Racing this week:
IndyCar Series – Motegi;
NASCAR Sprint Cup – Loudon;
DTM – Oschersleben;
Usual restrictions apply, pick up to 7 drivers in any individual race up to a maximum of 10 drivers.
The cutoff is Saturday 18th September at 4.59am BST (British Summer Time = GMT+1), that’s 11.59pm Friday night US EDT.
For the full results from Week 33, read on. Continue reading “TMR Game – Week 34”
What an excellent day out, highly recommended even if the LMP1 battle fizzled out when McNish’s car did. So much else was going on on-track what with the petrol ‘sub-class’, the LMP2 fight was good and it also had a ‘sub-class’ of Formula Le Mans, and GT2 was as great a fight as it always is. At Abbey corner the Ferraris seemed to be the only ones in the entire field of 46 cars to take a huge chunk of kerb, many took a little bit and some gave it a wide berth.
The loss of GT1 is a real shame, the sole representative was the Larbre Saleen which looked the part and sounded fantastic, what a brilliant deep throaty engine noise. Surely a few more cars could have been found to send off the class in style, not that I want the class sent off. I’ve said before that I think there is still a place for GT1 in endurance racing, the cars under the new rules would surely become more reliable and faster over time.
I made a comment about RLM in my previous post and I should report that while I was in the areas the tannoy was loud enough to be heard*, there were no sarky comments from RLM about ‘not watching boring F1′ so thumbs up to them for that and indeed their coverage was as exceptional as always.
*The Belgians had theirs turned up FAR louder, Silverstone needs to do the same! Even the mighty Hindy couldn’t be heard, in fact some speakers weren’t even switched on.. I’m not expecting the audio to be heard over a car which is flashing past you, but it should be heard when the car is disappearing into the distance – often it wasn’t. Still, next time I’ll bring a radio.
I’ll bring a full report soon and there’ll be a photo gallery online Monday night.
I am going to the Autosport Silverstone 1000km today, the final round of the Le Mans Series and the first qualifier for what I suppose you could call the ‘trial’ Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, which this year is a series of 3 races comprising Silverstone, Petit Le Mans and a race at Zhuhai in China. The ILMC will be expanding substantially next season and could become the de facto ‘world championship’ in all but name for Le Mans-style racing, something that has been missing for many years.
The reason I am going is because it sees the first battle between Audi and Peugeot since Le Mans, it’ll surely be epic. I’m also going because I’ve never been to a race like it before and also because I need to see more live racing.
I’m not doing this to make a point. Unlike many other fans of sportscar racing I am not one of these snooty types who hold their nose up at Formula 1, there seem to be plenty in that community who take great pleasure in making their distaste of F1 known to all and sundry and making snidey sarcastic comments as if everyone agrees with them. In the 1990s it was cool for F1 fans to act this way about all other forms of racing. Thankfully I’ve noticed over the last couple of years this attitude has largely disappeared. It is a shame to see it rearing it’s ugly head amongst sportscar fans, a group I consider to be among the most ardent of motorsport fans and so a group I expect to have an appreciation of all forms of racing (even if they don’t like some of it). Unfortunately it seems some among RLM are guilty of this and I’m going to be very annoyed if I have to listen to that kind of diatribe all day on the tannoy or the radio (if I can find a radio).
I’m actually quite annoyed to be missing the Italian Grand Prix particularly with the grid the way it is and I’ve been agonising over whether I’m making the right choice. For the last two years I’ve bottled out in favour of watching Monza, this year after coming back from Spa I’ve got the trackside buzz back again and I want to get one more fix in before the winter arrives, so off I go.
It’ll be interesting to see how easy the race is to follow, I’ve heard multi-class racing is very difficult to follow in person. It should last about five and a half hours so I’m hoping to see the cars from many vantage points. I want to see the start from somewhere cool, either Becketts or Stowe, whichever I have time to get to. After that I’ll be wandering around the circuit trying out different stands, perhaps finding my way into the paddock at some point.
If you see me, I’ll probably be wearing a blue raincoat and a Goodwood hat, a bit like in this photo. In the unlikely event it is as warm and sunny as Saturday has been I guess you’ll have to just look for the hat.
I’ll be tweeting as much as I can during the day but I’m conscious of how much of my stupidly small data plan I’ll be using up, particularly after the continental trip. Since it is a little more than 3 hours from home each way you won’t see a wrap-up post until late evening or Monday, and I’ll probably save the full details until I’ve posted my Belgium wrap-ups.
Enjoy the GP and if you’re able to follow the LMS on Eurosport, RLM and live timing, enjoy that too.
It has been quite the week for 2011 schedule announcements. We’ve seen the provisional calendar for Formula 1, a mostly-confirmed calendar for IndyCar as well as what appear to be firm line-ups for WTCC and BTCC. Leaving the tintops aside for a second, here are the important dates for fans of major open-wheel racing:
13 March: F1 – Bahrain;
27 March: F1 – Australia, ICS – St Pete;
10 April: F1 – Malaysia, ICS – Barber;
17 April: F1 – China, ICS – Long Beach;
1 May: ICS – Sao Paulo;
8 May: F1 – Turkey;
22 May: F1 – Spain;
29 May: F1 – Monaco, ICS – Indianapolis;
12 June: F1 – Canada, ICS – Texas (2 races);
19 June: ICS – Milwaukee;
26 June: F1 – Valencia, ICS – Iowa:
10 July: F1 – Britain, ICS – Toronto;
24 July: F1 – Germany, ICS – Edmonton;
31 July: F1 – Hungary:
7 August: ICS – Mid-Ohio;
14 August: ICS – Loudon;
28 August: F1 – Belgium, ICS – Sonoma;
4 Septemeber: ICS – Baltimore;
11 September: F1 – Italy;
18 September: ICS – Motegi;
25 September: F1 – Singapore;
2 October: ICS – Kentucky;
9 October: F1 – Japan;
16 October: F1 – Korea;
30 October: F1 – India;
13 November: F1 – Abu Dhabi;
27 November: F1 – Brazil;
tba: ICS – season finale venue tbc
It is a shame to see the loss of Watkins Glen and Chicagoland, but in their place we get Milwaukee, Loudon and potentially Las Vegas as the finale. It’ll be interesting to see if the trade-off was worth it. I’m a fan of Milwaukee but I’m not too familiar with the others – it must be said IndyCar fans took the Loudon (New Hampshire) news very supportively and the venue has been missed by many. The Baltimore GP alongside the ALMS will be another interesting weekend to watch for, the track looks promising.
This is a record number of Formula 1 events with the retention of every 2010 GP and the addition of India, however it remains to be seen whether Korea will actually hold a race either in 2010 or 2011. I’m quietly confident about India but Korea looks a shambles. Monaco and Indy on the same weekend is a good double for racing geeks like me, but I enjoyed having them on different weeks this year and allowing each the ‘media breathing room’ they deserve.
I’ll soon revisit my Google Calendars with the new information and also checking the sportscar races, but since these things are usually quite fluid this early in the going I’m in no hurry to do so. I’m also conscious I haven’t been very good at keeping them fully updated as changes have been made through the year, perhaps I’ll try to do better in 2011.
17/04 China 08/05 Turkey 22/05 Spain 29/05 Monaco 12/06 Canada 26/06 Europe (Valencia) 10/07 Great Britain 24/07 Germany 31/07 Hungary 28/08 Belgium 11/09 Italy 25/09 Singapore 09/10 Japan 16/10 Korea 30/10 India* 13/11 Abu Dhabi 27/11 Brazil
I Watch Too Much Racing 