IMSA Race TUSC Round 4: Laguna Seca

[Louie Loper]

Originally Posted by J Jay

There was no mention of stewards looking at that incident was there? But Auberlen's move was non too subtle.

Maybe there'll be clemency for the earlier move, but again I would not be surprised to see Auberlen penalized.

Yeah no mention as far as I know

[Louie Loper]

Tandy said he defended the inside..he blocked inside then swung to the outside where he and the BMW made contact with each other.

[David Land]

Originally Posted by Dyson Mazda

I wonder what the chances of that happening are? I cannot for the life of me figure Greg out at all.

Pickett's team is running Pippa Mann's Indy 500 team.

Some have said Pickett's pulling out had more to do with no money coming from Nissan than BoP.

[ttdriver2009]

Originally Posted by Dyson Mazda

I wonder what the chances of that happening are? I cannot for the life of me figure Greg out at all.

Didn't he state that he was unhappy with the Balance of Performance? With this P2 win and them being on of the premier teams in the states, they should easily dominate the rest of the season.

[belt driven]

Good racing!

Offsetting penalties for Auberlin/Tandy...

Good match between P2 & Vette DP, but the Fords were crippled.

Turned out not to be YaCRASHman, but Alex FUMBLE who screwed up, lol.

[BullMan]

MMPR won't be back until next year. They're not going to flip flop like that.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by Louie Loper

Tandy said he defended the inside..he blocked inside then swung to the outside where he and the BMW made contact with each other.

something about "mess with the bull, you get the horns" comes to mind...

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by Louie Loper

Tandy said he defended the inside..he blocked inside then swung to the outside where he and the BMW made contact with each other.

He blocked the inside? That's called defending. He 'swung' to the outside after getting the rear of the car unsettled by the BMW that ran into it.

EDIT: Or are you talking about the lap before? It was aggressive but that's the racing line at the end of the day.

[TF110]

Porsche locked up, no way the bmw fighting that close was going to be clean at the last turn on the last lap.

[ttdriver2009]

Originally Posted by BullMan

MMPR won't be back until next year. They're not going to flip flop like that.

Why not? They could win the championship easily.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Is this supposed to be sarcastic or something?

He blocked the inside? That's called defending. He 'swung' to the outside after getting the rear of the car unsettled by the BMW that ran into it.

EDIT: Or are you talking about the lap before? It was aggressive but that's the racing line at the end of the day.

What about the SoD DP being penalized for running out the Oak P2? That was also the racing line, but it was deemed aggressive enough to get a stop and hold. If the stewards viewed the first Tandy-Auberlen incident similarly, then they may "let off" Auberlen for his bump-and-run.

Just to clarify, I think the BMW will be given time. But if it isn't the above is why I think it might not.

[Simmi]

I think both guys deserve to be on the podium so don't really want to see anyone get slapped with a penalty. I doubt they are able to simply reverse the positions across the line.

Seems like it's still under investigation.

All in all it was a good race though.

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by J Jay

What about the SoD DP being penalized for running out the Oak P2? That was also the racing line, but it was deemed aggressive enough to get a stop and hold. If the stewards viewed the first Tandy-Auberlen incident similarly, then they may "let off" Auberlen for his bump-and-run.

Just to clarify, I think the BMW will be given time. But if it isn't the above is why I think it might not.

Yeah I take your point on that. I think Westy's was worse but the situation is certainly similar.

I don't know how much (if at all) the fact that moves happen with 1-2 laps to go plays into the decision process. That early in the race from the SoD just seemed overly aggressive.

[Louie Loper]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Is this supposed to be sarcastic or something?

He blocked the inside? That's called defending. He 'swung' to the outside after getting the rear of the car unsettled by the BMW that ran into it.

EDIT: Or are you talking about the lap before? It was aggressive but that's the racing line at the end of the day.

I thought he swung to the outside before the contact but I could be wrong. Only saw the replay once but that's what I gathered. Ultimately I will say it's the following car's responsibility to make the pass cleanly.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Simmi

All in all it was a good race though.

Need to hold my hands up and apologize here, this was a good race from flag to flag.

Now all IMSA need to do is put a little bit more of this good racing on the broadcast and we're getting somewhere!

(Ad breaks were ... frequent but not as long as LB - 2 minutes each I think? Was anybody keeping track of this?)

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by Louie Loper

I thought he swung to the outside before the contact but I could be wrong. Only saw the replay once but that's what I gathered. Ultimately I will say it's the following car's responsibility to make the pass cleanly.

Either way it's good to actually see the racing take centre stage.

[Maelochs]

What, no conspiracy theorist explaining how Ed Brown and ESM were "allowed" to win at their home track so Ed Brown wouldn't pull his Pátron money?

I am interested to see how the current BoP will work at Belle Isle. I think it looks pretty good—both cars make speed at different places, but both cars actually have a chance to stay in the race. We'll see.

I don't see Greg Pickett coming back this season—he'd have to undo and redo too much stuff for too little return, and as for "easily" winning the championship, let's recall that if Jordan Taylor hadn't dropped a wheel in T2 he wouldn't have run wide in T3 and he might well have won the race. And this was a track tailor-made for P2s. Wait for Belle Isle, Indy ... it looks to me that anyone can win now, and there are a lot of good teams in the series. I don't expect a lot of P2 wins ... there simply aren't a lot of P2s.

As for the broadcast ... Lots of commercials, but I didn't find it Quite as offensive as Long Beach. I wonder if TUSC sold a lot of ads for Long Beach expecting a lot of yellow, and then still had to run them?

I guess Fox is on the NASCAR ad-schedule, where so little happens so much that the ads keep the audience entertained until the last ten or twenty laps.

Anyway, I did notice that JvO in the #2 ESM got by the #5 AXR of Barbosa and Pruett int he #01 Ganassi got by too, which made we wonder if Barbosa had a moment or something ... but Fox didn't show anything up front until JvO had made the catch.

Otherwise the replay department did a real good job of keeping us apprised of all the stuff we missed during the very long commercial breaks—stuff I knew I was missing only thanks to T&S. And the director did manage to find on-track action pretty much all the time—and that was a very difficult task during the PC/GTD race.

Anyway ... I have to give TUSC a passing grade for this one. Several times they let apparently ruined cars either restart and return to the pits, or sit in safe places. There was a loose tire sitting near the entrance to the Corkscrew for at least the last quarter of the race, but since it wasn't on the usual line, it just sat there.

The officiating in terms of penalties was handled well, too. N one got away with anything egregious, but a little light contact where both parties were insisting was permitted—which seems fine. If drivers want to penalize themselves by wrecking their aero, let them. If they want to hip-check, sideswipe, all that ... park them for a while and see if they learn.

What really cracked me up was when one of the announcers talked about how the missed calls at Sebring were because of poor technology, and the series had upgraded.

Yeah, now they actually watch the videotape.

[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by Louie Loper:
"I thought he swung to the outside before the contact but I could be wrong."

Nope, you are 100 percent correct. Auberlen tried him before on the outside and feinted that way again, so Tandy moved right (to the outside) in T11 on the last lap (why he said inside ... well lots of reasons, nothing necessarily nefarious.)

Auberlen looked like he was expecting that, and was planning all along to cut back inside---there is that "One move, no reactive move" rule which sometimes gets enforced.

Tandy saw he was getting beat and braked hard, I'd say, to stuff the move. It didn't look like a tap so much as a rub---Auberlen's nose was already coming across from right to left and rubbed Tandy's rear.

Tough to call either there---particularly since Tandy did run Auberlen clear off the track the lap before.

[Disraeli Eers]

"let's recall that if Jordan Taylor hadn't dropped a wheel in T2 he wouldn't have run wide in T3 and he might well have won the race. And this was a track tailor-made for P2s"

I'm not too concerned. This was probably the 3rd best P2 today, behind #42 and #1. Granted, it was also probably the 3rd best DP behind the #90 and #5 that both had issues.

I'm extremely pleased with both races. Crucial improvements were made where they were needed, and now we can hope for this to be the standard for the rest of the calendar.

[Louie Loper]

Yep commercials were definitely better. Do wish the shortest races were a little longer tho.

[Accident]

Was a good race, and the coverage felt a lot better to me. Maybe it was just in comparison to Long Beach, but I didn't feel the commercials were really a problem here, and they did a pretty decent job of keeping us caught up after the commercial breaks.

Disappointed Risi slipped off the podium but it was good to see them have a good race. Fisichella probably could have done a better job dealing with traffic, but to be fair this is his first season sharing a track with all these guys, and it's not like he's had a whole lot of race mileage with them this year to learn who is patient and the who isn't. Kaffer did a very good job, I hope Risi bring him on board for more of the season.

I don't really have any strong feelings either way on the Auberlen vs Tandy thing. Tandy did force him off the road, and in the interview Auberlen mentioned that he got shoved off twice, so either we missed another instance or he was just making it up to the sell his side. Whether they give him a penalty or not, either is acceptable to me.

Was it a good move? No not really, but it was hard racing, and if you run a guy who is on a major tear off the track on the second to last lap, you really have to expect he's not going to be terribly friendly towards you on the last lap.

Laguna seems to sort of breed this stuff though, it's such an easy track to be defensive on, it seems that nearly every year we have people holding others up and forcing aggression out of the car behind them.

I have to admit I find it sort of amusing though... When Magnussen hit Bergmeister in 2009 there was an explosion of "OMG CORVET DRIVRS R THE MOST DIRTYEST DRIVER N TEH WERLD" comments all over forums and social media and such, but in this instance where there was bigger contact that was much more costly to the lead car, it's a comparatively tame response.

Originally Posted by Articus

Thats pretty embarrassing not to have known. Thinking to when the 20 Porsche broke a rear shock at Spa yesterday, driver reported "funny feeling", and was diagnosed in seconds.

Part of the problem in Long Beach though was that you had Cameron in the car who was new to the car, and it was a short sprint race so the team most likely would have just told him to press on anyway seeing as it wasn't a long race where they could make up any time.

[belt driven]

Originally Posted by Accident

Laguna seems to sort of breed this stuff though, it's such an easy track to be defensive on, it seems that nearly every year we have people holding others up and forcing aggression out of the car behind them.

In other words, the track brings out the best/worst in every driver.

Can anyone who ever ran a game/sim Laguna Seca honestly say they never tried a Zanardi?

[TRspitfirefan]

Well that was better!
My perspective is somewhat limited, due to not having cable.
I followed the race using live timing/onboards + MRN radio.
Looked like some good racing. BOP seems much closer, the LMP cars had a bit of a speed advantage, although the DP's are still awfully hard to get by.
Laguna is a track well suited to the more nimble sports prototypes. I expect the DP's to be pretty tough to beat at the next round.
As far as GTLM is concerned, it sounded like lots of exciting action.
I was watching the onboard of the Tandy Porsche. It looked to me as if the Porsche was blocking the BMW pretty aggressively. At one point the Beemer was pushed wide, off the circuit. I really don't think that Auberlen deserves a penalty for the last corner pass.

Overall a good race! #thefuture doesn't look quite so bleak now!

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Or are you talking about the lap before? It was aggressive but that's the racing line at the end of the day.

It's not like the 55 BMW could have lifted. They were side by side through the corner, but the 911 Porsche pushed him off the track. Then the BMW had payback at the final corner of the race.

I think that either both or none should be penalized.

[Articus]

911 Porsche penalized to 9th in class. Risi to third place. Not sure of specifics though.