What a start for the new TYKA Winter league, Le Mans is the king of all circuits for any endurance driver not only because is the oldest sports car race in endurance racing but because it runs on a circuit containing closed public roads that are meant not only to test a car and driver’s ability to be quick, but also to last over a 24 hour period.
Of course we are not going to spend so much time driving on-line but the 105 minutes scheduled through the night (time multiplyer set x10) will make this event very realistic and exciting.

QUALIFYING RESULT

It is amazing to see how many drivers have taken part of the first qualifying of this league, 54 partecipants from all around the world, 23 are on P1, 20 on P2, 5 on GT1 and 6 on GT2.
For P1 our fastest driver is our new entry Jose Espinosa on 4th position, really nice job for him, than we have Inigo, Zoneur, JuanFran and Kaillera from places 7th till 11th. Nice debut, we look forward for a positive race result in this very competitive class.
For P2 the fastest Olympic driver is Walter976 6th than Avni Tumay and Nemesis respectivly 16th and 17th.
Last class where we have a driver is GT2 with our Bartix that at his first league experience clinched the pole position! Impressive potential, keep on like this mate!

RACE RESULT

The game has been proved to be not able to support 50 drivers racing together so the contenders have been splitted in 2 heats.

HEAT 1
On heat 1 we lost after few curves Kaillera not because of his fault but because his engine was suddenly dead, how is this possible? Unbelievable bad luck for him…

After few laps our boss Inigo took the lead of the race taking advantage of mistakes of other drivers, he kept the leading for other few laps until his engine got on flames on the first chicane on lap 5… a big question mark, 2 engines gone in few laps, terribly unlucky.

During first 8 laps other drivers crashed and had to quit: Nightstalk3r (poleman), Tygernoot, MHolzer, Mymini and Frozen just to mention some of them, this gave great chance to all others to get good points.

From our side Jose Espinosa and Zoneur on P1 and Walter976 on P2 were making a good race being all on top 5 positions on their classes.

At around half race (lap 14) Jose Espinosa made a mistake on the central part of the circuit, his car went wide and crashed hardly against protections, he reached the box but his car was too much damaged so he retired. Endurance means concentration, we all have to learn it.

Only 2 Olympic drivers still on track Zoneur and Walter976 both able to score some good points for the team, the race for them was with small mistakes and touches but nothing serious until 15 minutes to the end of the race (around lap 25) when Walter976 (on P2 class) was lapped first by CasH and than approched by Edwards (both on P1) on the last part of the track.
They got very near right between some curves than a stupid misundertanding, a side change and BANG!!!, Walter976 was hitted hardly from the back, his race ended few curves later while Edwards was able to continue but his engine blew 4 laps later probably due to duct problem because of the impact… Not nice at all for both of us.

Congratulation to Zoneur arrived 5th, the only Olympic driver on heat 1 to see the chequered flag, not a brilliant performance for the team.

HEAT 2
The heat 2 was made up with the second half of the overall qualifying grid and was rich of unexperienced drivers, on different occasions there was a mess on track with drivers spinning, going wide, crashing each other and returning on track at the wrong time.

Three Olympic drivers were out for their own mistakes already by the lap 3, they were Avni Tumay, Kamilo62 and Krzysztof. Better attention for next races, pace is not everything, the most important is to keep the car on track, specialy on long races.

The unlickiest one on heat 2 was without doubt Nemesis, after a nice race he damaged his car and blew his engine with only 2 laps to go, we need to check engine temperature after crashing, a boost reduction could bring him to the finish line.

Last comments for 2 drivers which really deserve a special mention, Durielk started from the back of the grid (not able to qualify on time) and won his heat, he had to overtake everyone being very careful and in this way has been able to score important point.

Very special mention to our new driver Bartix, first league, first race and pole position. He made a safe race reaching the target to complete it, some mistakes are understandable specially as he was suffering some lag problems but in general an excellent result. Very good choice for our team.

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The driver standings is telling that we are 5th (Durielk) and 6th (Zoneur) on P1 class and 2nd with Bartix on GT2. Very sad to see that nobody scored points on P2.

Qualifying was promising for us but race was not really as we expected, next weekend we have already another race in Laguna Seca, a complete different track, a sprint race, we all have some more experience with our new cars, improvements are expected! Cu in California!