Spire GT3 RGB Racer
Discussion
I wouldn't say it was a good result, I struggled like hell and ultimately I should have been further up given I was similar pace to my team mates on Friday in testing. I couldn't make any forward progress and could only worry about what was behind me. Went through all my notes and I'd gone too far on the rear rebound causing the back end to lose grip/skip under braking so ended up going back to my session 2 Friday settings for race 2. We did also give it some more front toe out which had the effect of improving turn in as you'd expect but made the rear too snappy.
Was much faster in race 2 but 2 spins and a broken gear lever meant my first dnf.
A few people had accidents and considerable damage after race 2 so I reminded myself that it could have been much worse, it won't always go your way in racing and a bad day is a smashed up car, let's just say I had a frustrating day!
I suspected I would struggle to hold on to 2nd in the championship and ultimately the main reason I was there was because I'd been consistently picking up points rather than being very fast.
I'm still struggling to get to a reasonable level of confidence in the car and in all honesty I'm finding it difficult to enjoy at the moment. I had issues with the slower speed, technical stuff earlier on and now I've traded an improvement there for lack of feel and stability at high speed, all in all I've not yet had a good all round setup and I'm at the end of my tether trying to find it myself. I think ultimately I've got the car setup too soft, whilst I did often complain of understeer in my old car the back end was always stable particularly in high speed corners and I need to get that feeling back. Granted I'm still going faster than I was last year but I'm driving with less confidence and feel for the car which is limiting any further progress.
I have some setup and testing time planned with Tim Gray who has vast experience with the Spire so I'm sure I'll get there... That has to be the main aim for me this year, championship wise it'll be what it'll be. I'm still waiting for that moment where it all clicks and right now I think that'll be a better feeling than anything else.
Was much faster in race 2 but 2 spins and a broken gear lever meant my first dnf.
A few people had accidents and considerable damage after race 2 so I reminded myself that it could have been much worse, it won't always go your way in racing and a bad day is a smashed up car, let's just say I had a frustrating day!
I suspected I would struggle to hold on to 2nd in the championship and ultimately the main reason I was there was because I'd been consistently picking up points rather than being very fast.
I'm still struggling to get to a reasonable level of confidence in the car and in all honesty I'm finding it difficult to enjoy at the moment. I had issues with the slower speed, technical stuff earlier on and now I've traded an improvement there for lack of feel and stability at high speed, all in all I've not yet had a good all round setup and I'm at the end of my tether trying to find it myself. I think ultimately I've got the car setup too soft, whilst I did often complain of understeer in my old car the back end was always stable particularly in high speed corners and I need to get that feeling back. Granted I'm still going faster than I was last year but I'm driving with less confidence and feel for the car which is limiting any further progress.
I have some setup and testing time planned with Tim Gray who has vast experience with the Spire so I'm sure I'll get there... That has to be the main aim for me this year, championship wise it'll be what it'll be. I'm still waiting for that moment where it all clicks and right now I think that'll be a better feeling than anything else.
Here's my race 2 video
Positives, I suppose I was much faster than in race 1 and I got back up to 5th from dead last with relative ease.
Negatives, well that would be stating the bleedin' obvious...
https://youtu.be/unsKQjRAxmM
That second spin still makes no sense to me, I'm wondering if the debris from someone's crash the lap before had something to do with it. Either way the snapped gear lever would have put an end to the fun.
Positives, I suppose I was much faster than in race 1 and I got back up to 5th from dead last with relative ease.
Negatives, well that would be stating the bleedin' obvious...
https://youtu.be/unsKQjRAxmM
That second spin still makes no sense to me, I'm wondering if the debris from someone's crash the lap before had something to do with it. Either way the snapped gear lever would have put an end to the fun.
Brief write up
The weekend started with a 4 hour drive to the circuit after work on Thursday and a rough night's sleep in the garage.
Up on Friday morning and into testing, car felt good and I was on promising pace towards the end of the first session once I'd shaken off all the rust from a 9 month hiatus.
2nd session was popping in times close to lap record pace, and felt good. By the end of the day I had a feeling it was going to be between me and one other spire driver who I knew would be fast but I hadn't seen as he was testing on Thursday instead.
Another horrendous night's sleep and it's Saturday morning.
Out for qualifying and struggled like hell to get any clean air, but it was the same for everyone I suppose. Due to the virus etc the club were not quite expecting such a strong turn out and were hoping some of the tin tops could've been combined grids, as it happens they were all very strong and the only ones that could be combined was us and bikesports.
The problem with this is that the fast guys in bikesports are very fast, and the slow guys have some questionable driving standards. Ultimately with bags more grunt, slicks and aero they shouldn't be in our way but many of them were. They also do a rolling start so we had to adopt that.
Anyway, got a clear lap and qualified pole. Wasn't expecting it as I felt like it was hard work and I didn't set the time I was capable of, but it turned out to be enough.
Onto race 1, good start but was too tentative with the bikesports cars, my main rival fought through them better and I struggled to keep up. He later span which put me in the lead... Stupidly I thought I had all the time in the world and from this point on gave the bikesports cars way too much respect and allowed myself to be caught back up. Also a combination of me slowing down probably too much under yellows and "others" not doing so.. but I'll leave that there.
The slower bikesports cars proved to be a pain because they have a tendancy to be slow into and through the corners then deploy more power down the straights, if you're not careful they will completely ruin the race.
Came in second thoroughly pissed off with myself.
Next race, I was almost falling asleep before it, I was exhausted from 2 nights poor sleep, driving the tow car, the race car and spannering, this is something I need to address as you cannot perform to your best on 4 hours sleep.
For the second race I started second as it was based on second fastest quali laps. Rolling start again and I was second into the first corner but passed for the lead into Montreal.
From there it became a case of putting hard and fair overtakes on anything that was in the way, I drove much more aggressively to put as many of the bikesports cars between me and the guys behind as I could and it paid off. Towards the end I did get caught a little bit as we got entangled with more traffic, but put my fastest lap in on the last lap to secure the win.
All in all a great weekend, but could've been better. Can't wait to get back out and most importantly, on our own grid!!!
I still have lots to work on particularly some issues on the brakes/instability on corner entry which were seriously hampering me from going any quicker. Onwards and upwards.
The weekend started with a 4 hour drive to the circuit after work on Thursday and a rough night's sleep in the garage.
Up on Friday morning and into testing, car felt good and I was on promising pace towards the end of the first session once I'd shaken off all the rust from a 9 month hiatus.
2nd session was popping in times close to lap record pace, and felt good. By the end of the day I had a feeling it was going to be between me and one other spire driver who I knew would be fast but I hadn't seen as he was testing on Thursday instead.
Another horrendous night's sleep and it's Saturday morning.
Out for qualifying and struggled like hell to get any clean air, but it was the same for everyone I suppose. Due to the virus etc the club were not quite expecting such a strong turn out and were hoping some of the tin tops could've been combined grids, as it happens they were all very strong and the only ones that could be combined was us and bikesports.
The problem with this is that the fast guys in bikesports are very fast, and the slow guys have some questionable driving standards. Ultimately with bags more grunt, slicks and aero they shouldn't be in our way but many of them were. They also do a rolling start so we had to adopt that.
Anyway, got a clear lap and qualified pole. Wasn't expecting it as I felt like it was hard work and I didn't set the time I was capable of, but it turned out to be enough.
Onto race 1, good start but was too tentative with the bikesports cars, my main rival fought through them better and I struggled to keep up. He later span which put me in the lead... Stupidly I thought I had all the time in the world and from this point on gave the bikesports cars way too much respect and allowed myself to be caught back up. Also a combination of me slowing down probably too much under yellows and "others" not doing so.. but I'll leave that there.
The slower bikesports cars proved to be a pain because they have a tendancy to be slow into and through the corners then deploy more power down the straights, if you're not careful they will completely ruin the race.
Came in second thoroughly pissed off with myself.
Next race, I was almost falling asleep before it, I was exhausted from 2 nights poor sleep, driving the tow car, the race car and spannering, this is something I need to address as you cannot perform to your best on 4 hours sleep.
For the second race I started second as it was based on second fastest quali laps. Rolling start again and I was second into the first corner but passed for the lead into Montreal.
From there it became a case of putting hard and fair overtakes on anything that was in the way, I drove much more aggressively to put as many of the bikesports cars between me and the guys behind as I could and it paid off. Towards the end I did get caught a little bit as we got entangled with more traffic, but put my fastest lap in on the last lap to secure the win.
All in all a great weekend, but could've been better. Can't wait to get back out and most importantly, on our own grid!!!
I still have lots to work on particularly some issues on the brakes/instability on corner entry which were seriously hampering me from going any quicker. Onwards and upwards.
Edited by Yazza54 on Wednesday 22 July 07:00
Edited by Yazza54 on Wednesday 22 July 17:34
BertBert said:
Great video, just some thoughts from watching it that may (or may not) be helpful, not that I know much, so if what I am saying is rubbish, ignore it...
It took quite a long time for you to use all the track at turn 1, 8 or so laps. Maybe the tyres were cold, but I was urging you turn in from the LH edge of the circuit, be faster through the apex in the early laps to end up at the exit curb. Getting everything up to the max as early as possible in the race is a very important thing to focus on.
Not sure how warm the tyres need to get to work at their best, but if you find that they warm up in the race and perform better after a couple of laps, you could do that warming up on the green flag lap.
I don't know about your cars, but it looked to me like there was some later braking available coming up to the bridge. In the Radicals (with more aero admittedly) I used to brake just before, just under or if super brave even just emerging from the bridge. Not saying your car will do this, but on many laps you had a little accelerate towards the esses showing you'd over-braked a bit.
You seem to be doing a lot of stabbing on the throttle in many corner exits, around bomb hole and especially around Corum and potentially upsetting the car and losing grip. There are schools of thought around it and Senna used to do it a lot, but it looked unhelpful to your lap times to me.
But great drive, championship for you Sir this season!
Bert
As I said, was struggling with the feel of the back end on the brakes/trail braking. Late braking and carrying speed in is normally a strength of mine. This was hurting me mainly into the first corner and at the end of the back straight. I do know what the fix is and have some good ideas on how to tweak the rear suspension but I'm not going to dive into that on here. It took quite a long time for you to use all the track at turn 1, 8 or so laps. Maybe the tyres were cold, but I was urging you turn in from the LH edge of the circuit, be faster through the apex in the early laps to end up at the exit curb. Getting everything up to the max as early as possible in the race is a very important thing to focus on.
Not sure how warm the tyres need to get to work at their best, but if you find that they warm up in the race and perform better after a couple of laps, you could do that warming up on the green flag lap.
I don't know about your cars, but it looked to me like there was some later braking available coming up to the bridge. In the Radicals (with more aero admittedly) I used to brake just before, just under or if super brave even just emerging from the bridge. Not saying your car will do this, but on many laps you had a little accelerate towards the esses showing you'd over-braked a bit.
You seem to be doing a lot of stabbing on the throttle in many corner exits, around bomb hole and especially around Corum and potentially upsetting the car and losing grip. There are schools of thought around it and Senna used to do it a lot, but it looked unhelpful to your lap times to me.
But great drive, championship for you Sir this season!
Bert
As for the use of throttle, again a lot of it is down to what I feel I can do with the car, I use the on/off throttle to tighten the car up a lot and that's not something you're going to see in a video. Coram is a typical corner that can go from feeling like front push to oversteer multiple times as you're going round. Likewise the squirt on the power you're describing towards the esses I'm actually doing to settle the back end back down as I could feel it going into entry oversteer.
In truth these cars are not at all like a radical in the handling department and there are numerous compromises and you have to be happy to have the thing move around a bit. We have a lot less grip and a lot less aero.
Edited by Yazza54 on Wednesday 22 July 20:53
SAS Tom said:
Looks like you’re going well Ryan I’ve been following this from the start. Keep meaning to ask you when you’re racing so I can come down some time. Happy to help out if you need it too.
Extra pair of hands and support is always welcome. The next round is Silverstone on 22nd August. I'm not sure of they're still being a bit funny allowing too many spectators in though.SAS Tom said:
Yazza54 said:
SAS Tom said:
Looks like you’re going well Ryan I’ve been following this from the start. Keep meaning to ask you when you’re racing so I can come down some time. Happy to help out if you need it too.
Extra pair of hands and support is always welcome. The next round is Silverstone on 22nd August. I'm not sure of they're still being a bit funny allowing too many spectators in though.Quick bump..
Out at Silverstone this Saturday on the international layout.
If anyone's interested the live stream link should be up here on the day
https://www.750mc.co.uk/live
If not they can normally be found easily on YouTube by searching alpha live stream.
Live timing will be in theresultslive.co.uk
Times are
Quali - 10.40am
Race 1 - 1.45pm
Race 2 - 5.25pm
Out at Silverstone this Saturday on the international layout.
If anyone's interested the live stream link should be up here on the day
https://www.750mc.co.uk/live
If not they can normally be found easily on YouTube by searching alpha live stream.
Live timing will be in theresultslive.co.uk
Times are
Quali - 10.40am
Race 1 - 1.45pm
Race 2 - 5.25pm
Edited by Yazza54 on Tuesday 18th August 17:24
Another decent weekend
Testing was strange, all of us were struggling with the strong winds taking the car off balance in the fast corners like Stowe and abbey.
I was well up to speed in the last session banging in low - mid 1.09s on old tyres.
Come race day, new tyres on and out for qualifying, strangely the car felt worse! Almost like the new tyres gave the rear more grip than the front and had bad understeer. The wind was also supposed to be better on race day but it seemed worse, or at least in a worse direction, unsettling the car more than on Friday.
Put it on pole by 3 tenths. First race I got away and maintained a gap, a lonely race but an easy win.
Second race I was on pole again as it's based on fastest laps from race 2, which I just got by 0.02 of a second!
Didn't get a great start in race 2 and unfortunately there's little to no stagger between pole and second and second has the inside line for abbey, kept the lead but got a poor run out of farm and lost the lead. I was much faster than the leader in the high speed corners like abbey and Stowe but couldn't capitalise on it as I just kept steaming up behind him only to find myself with nowhere to go mid corner. I got past briefly very deep on the brakes into club but he cut back on me. He seemed to have much better drive and manoeuvrability in the slower stuff. I felt like the only way I was going to get by was to try and get a run out of one of the corners. Got a mega run out of Stowe down towards club, he hugged the inside so I stayed wide and tried to cut back and get on the gas early, was out on a bit of dirty track and it spun up and round I went.
Had plenty of a gap back to 3rd so just brought it home second, frustrating, but I've had worse weekends. Still came out on top on points as I got 3 extra for the 2 pole positions and race 1 fastest lap. Now leading the Championship.
Got a few things to work on with the car and feeling positive for the future.
Testing was strange, all of us were struggling with the strong winds taking the car off balance in the fast corners like Stowe and abbey.
I was well up to speed in the last session banging in low - mid 1.09s on old tyres.
Come race day, new tyres on and out for qualifying, strangely the car felt worse! Almost like the new tyres gave the rear more grip than the front and had bad understeer. The wind was also supposed to be better on race day but it seemed worse, or at least in a worse direction, unsettling the car more than on Friday.
Put it on pole by 3 tenths. First race I got away and maintained a gap, a lonely race but an easy win.
Second race I was on pole again as it's based on fastest laps from race 2, which I just got by 0.02 of a second!
Didn't get a great start in race 2 and unfortunately there's little to no stagger between pole and second and second has the inside line for abbey, kept the lead but got a poor run out of farm and lost the lead. I was much faster than the leader in the high speed corners like abbey and Stowe but couldn't capitalise on it as I just kept steaming up behind him only to find myself with nowhere to go mid corner. I got past briefly very deep on the brakes into club but he cut back on me. He seemed to have much better drive and manoeuvrability in the slower stuff. I felt like the only way I was going to get by was to try and get a run out of one of the corners. Got a mega run out of Stowe down towards club, he hugged the inside so I stayed wide and tried to cut back and get on the gas early, was out on a bit of dirty track and it spun up and round I went.
Had plenty of a gap back to 3rd so just brought it home second, frustrating, but I've had worse weekends. Still came out on top on points as I got 3 extra for the 2 pole positions and race 1 fastest lap. Now leading the Championship.
Got a few things to work on with the car and feeling positive for the future.
Edited by Yazza54 on Monday 24th August 06:49
A mixed weekend ending on a high at Anglesey circuit.
Testing was good. I went to Anglesey with a new front setup, the theory told me it would potentially solve a couple of problems I'd been having and by the end of the test day incremental improvements were made and this came to fruition. I knew if it didn't work I could simply revert to my old setup, but it paid off, and frankly if you haven't got a car with a good front end at Anglesey you're wasting your time.
Prepped the car, filled my belly full of pub grub and settled down for a night of broken sleep in my tent...nothing new there.
Up in the morning and got ready for a free practice session they had setup for us. It rained quite heavily around an hour before our session and even though it warmed up there was still tricky damp spots through turn 1 and church. Most people were about. A second a lap off but it didn't seem to bother me as much.
Times after FP
Made a very minor change based on feel from FP and headed out for qualifying an hour later. Qualified on pole by around half a second, not far off lap record.
Race 1 - Great start, straight into the lead and set about putting a comfortable gap into the guys behind when a pushrod failed causing me to have to abort the race. Nursed the car back in with the outside rear rubbing on the bodywork which destroyed the tyre. What made this even worse was that the guy who was in second broke down a lap after me, and my main Championship rival ended up winning the race.
With a very tight schedule we managed to get the car repaired, the fastest corner weight job in history and back in running order with minimal time to spare, had to put a rear wheel and tyre on from my testing set. Rolled up to the holding area last, full of adrenaline and a bit of anger to boot.
Starting from third, great start straight into the lead, pulled a good gap and then there was an incident causing a safety car.
So I'm thinking great, lost my gap and need to get on it as soon as the safety car comes in, essentially a rolling start... This didn't happen and in the end it was red flagged and re-started but this time I was on pole. There's always potential for something to go wrong on a standing start and I really would have preferred the rolling start from safety car, at this point I'm just wondering WTF I have to do to win a race today.
Good start again and put another good gap in. Got the win and fastest lap, it was a touch emotional!
Ultimately it could and should have been a clean sweep, but that second race salvaged the weekend.
I haven't got round to processing any race videos yet, but here is my quali lap:
https://youtu.be/iwKGq7fgwYc
Testing was good. I went to Anglesey with a new front setup, the theory told me it would potentially solve a couple of problems I'd been having and by the end of the test day incremental improvements were made and this came to fruition. I knew if it didn't work I could simply revert to my old setup, but it paid off, and frankly if you haven't got a car with a good front end at Anglesey you're wasting your time.
Prepped the car, filled my belly full of pub grub and settled down for a night of broken sleep in my tent...nothing new there.
Up in the morning and got ready for a free practice session they had setup for us. It rained quite heavily around an hour before our session and even though it warmed up there was still tricky damp spots through turn 1 and church. Most people were about. A second a lap off but it didn't seem to bother me as much.
Times after FP
Made a very minor change based on feel from FP and headed out for qualifying an hour later. Qualified on pole by around half a second, not far off lap record.
Race 1 - Great start, straight into the lead and set about putting a comfortable gap into the guys behind when a pushrod failed causing me to have to abort the race. Nursed the car back in with the outside rear rubbing on the bodywork which destroyed the tyre. What made this even worse was that the guy who was in second broke down a lap after me, and my main Championship rival ended up winning the race.
With a very tight schedule we managed to get the car repaired, the fastest corner weight job in history and back in running order with minimal time to spare, had to put a rear wheel and tyre on from my testing set. Rolled up to the holding area last, full of adrenaline and a bit of anger to boot.
Starting from third, great start straight into the lead, pulled a good gap and then there was an incident causing a safety car.
So I'm thinking great, lost my gap and need to get on it as soon as the safety car comes in, essentially a rolling start... This didn't happen and in the end it was red flagged and re-started but this time I was on pole. There's always potential for something to go wrong on a standing start and I really would have preferred the rolling start from safety car, at this point I'm just wondering WTF I have to do to win a race today.
Good start again and put another good gap in. Got the win and fastest lap, it was a touch emotional!
Ultimately it could and should have been a clean sweep, but that second race salvaged the weekend.
I haven't got round to processing any race videos yet, but here is my quali lap:
https://youtu.be/iwKGq7fgwYc
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