Is Kirkus a genius? More to the point, is Kirkus going to tell the world that he’s a genius? Or would that cause him to look in a mirror and see Gomes’ reflection?
We look into the mysteries of how potential pit crew candidates are selected. We don’t exactly reach a conclusion, but find some things to chew over for the future.
Kirkus faces an ethical dilemma in salary negotiations, and to his surprise finds that he apparently has some. Naturally Max provides vital relationship counselling in his ultra-diplomatic way.
Freddie sees the light at the end of the tunnel as he constructs the last of the production parts for this year, and moves on to the carry over parts. After that he may actually get to see his own bed for the first time in 11 months.
We contemplate the tyre usage at Tondela and find that my report to Kirkus is 10% hope and 90% fantasy on that point.
Sara takes to the road on 2 wheels, and Silvia will settle for as many wheels as she can get to get away from Kirkus’ glare after we find out that the level 2 scouting centre has been a very expensive bust.
Once again we face the thorny question of how far we’re prepared to back ourselves with our sponsor choices. As usual the answer is “Well” and “Maybe” with a layer of “but”.
All that and probably a bit more in the leadup episode to race 8 in Tondela, Portugal.
9/18/25 (9/9/7)
9: 9% and 0.62. Balanced stop. Engine 63%, gearbox 59%. Fresh softs and 10 laps for 9. Came out 10th. Neutral / High.
18: 16% and 0.31. Balanced stop. Engine 42%, gearbox 32%. Fresh softs and 8 laps for 6. Came out 8th. Conserve / High.
20: Unscheduled pit for safety car. Balanced stop, given 7 laps of fuel and fresh softs. Exited 10th, Conserve / Push.
21: Further unscheduled pit stop to repair the gearbox (26%). Came out 19th, Neutral / Medium.
Thomas
Plan 8/17/25 (8/9/8)
8: 8% and 1.63. Balanced stop. Engine 71%, gearbox 72%. Fresh softs and 10 laps for 9. Came out 11th. Neutral / High.
17: 5% and 0.23. Balanced stop. Engine 55%, gearbox 57%. Fresh softs and 10 laps for 8. Came out 13th. Conserve / High.
20: Unscheduled pit stop for safety car. Fresh softs and 8 laps of fuel. Exited 14th, Neutral / Overtake.
Race Report
Target: 7th or above, 600K. (Playsport)
Practice had been done on softs.
Gomes Bonuses: 10% Race Trim, 10% Softs.
Thomas Bonuses: 10% Race Trim, 10% Softs.
Thomas started 10th, on row 5.
Gomes started 15th, Row 8.
The overwhelming majority went out on Softs; the first Medium was Santa Ana (Vexala) on row 5. Most of the back of the grid (except for Falko) went out on Mediums.
Lap 1: Both launched with Push / Medium.
Lap 2: Tyres brought back to Neutral. Thomas 11th, Gomes 15th.
Lap 3: Engines sent to high.
Lap 4: Most cars on Neutral / Medium. Gomes 16th, 1:32.449, Thomas 13th, 1:33.108, Chu leading (1:31.670).
Lap 7: Gomes 8th 1:31.657 (form 6.8, Neutral / High, 33% and 3.37 laps), Thomas 1:33.646 (form 4.4, Neutral / High, 26% and 3.34 laps). Leader Fox (1:29.262, form 6.2, Backup / Overtake). No consistency in other teams’ settings. Rogers and Watanuki first into the pits.
Lap 8: Thomas (10th) called in.
Lap 11: Everyone had pitted once and all but us and Dreyfus were out on Mediums.
Lap 13: Thomas 10th, 54%, 5.34 laps. Gomes 9th, 69% and 6.47 laps.
Lap 14: Fox leading, Attack / Low, 1:30.997. Gomes 8th 1:30.730 (one of the fastest), neutral / high, 59%, 5.42. Thomas 10th 1:31.359, neutral / high, 48% and 4.32.
Lap 16: Thomas 8th, Gomes 7th. Thomas at 17% and sent to Conserve on her tyres, still high on engine. Same with Gomes at 34%.
Lap 17: Pit for Thomas
Lap 18: Pit for Gomes. Gomes 8th, Thomas 13th, Fox, De Oeste, Sabado leading. Gomes +48.2, Thomas +56.2. Fox was the only one still to pit. Tyres evenly split between Medium and Soft.
Lap 19: Thomas pushed up to Overtake, Gomes still on High. Both were still on Conserve.
Lap 20: Thomas set to Neutral. Safety car came out after Antonov crashed. and Gomes was pitted again. Fresh softs and an extra lap of fuel. (This probably wasn’t a good idea in retrospect; certainly if we were doing that we should have fixed the gearbox as well.) Thomas was also pitted.
Lap 22: Safety car goes to garage. Both sent to Push / Overtake.
Lap 24: Both tyres dropped to Neutral.
Race Completion Time: 41:46.247
Gomes: 16th.
Thomas: 7th.
1st: Molly Fox, Krüger Motorsport
2nd: Bobby Stone Jr, Garuda Racing
3rd: Andre Sabado, Firebird MRT
Aftermath
Sara 9th (up from 11th), Gomes 10th (down from 6th). They were equal on 93 points, 49 behind the leader.
The team was in 5th place (unchanged), 186 points, 88 behind Garuda.