TWF1 Paul Ricard

The final championship kicked off last weekend with a visit to the classic French, Paul Ricard, circuit. Several drivers were forced to miss the event but a healthy field of.. turned up with Rouke putting his McLaren on an impressive pole position ahead of Division 2 champion Eric Fulghum.

Unfortunately the start lights at this track were far from normal and caught several drivers out, including Fulghum, causing a few minor impacts and a shuffling of the grid.

Fulgum finished the lap way down in 14th and third place driver, who also got a poor start, Rick Stratton finished it in 7th. Meanwhile Nigel Metcalf has made the best start launching from 8th into first by Turn 1.

Unfortunately Metcalf spun in Turn 1 and a very long and carefull rejoin dropped him to 13th but his Lap 2 didn't start as badly as Ivor and Eric.

Ivor seemed to outbrake himself spun and collided with the unfortunate Fulghum and narrowly missed Corrado. 

Eric would drive his relicant car back to the pits for a long repair and rejoin a lap down. Ivor also drove back to the pits bit in a comedy moment ended up in parc ferme dropped into a hole and retired.

Meanwhile Rouke looked serene out front a comfortable distance ahead of the very impressive Timo.

Behind the lead pair was the Arrows of Shazy under pressure from newcomer Leo Menegucci. On Lap 5 Leo was into the podium places when Ahmed strangely spun in turn 1 and dropped down to 10th.

Meanwhile the three Renaults, seemed to become a bit of a magnet for the action. First on lap 3 Benoit had collided with Costa damaging the latters car. The damage was increased on lap 9 when Hocq tried to squeeze his powerful Renault between two cars battling down the back straight. 

The collision put Costa into the barriers while Hocq continued. Costa was able to continue but was faced with a ill handling car for the remainder of the race.

Aymeric unfortunately also managed to get into a couple of scrapes as the two RS12's started to struggle on home turf. Mike Perray in an older RS01 had been unable to start due to a technical issue rounding off a disaster.

Up front Leo was right with the second places car and on lap 11 he made his move taking second from Timo while Patrick Dobner had worked his way into fourth through the early laps carnage.

Further back John Wallace was embroiled in a battle with David Kadlcak while Jef Vannijlen and Corrado were embroiled in a huge battle. The latter pair swapped places on several occasions before Corrado spun first, then Jef followed suit a few laps later.

The race was proving to be extremely action packed with drivers making mistakes around the track, Ahmed dropped from 8th to 14th over 4 laps, DK spun away 5th and Aymeric dropped to 18th before retiring.

As the laps ticked down, something unusual was happening, Salvatore Tallini in his new Ferrari had been running reasonably well apart from an early spin and now sat a comfortable 6th, just ahead on the track of a monumental battle between Shazy Ahmed and Eric.

The latter two, however, were a lap down on the Ferrari but probably on average 1s/lap quicker as they struggled to fight each other without making contact with Tall's car.

Tallini had the additional problem that Corrado was closing him down at around 1s per lap and perhaps the inevitable happened in the last turn of the last lap when both Ahmed and Fulghum made accidental contact with the Ferrari who appeared to be struggling a little.

Rouke meanwhile cruised to an awsome maiden win after a faultless driver ahead of an excellent drive from Leo. Timo was perhaps the most impressive driver of the day dragging the relicant Ensign into the final podium position.

TWFC Kyalami

The TWFC season opened with a near full grids at the classic old Kyalami Circuit. A favorite back in the GPL days that this mod mimic's it promised a challenging and exciting pair of races.

While both mods that the rFactor side of the Legends League runs are Formula 1 mods, the formats are very different. TWF1 runs a single race format with a handicapping system. TWFC has no handicapping system and runs a twin race format.

27 cars took the start for this, the opening round of the championship. On Pole was Jef Vannijlen only 0.1s ahead of Christopher Snow and Simon Baggett. The entire grid was covered by 3.5s with Gary Taylor and Larry Thomas filling the last row of the grid.

Interestingly whereas in GPL Lotus is usually the most common make, the fact the cars in this mod are balanced with similar weight and handling and the same engines means the balance has shifted. Eleven of the cars on the grid were the gorgeus AAR Eagles with Coopers being the next most popular with seven on the grid.

From the start Jef lept into the lead while behind Snow was under pressure from Simons Baggett.. so close were they into Turn one that they touched but no damage was apparant.

Behind however chaos reigned as Huarte got into the back of West. Baz was forced off the track while the knock on effect caused several drivers, including Costa, Scott and Shazy to lose places.

Kat had made another startling start slicing through the field and despite the places lost in T1 still finished the lap 3 places to the good. Three more were gained on the next lap as drivers struggled to stay on track.

Both Leaders were amongst those have an off leaving Baggett and Mario to battle in the lead while newcomer Deutsch settled into third ahead of Nigel.

Other drivers to lose places on lap two were the trio of Huarte, who had somehow come out of Turn 1 without losing a place, Antionio Wojahn who retired and Shazy Ahmed.

Up front as the field approached half distance Jef was starting to recover from his off while the lead pair continued to battle with Deutsch just behind.

Then on the stroke of half Distance Bagget spun, a second spin a few laps later dropped the erstwhile leader to a disapointing 11th.

By now the field was starting to thin, with Eric Fulgum, Larry Thomas, Benoit Hocq all parked up, the latter two after a huge startline accident after Hocq clipped the verge on the exit of the last turn.

Jef continued his recovery up front and on lap 11 retook the leader after a superb recovery. A lap later Deutsch was delayed allowing the consistent runs from Nigel Metcalf and Christopher Snow to benefit and round out the podium.

Jef made a better fist of the start of the feature race taking the lead cleanly before snow slipped past on lap 2. Baggett didn't match his first race start and dropped back to fourth behind a hard charging Nigel Metcalf.

Overall the start was more orderly than the first race but, after another startling start, Kat Scott did fall to last after two opening lap spins. Hocq also made a poor start and ultimately retired on lap 4 after dropping to the tail of the field.

Unlike his first race, Jef's second race went down hill from about half distance. Early on he had enjoyed a spirited battle with Snow and Metcalf but a mistake on lap 13 dropped him to 7th and he was unable to recover.

The leaders had settled at this stage and Snow was able to lead to the finish ahead of Nigel and Simon for a superb win. Mario also settled into a good finish, coming home 4th after a comfortable run, while John Wallace had a disapointing finish to his weekend after an off dropped him from fifth to 15th.

Wallace benefit from late race spins by Tallinig and Fulvio to pick up two places but must have been disapointed.

In the first race, Jef undoubtadly put in the race of the event, but in the second it wasn't so clear. Shazy Ahmed probably deserves it though after a super first lap put him up to 18th from last on the grid. I dropped a few places on lap four but recovered well and finished an excellent 15th overall.

TWFS Laguna Seca

This year the Legends League are running three leagues. Two rFactor series using the Classic F1 1967 mod and the 79 F1 cars. They alternate weeks while earlier in the night they run a iRacing Skip Barber 2000 series.

Fifteen cars lined up for the first race of the 2010 spring TWFS season with Petteri Kotovaara lining up on pole ahead of Simon Baggett and Richard Walker.

Off the start Petteri made a brake with Baz jumping Baggett into second with Rik Walker settling into fourth. At the end of that first lap the latter three crossed the line side by side before Rik braved it out round the outside to take second with Baggett slipping into third ahead of West.

Meanwhile at the back of the grid Georg and Dave Hawt both had offs to drop to the rear of the field.

Up front the field had settled down by Lap 3 while back half of the grid start to get down to some serious action. Unfortunately for Georg Naujoks the action was a bit close with a collision with Katier putting him out of the race and forcing Scott to get a new car. She would spend the rest of the race at the rear of the field.

Hawnt was soon into the top 10 as Ales Simunek and Keith Lawrie both lost places.

Up front on Lap 4 David Kadlcak was now on a charge, passing Tony Rickard on that lap, Baz the next lap, gaining a place on the next lap when Petteri retired, then finally Simon on the next lap.

The final pass was a trifle lucky after he tweaked his front wing on Simons car approaching T1 before passing him out of T2. Richard was now on a charge, making progress on lap 6 with a pass on Baz West before sneaking past Baggett into the podium positions on lap 16.

Baggett seemed to be having trouble with his car and was in the pits a lap later, dropping down the order after a promising start.

Up front the order was now settled down and most of the field now cruised to the finish. The last two passes going to Ales who finishing 9th, an impressive finish after being 15th at one point.

Rik walker took an impressive win narrowly ahead of an excellent run by David Kadlcak. Tony Rickard rounded out an impressive podium with an excellent drive.

Overall an exciting and enjoyable start to the new season.

G1:GP Indycars - Indianapolis

Eight cars turned up at the famous brickyard for an 80 lap sprint race version of the famous Indycar race.

Drafting was expected to feature heavily and yellow flags were not-unexpected, even so the 5 attempts it took to go clean for 5 laps was rather surprising.

At the 6th time of asking the field got away with Sulla soon leading from Jafo and Katier. Reitveld had made a superb start and settled into third ahead of Rattra and Crippy who had been struggling to get going.

Suzy was soon making progress, however, and on lap 8 moved into the lead with the lead 4 soon pulling a bit of a gap back to 5th. Then carnage.. Sulla spun in T1.. approaching at 200+mph Kat chose the wrong choice between high and low. She piled into Looming then Jafo joined the fray bringing out the yellow. Unfortunately for Katier she had two flat tyres and lost a lap dragging her wreck back to the pits.

Suzy led from the restart but soon dropped to fifth but the next few laps were essentially uneventful as most of the field settled down.

Yuriko now lead through a couple of yellows, one of which saw Rattra dropping down to a lap down behind Jafo; by which time Sulla had retired.

As the field approached half distance Yuriko led from a battle between Suzy and the green car of PJ Sorbet. Crippy was in 4th and struggling a bit with her car.

As the field moved into the 3rd quarter a sequence of yellows shuffled the field up. Suzy retook the lead while most of the field was now at least one lap down. By Lap 60 Crippy had moved into second from PJ who at one point was 6th and Rattra.

This more or less settled the field. Suzy's lead was safe and soon a lap up on everyone. The last incident, however, cost Crippy a podium as she crashed out dropping to 6th behind Katier.