GNSS Racing Team report: No Quarter asked – No quarter given…
Jonathan on his way to a creditable 4th place finish, the second of the day
This weekend the UAE Touring Car series relocated to the Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi for rounds 7 & 8 of the championship. Racing at Yas Marina is special as the teams get to use the Formula 1 pits plus you get information on track temperature, air temperature, humidity and soil temperature. The teams are still trying work out how the soil temperature will affect the cars set-up, maybe it for those teams who are gardeners? GNSS Racing drafted in Ian Rodgers of SVDP Racing to help out as Theo Souris was unable to make the event due to work commitments in America.
A 30min practice session was held at 10:45 on Thursday morning. The air and track temperature were both quite a bit cooler than usual and thus there was a lot of discussion on cold tyre pressures. It was greed to add 3psi to the normal cold pressure, run for 15 minutes then come into the pits to adjust the pressure to 30psi hot.
Jonathan was running lap time in the mid 2:21’s which put him 3rd in class. As qualifying was to be held at 3pm, the hot tyre pressure was dropped to 29psi and the ‘expected’ warmer track temperatures should bring the tyres up to the usual 30psi pressure.
Qualifying was only 20mins and with lap times in the 2:21 bracket, Jonathan was only going to get about 5 flying laps. To maximize his track time Ian got Jonathan out of the garage early and into the queue of cars at the pit lane exit and was instructed to get past the 3 Suzuki’s and Willie’s Clio on his out lap, do a couple of warm up laps and then go for it.
On Lap 4 Jonathan puts in a lap of 2:21.173, this put him 2nd place in class until Aslam Moola put in a 2:20.582 right at the end of the session. Still only 1s covered Aslam, Jonathan and Rupesh. Umair Khan was running high 2:18’s truly a class act from the class reigning class champion. The tyres however didn’t reach the targeted 30psi, so Ian was going to do some thinking about the cold pressure for tomorrows races sitting by the pool at Jonathans apartment in the evening…..
Race 1 was held at 9:15 on Friday morning. Following the variation in the cold and hot tyre pressures from yesterday, a revised set of cold pressures where calculated after considering the track temperature. Jonathan got a reasonable start and was running 4th in class. Umair slowly started to edge away from Aslam who gradually dropped back into the clutches of Rupesh. As a result, Rupesh and Aslam started to lap 2 seconds a lap slower which allowed Mr. Mullan to close the gap. With 3 laps to go all three cars were nose to tail. Sadly, and despite Jonathans best efforts, he couldn’t get past Rupesh, so 4th place it was.
Bumper to bumper action at the top of the 'Corkscrew'
In car camera footage can be found here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27BMkWWPt00&context=C3d1c3afADOEgsToPDskJFxQHt6f_yyYXbhzcbbYuW
The good news was that the tyre pressures were ok. Race 2 was held in the afternoon and based upon yesterday’s experience; the tyres were set at 30psi hot. Jonathan also took nearly a second off his qualifying time, which he was rather happy about.
Whilst putting the wheels on the car for race 2, the wheel spacer on the front left axle was missing. The team turned the garage inside out, checked all the wheels but it could not be found. Just what a driver doesn’t need 15 minutes before a race. The team raided the spares box and managed to find a temporary spacer.
Race 2, Jonathan was told to really try and get some heat into his tyres on the warm-up lap and be on Rupesh’s coat tails from lap 1. So we were all set for another barnstorming 10 lap race when the lights went green and we all saw that the race was being held over 20 minutes. Ian had to hastily try and work out how many laps the leading car (Mohammed Al Owais) would do and put that on the pit board, 9 laps was the guess. In actual fact it turned out to be a 10 lap race (sorry Jonathan!) but as every good racing driver knows you race to the flag not your pit board. For the whole race there was never more than 1 second between Rupesh in 3rd and Jonathan in 4th, in fact for the last 5 laps there was less than ½ second. Last lap and Jonathan was really and I mean really late on the brakes into turn 1 this is going to be close. Umair crosses the line for the win, Aslam 2nd place, Rupesh for 3rd and where is Jonathan? It turns out he picked up a puncture in the Marina section on the last lap. He takes it steady but still crosses the line in 4th place.
Post race; despite not being able to get past Rupesh, Jonathan had taken 1¼ seconds of his race 1 fastest lap time quite an achievement and he didn’t damage the wheel despite the puncture.
So 2 4th place finishes, taking 2¼ off your qualifying time over 2 races and being very close to the 2nd and 3rd placed cars, the team are not too disappointed with their efforts. Rupesh and Aslam will not have it so easy next time out……
Try as he may, Jonathan could not find a way past Rupesh and settled for 2 fourth place finishes on the day
So until the next round in late January, a happy festive season from the team.
