Track
26 laps, 2.96 miles (4.76 km), 11 lap stints.
Very Low fuel burn, Very High tyre wear.
Tyres
- Softs 8-10 (Excess of 1)
- Mediums 12-14 (Excess of 13)
- Wet weather 13-15 (Excess of 16).
Critical
- Acceleration
- High Speed Corners
- Top Speed**
Weather
Practice
6°C with rain commencing at around the 9 minutes to go mark.
Race
Started with 7°C and thunderstorms.
Water on track was at around 50% on lap 1 and then shot up to 100% by lap 2.
The rain dropped to 2 bars from around lap 8, and ceased around lap 13.
By lap 11, the temperature rose to 7° for 4 laps and then dropped back by 1 to 6°.
Weight Stripping And Config
!!! To be added.
Pit Plan
There wasn’t one. The forecast was completely wrong as a result of which we had to make it up as we went along, depending on the rain.
Note: In 2016 during the first stint, Faith Anthony hit the cliff number on Softs at about 6.75 laps. Gomes hit it at about 7.5 laps. There would have been hardly any rubber on the track but future pit plans should take this into account.
Gomes
10/17/26 (10/7/9)
10: 19% Wets and 0.23 fuel. FW 70 B 66 E 67 G 62 RW 73 S 65. Balanced mode. Sent out with a fresh set of Wets and 8 laps of fuel to do 7. Entered 4th, exited 9th, 11.047 seconds.
17: 40% Wets and 0.42 fuel. FW 60, B 52, E 57, G 48, RW 56, S 52. Balanced mode, fresh set of Inters and 11 laps to do 9. Entered 5th, exited 14th 14.224, seconds.
Thomas
Plan 8/16/21 (8/8/5)
9/16/26 (9/7/10)
9: 26% Wets and 1.21 fuel. FW 69 B 63 E 73 G 67 RW 82 S 66. Balanced mode. Fresh set of wets, 8 laps of fuel to do 7 (expected time of the rain ceasing).Entered 15th, exited 16th, 10.231 seconds.
16: 42% Wets and 0.37 Fuel. FW 61 B 56 E 64 G55 RW 69 S 61. Balanced mode. Fresh set of inters and 11 laps to do 10. Entered 7th, exited 17th, 14.392 seconds.
Race Report
Target: 7th or above, 600K. (Playsport)
Bonuses
Gomes
10% Performance Medium Tyres
10% Performance Race Trim
Thomas
10% Performance Medium Tyres
10% Performance Race Trim
The Start
Both drivers launched on wets with 11 laps (full tank of fuel) on Attack / High mode.
Gomes launched from 12th (Row 6)
Thomas from 15th (row 8)
All other teams launched using wets.
Lap By Lap
Lap 2: Heavy rain and storms continued. Gomes had dropped to 16th, Thomas to 17th.
Lap 3: Gomes up to 11th (1:25.990), Thomas still 17th (1:26.346). Chu 1st (1:25.523), Cooper 2nd (1:25.714), Dreyfus 3rd (1:25.882). The better drivers had yet to catch up and were mostly in the 1:26’s with a handful of 1:27’s. The best guess is that the weather made overtaking difficult giving those at the front of the grid more of a chance to run their own race.
Most of the other cars were still on attack mode for tyres except for Rogers (12th) and Santa Ana (15th) who were on Neutral. Only a handful of cars (including us) were still on high engine mode with most of the rest having dropped back to Medium, though some cars periodically went to Overtake.
Lap 4: Our tyre temps were around mid line, and the strategy was taken back to Push. Most of the rest of the field were still on Attack except for the two mentioned previously and Watanuki, who joined them on Neutral. Gomes 13th (1:26.992), Thomas 18th (1:27.651 for no obvious reason other than that her tyre strategy was dropped).
Lap 5: Water remained at 100%.Gomes 12th, Thomas 16th.
Lap 7: Many cars had gone to Neutral / Medium, and some to Neutral / Backup. We were the only two still on high. The others were obviously conserving fuel to extend the stint since it was clear that the rain would continue for several laps.
Lap 9: Thomas was called in.
10: Gomes was called in. About half the field had pitted by the end of lap 10 and had decided to go out on wets again. Both cars set to Push / High mode to get the tyre temperatures up.
Lap 11: The last 4 cars to do a first pit came in. (Iannizzi, Zarate, Santa Ana and Rogers.) Gomes 9th, Thomas 10th.
Lap 12: Gomes 5th after picking up places from the last pitters, Thomas 7th. The leaders were Melo, Fox and De Oeste.
Lap 14: The last lap with 100% water on track. Gomes still 5th, Thomas still 7th, same three in front.
Lap 16: Sara was called in. The forecast was for water to be on the track at least out to lap 21, making Inters the best tyre. Chu, Falko and Watanuki had pitted for Inters. The leaders were Fox, Melo and Stone.
Lap 17: Gomes was called in. Both cars were still on Push / High. Gomes 5th (1:23.282), Thomas 17th (1:51.725 pit lap). De Oeste (1:23.779) had overtaken Stone for 3rd.Fox (1st) was doing 1:23.086. The front runners were mostly on attack or push and either Medium or Overtake engine modes, as were the ones at the end. (Dreyfus (13th), Valdes (14th) and Watanuki (20th) were all on backup. The mid field was mostly Neutral / Medium.
Lap 18: The first 12 cars had pitted only once and were out when the water on track had fallen to Inters level. Thomas 13th, Gomes 14th; the first two of the two pit cars. Melo, Fox, De Oeste and Stone were in the pits. These were followed by Marchetta, Antonov, Iannizi, Sabado El Sadat and Zarate.
Lap 19: Fox exited the pits before we could get there and was holding first. De Oeste second, Melo 3rd. Thomas 4th, then Stone, then Gomes. Everyone was out on Inters. Thomas had dropped to 5th by the end of the lap. The last two cars entered the pits, putting everyone on Inters by the end of it. Both cars were still on Push / High with excess fuel.
Lap 21: Thomas had overtaken Melo by the end of the last lap. The first 7 were Fox, De Oeste, Stone, Thomas, Melo, Gomes and Falko.
Lap 22: Melo continued to try to claim 4th back from Thomas. “He’s going after her like Max goes after a piece of roast beef with gravy…” There was less than 0.2 seconds in it. Gomes was 1.8 seconds behind Melo but had a 3.259 second lead over Falko. Near the end of the lap Thomas was sent to Overtake mode. Sara’s parts were FW 50, B 48, E 52, G 39, RW 54 and S 50. She had 52% on her tyres near the end of the lap.
Lap 24: Sara’s excess fuel indicator went off and she was brought back to High mode. Melo had dropped back to Neutral / Medium. Fox was doing 1:19.285, De Oeste 1:19.925, Stone 1:19.712. Thomas was doing 1:19.589 while Melo was on 1:20.681. Gomes was doing 1:20.477. About half of the cars were on high engine mode but the other half were no higher than Medium. The tyre modes were similar. The exception was Chu (16th) who was conserving both fuel and tyres. Toward the end both drivers were taken back to Neutral. Sara was sent to Medium but Gomes stayed on high.
Lap 25: Sara’s tyres were down to 21%, fuel 1.28 laps. Gomes was still at 28% and 2.26.
Lap 26: By less than half way around the lap Thomas was down to 8% and 0.49 laps of fuel. Melo was 0.639 seconds behind. Gomes was at 16% and 1.74 laps. She was at 1% when she crossed the line. Gomes held 6th. Most of the cars had almost no rubber left when they crossed. Amazingly nobody crashed.
Aftermath
The race was completed in 37:11.204.
De Oeste was demoted 4 places after a part was found in breach of the rules. This elevated Thomas to 3rd and Gomes to 5th. Falko came 15th, killing his lead on the drivers’ championship and dropped him to 3rd.
Molly Fox took the championship with 194 points including 42 points from the final race (including a fastest lap bonus), 7 ahead of Bobby Stone Jr, with Falko 25 behind Fox.
Thomas came 6th at 145 points, Gomes 8th at 139 points.
Watanuki (Dragon) took last place with 38 points.
Garuda won the competition with 356 points and accepted promotion to the APS, with Ozu replacing them.
Kruger were 4 points behind at 352 followed by Firebird (286).
We were in 4th at 284, 72 points behind Garuda.
The others were Silva (275), Vexala (218), Octane (178), Archer (150), ZRT (116) and lastly Dragon (115).
In other competitions, Dieter Wexler won the last WMC race of the year giving the WMC to Scuderia Rossini (452 points) ahead of Panther (402) and Steinman (266). Espirit GP finished last and headed back to the APS.
Wexler also won the Drivers’ Championship (238 points) from his teammate Saarinen (214) and Zoe Sharp of Panther (207).
Velan won the final race of the APS. Lundqvist for Velan took the Drivers’ Championship with 65 points from Winston Margate at Team Kirov and E Ribiero (also Velan), both on 53. Margate would move to MacNeil the following year. Strambi for Ozo came last.
Velan took the team championship with 118 ahead of Boa Esperanca on 93 and Team Kirov on 74. Eastwood (ex APS) came 6th. Ozu came last with only 2 points and were relegated to make way for Garuda.