve seen Anders Nilsson string four straight victories together due to: his pace in qualifying getting him ahead of the fray; transitioning that speed into steady driving preserving his tyres throughout a stint. The dynamic skill of flipping those philosophies on their head and attacking off the grid in the inverted Sprint races is helping him gain positions from notoriously defensive drivers.
The server limit was nearly maxed as 18 entrants (of 20) arrived at Northamptonshire. Last week the talk of the paddock centered around Jimmy Broadbent’s feat of finger flailing fidelity to finish 2nd. Thankfully Jimmy’s newly replaced Logitech G27 arrived for Silverstone, an appreciated sight by the rest of the field, still sore after being ultimately beaten by a device worth £36.
A few mid-season challengers arrived to prove their mettle: Erik Teske, Bob van Ingen and Rino di Lauro. Mr. Teske showed fantastic pace leading up to qualifying by lapping quickest in official practise. However, Stephen Bailey is never one to play his hand early; instead he choose to throw down a fast time when it mattered in Qualifying. Bailey achieved his second pole position (out of two races entered) of the season with a lap time of 1:59.698, just 0.228s ahead of Teske. Nilsson, who readily admits that Silverstone is not a circuit he performs well at, crossed the line at 2:00.775, good enough for 3rd on the grid.
There were some surprising laps throughout qualifying, especially from Bob van Ingen in the mighty Mercedes SLS AMG, Bob stunned the crowd to get 5th; Jimmy Broadbent, still breaking in his new wheel, was a disappointing 7th; the Audi teammates of Allison and Bacho, angry not to wrangle any low-fuel pace out of their R8, were 9th and 14th respectively; Garth Buchanan failed to capture whatever mojo it was that he found in Spa-Francorchamps down in 12th.
* Note that the Qualifying xml file was messed up; Chris James qualified 11th
Bailey’s BMW lead the field around for the formation lap and back to the qualifying grid positions for the start of the 22 lap Feature race. As the five lights extinguished, Nilsson’s 458 rocketed forward into the lead by Turn 1, nearly pushing Teske’s Z4 towards the pit wall in the process. Justin Allison timed the lights perfectly as well, passing Broadbent and Schuman like they were standing still in the first 30 feet. Perhaps the R8 launched too well since Allison nearly spun a few hundred meters later into the first bend (Abbey) and lost four places. Everyone else seemed to get away cleanly until the right-hand turn of the Arena section. Göran Strandh feathered his brake pedal too much on entry and accidentally made contact with the back of Buchanan’s BMW. The Audi R8 drivers didn’t have much time to react to the half-spinning Z4 up ahead, with Bacho braking just enough to receive minor front bumper damage and Allison in the sister R8 LMS impacting against the stricken BMW.
The leading battle for first position was nose-to-tail for the first few laps until Bailey went wide at the exit of Luffield on Lap 4, his car caught a grain of sand and lost three seconds to Nilsson and Teske. By the end of the lap, Bailey would lose more time by the exit of Club, going from 3rd to 6th. The reason? A table fan reportedly fell off his desk and he instinctively reacted to catch it. When polled, most drivers indicated that they wouldn’t sacrifice their race over a simply fan.
There was a minor incident on Lap 3 involving Justin Allison, Cam Porter and Dan Minges. Still frustrated with his poor luck on the start, Allison apparently forgot his brake marker for Brooklands. His R8 LMS ULTRA bounced off of Cam’s Gallardo and collected Minges in the McLaren. Justin was able to move up slightly to finish P13, while Porter, Backof (who served his five-grid penalty from Monza) and Minges were never too far away from one another to finish P14,15,16 respectively.
Chris James, a frequent under-performer in qualifying for the GT3 series, once again showed his consistent overall race pace to elevate his McLaren from 11th to finish P6. Strangely, the cars of Paul Schuman and Bob van Ingen simply let him pass without a fight. Perhaps the ease of overtaking the former is explained by Schuman flashing James by at the exit of Copse on Lap 15. The author can only guess that the Aston Martin driver felt guilty about cutting a kerb earlier in the lap.
John Bacho and Garth Buchanan had a decent battle during the last half of the Feature thanks to the weekly Audi R8 issue of tyres dropping off in performance for a spell. Bacho lost loads of time to Buchanan’s charging Z4 -- still recovering from his opening lap woes from 18th -- three-quarters into the race. On Lap 17 the Audi wiggled slightly out of the Arena and onto the Wellington straight; that break in traction placed Garth on the R8’s rear wing. Buchanan successfully went for the opening up the inside of Brooklands and was now in 9th position. Not ready to let the fight end there, Bacho rallied his machine enough to keep pressure on Garth to the very end, but they would hold station for P9 & P10.
After having a problem that hampered his race that apparently wasn’t related to racing, Stephen Bailey stormed his way around Nick Woodbury, Jimmy Broadbent and Kjell Stenbeck to get back on the podiums by Lap 13. Teske fought extremely well against Nilsson’s Ferrari, with great on track action beginning on Lap 6 and ending with Erik completing a pass at Stowe corner during Lap 8 to claim a debut win at SROL! Sadly, the championship leading Ferrari of Anders Nilsson suffered a dropped connection on Lap 14 and scored no points, promoting Jimmy Broadbent to the final podium spot behind his teammate.
A spin of the magic inversion wheel landed on Garth Buchanan’s 9th place Feature finish to start him on pole for the Sprint race! This had all the makings of a classic since Garth is known for his steady hands over at Virtual Online Racers. Another frequent inverted field winner, Paul Schuman, was directly behind Buchanan on the dirty side of the tarmac to try his own hand at snatching a victory.
The start into the Arena was fairly uneventful and respectful. That all came to screeching halt at the end of the Wellington straight. Old time member of SROL & newcomer to the GT3 series, Rino di Lauro, forgot his brake marker for Brooklands (much like Allison earlier) and ran wide into the path of the Porsche 997 of Stenbeck. Dragged wide, Stenbeck applied throttle to resume the race from the edge of the circuit but lost control of his rear-engine car into the path of Bacho’s Audi. The Oregon native was unable to avoid the collision, which was survivable up until the championship leader of Anders Nilsson smashed head-first into the Audi R8’s side. Anders was forced to take another DNF for the weekend, scoring zero points! Bacho would limp around the circuit for the remainder of the race and keep clear of traffic, even taking to pitlane at one point because of the contentious fever brewing amongst the top 6.
Garth Buchanan did well to hold off the thirsty wolves in tow, though he was temporarily passed by Schuman on Lap 4 before Paul gave it back the exit kerb of the Arena the very next lap. Garth’s fellow BMW runners of Teske and Bailey weren’t willing to wait patiently. Each of them drove aggressively to force Buchanan into slight mistakes so they could resume their fight from earlier. Nick Woodbury challenged Garth all the way to the end for 3rd -- Chris James would have been there too if not for an unfortunate DNF due to a lost connection --; Nick continued to display his fair behaviour on track to race Garth cleanly, but wasn’t able to force a definitive move to get on the podium.
Not content to lose out again at his home track, Stephen Bailey apparently strengthened his resolve in the second race. For weeks he’d complained about the state of his BMW’s grip after long runs; with only an 11 Lap Sprint race to close out his final race of Season 1 (he's on vacation for the rest of the calendar), Bailey seemingly drove 11 qualifying laps at Silverstone. Near the end of Lap 7, Teske put his foot on the throttle a touch too early out of Chapel and pushed his Z4 slightly wide. It was all the invitation Stephen needed to accelerate around him and get clear of Erik’s car before the braking area for Stowe to complete the winning pass!
The rest of the field was mostly in damage recovery mode from earlier incidents and half spins. There are sure to be sore egos down pit-lane from the likes of Broadbent, Schuman, Abusharr, Bacho, James and Nilsson due to bad luck, mistakes or incidents out of their control.
Overall, Silverstone was the best race of the season so far! Especially in the Sprint race, it was fun to watch the four BMW’s in the top 10 show their race-ability in traffic to drive different lines and intimidate the competition. Despite the goose eggs in the points column for Anders Nilsson, it’s still his championship to lose with his point advantage as Bailey is not a part of the circus for the rest of the season.
Next week we’re off to Road Atlanta. Queue up some James Brown and get funky! Ya gotta get up to get down!
The server limit was nearly maxed as 18 entrants (of 20) arrived at Northamptonshire. Last week the talk of the paddock centered around Jimmy Broadbent’s feat of finger flailing fidelity to finish 2nd. Thankfully Jimmy’s newly replaced Logitech G27 arrived for Silverstone, an appreciated sight by the rest of the field, still sore after being ultimately beaten by a device worth £36.
A few mid-season challengers arrived to prove their mettle: Erik Teske, Bob van Ingen and Rino di Lauro. Mr. Teske showed fantastic pace leading up to qualifying by lapping quickest in official practise. However, Stephen Bailey is never one to play his hand early; instead he choose to throw down a fast time when it mattered in Qualifying. Bailey achieved his second pole position (out of two races entered) of the season with a lap time of 1:59.698, just 0.228s ahead of Teske. Nilsson, who readily admits that Silverstone is not a circuit he performs well at, crossed the line at 2:00.775, good enough for 3rd on the grid.
There were some surprising laps throughout qualifying, especially from Bob van Ingen in the mighty Mercedes SLS AMG, Bob stunned the crowd to get 5th; Jimmy Broadbent, still breaking in his new wheel, was a disappointing 7th; the Audi teammates of Allison and Bacho, angry not to wrangle any low-fuel pace out of their R8, were 9th and 14th respectively; Garth Buchanan failed to capture whatever mojo it was that he found in Spa-Francorchamps down in 12th.
* Note that the Qualifying xml file was messed up; Chris James qualified 11th
Bailey’s BMW lead the field around for the formation lap and back to the qualifying grid positions for the start of the 22 lap Feature race. As the five lights extinguished, Nilsson’s 458 rocketed forward into the lead by Turn 1, nearly pushing Teske’s Z4 towards the pit wall in the process. Justin Allison timed the lights perfectly as well, passing Broadbent and Schuman like they were standing still in the first 30 feet. Perhaps the R8 launched too well since Allison nearly spun a few hundred meters later into the first bend (Abbey) and lost four places. Everyone else seemed to get away cleanly until the right-hand turn of the Arena section. Göran Strandh feathered his brake pedal too much on entry and accidentally made contact with the back of Buchanan’s BMW. The Audi R8 drivers didn’t have much time to react to the half-spinning Z4 up ahead, with Bacho braking just enough to receive minor front bumper damage and Allison in the sister R8 LMS impacting against the stricken BMW.
The leading battle for first position was nose-to-tail for the first few laps until Bailey went wide at the exit of Luffield on Lap 4, his car caught a grain of sand and lost three seconds to Nilsson and Teske. By the end of the lap, Bailey would lose more time by the exit of Club, going from 3rd to 6th. The reason? A table fan reportedly fell off his desk and he instinctively reacted to catch it. When polled, most drivers indicated that they wouldn’t sacrifice their race over a simply fan.
There was a minor incident on Lap 3 involving Justin Allison, Cam Porter and Dan Minges. Still frustrated with his poor luck on the start, Allison apparently forgot his brake marker for Brooklands. His R8 LMS ULTRA bounced off of Cam’s Gallardo and collected Minges in the McLaren. Justin was able to move up slightly to finish P13, while Porter, Backof (who served his five-grid penalty from Monza) and Minges were never too far away from one another to finish P14,15,16 respectively.
Chris James, a frequent under-performer in qualifying for the GT3 series, once again showed his consistent overall race pace to elevate his McLaren from 11th to finish P6. Strangely, the cars of Paul Schuman and Bob van Ingen simply let him pass without a fight. Perhaps the ease of overtaking the former is explained by Schuman flashing James by at the exit of Copse on Lap 15. The author can only guess that the Aston Martin driver felt guilty about cutting a kerb earlier in the lap.
John Bacho and Garth Buchanan had a decent battle during the last half of the Feature thanks to the weekly Audi R8 issue of tyres dropping off in performance for a spell. Bacho lost loads of time to Buchanan’s charging Z4 -- still recovering from his opening lap woes from 18th -- three-quarters into the race. On Lap 17 the Audi wiggled slightly out of the Arena and onto the Wellington straight; that break in traction placed Garth on the R8’s rear wing. Buchanan successfully went for the opening up the inside of Brooklands and was now in 9th position. Not ready to let the fight end there, Bacho rallied his machine enough to keep pressure on Garth to the very end, but they would hold station for P9 & P10.
After having a problem that hampered his race that apparently wasn’t related to racing, Stephen Bailey stormed his way around Nick Woodbury, Jimmy Broadbent and Kjell Stenbeck to get back on the podiums by Lap 13. Teske fought extremely well against Nilsson’s Ferrari, with great on track action beginning on Lap 6 and ending with Erik completing a pass at Stowe corner during Lap 8 to claim a debut win at SROL! Sadly, the championship leading Ferrari of Anders Nilsson suffered a dropped connection on Lap 14 and scored no points, promoting Jimmy Broadbent to the final podium spot behind his teammate.
A spin of the magic inversion wheel landed on Garth Buchanan’s 9th place Feature finish to start him on pole for the Sprint race! This had all the makings of a classic since Garth is known for his steady hands over at Virtual Online Racers. Another frequent inverted field winner, Paul Schuman, was directly behind Buchanan on the dirty side of the tarmac to try his own hand at snatching a victory.
The start into the Arena was fairly uneventful and respectful. That all came to screeching halt at the end of the Wellington straight. Old time member of SROL & newcomer to the GT3 series, Rino di Lauro, forgot his brake marker for Brooklands (much like Allison earlier) and ran wide into the path of the Porsche 997 of Stenbeck. Dragged wide, Stenbeck applied throttle to resume the race from the edge of the circuit but lost control of his rear-engine car into the path of Bacho’s Audi. The Oregon native was unable to avoid the collision, which was survivable up until the championship leader of Anders Nilsson smashed head-first into the Audi R8’s side. Anders was forced to take another DNF for the weekend, scoring zero points! Bacho would limp around the circuit for the remainder of the race and keep clear of traffic, even taking to pitlane at one point because of the contentious fever brewing amongst the top 6.
Garth Buchanan did well to hold off the thirsty wolves in tow, though he was temporarily passed by Schuman on Lap 4 before Paul gave it back the exit kerb of the Arena the very next lap. Garth’s fellow BMW runners of Teske and Bailey weren’t willing to wait patiently. Each of them drove aggressively to force Buchanan into slight mistakes so they could resume their fight from earlier. Nick Woodbury challenged Garth all the way to the end for 3rd -- Chris James would have been there too if not for an unfortunate DNF due to a lost connection --; Nick continued to display his fair behaviour on track to race Garth cleanly, but wasn’t able to force a definitive move to get on the podium.
Not content to lose out again at his home track, Stephen Bailey apparently strengthened his resolve in the second race. For weeks he’d complained about the state of his BMW’s grip after long runs; with only an 11 Lap Sprint race to close out his final race of Season 1 (he's on vacation for the rest of the calendar), Bailey seemingly drove 11 qualifying laps at Silverstone. Near the end of Lap 7, Teske put his foot on the throttle a touch too early out of Chapel and pushed his Z4 slightly wide. It was all the invitation Stephen needed to accelerate around him and get clear of Erik’s car before the braking area for Stowe to complete the winning pass!
The rest of the field was mostly in damage recovery mode from earlier incidents and half spins. There are sure to be sore egos down pit-lane from the likes of Broadbent, Schuman, Abusharr, Bacho, James and Nilsson due to bad luck, mistakes or incidents out of their control.
Overall, Silverstone was the best race of the season so far! Especially in the Sprint race, it was fun to watch the four BMW’s in the top 10 show their race-ability in traffic to drive different lines and intimidate the competition. Despite the goose eggs in the points column for Anders Nilsson, it’s still his championship to lose with his point advantage as Bailey is not a part of the circus for the rest of the season.
Next week we’re off to Road Atlanta. Queue up some James Brown and get funky! Ya gotta get up to get down!
Last edited by John Bacho on Sun 25 Aug - 23:33; edited 11 times in total
I will practice, and I will beat each of you! 
