Round 14 - Spain (Barcelona)

Qualifying

 1. Robert Schaftlein   SpeedBird               1m 12.751s
 2. Rob Buis            The Flying Dutchmen     1m 12.877s
 3. Grant Reeve         Omega Fusion            1m 13.054s
    Rene Smit           Omega Fusion            1m 13.054s
 5. Claudio Di Martino  DiMa Bros               1m 13.650s
 6. Oliver Roberts      Team Analogistix        1m 13.760s
 7. Mathias Kegelmann   SpeedBird               1m 14.576s
 8. Daniele Di Martino  DiMa Bros               1m 14.617s
 9. Axel Bruns          SpeedGroup              1m 15.619s

Race (wet) - 65 Laps

 1. Rob Buis            The Flying Dutchmen     1h 43m 50.376s     20
 2. Rene Smit           Omega Fusion            1h 44m 09.847s     16
 3. Robert Schaftlein   SpeedBird               1h 44m 23.623s     12+1
 4. Oliver Roberts      Team Analogistix        1h 45m 00.690s     10
 5. Axel Bruns          SpeedGroup              1h 46m 30.554s      8
 6. Claudio Di Martino  DiMa Bros                   -1 lap          6
 7. Daniele Di Martino  DiMa Bros                   -2 laps         4
 8. Grant Reeve         Omega Fusion                44 laps         3
 9. David Shaw          Wreckage Inc.                9 laps         2
10. Mathias Kegelmann   SpeedBird                    0 laps         1
After a brief (well, not so brief really :-) lapse in the race reports they're back. This was mainly due to the massive increase in workload that I've had to deal with since the second term started. Everything's sort of back to normal now, I might even find time to race in Australia. :)

It seems that most people have finally got the hang of racing in the wet, with 7 competitors still running at the end of the race. Not really a lot to report as the races themselves were uneventful. Mathias was the first come unstuck due to the wet conditions, running wide on the first corner. He managed to get back onto the racing line, but was taken out by Nigel Mansell. This is bad luck for him as he badly needed a good finish to stay in the close battle for second in the championship. Grant was another non-finisher as he span off at the 2nd gear right hander 25 seconds into the lap and was collected by another car as it zoomed by. Everyone who stayed in the race had problems keeping the very fast computer cars behind them, and lots of blocking tactics were employed to achive this. Unfortunately it was necessary to block for almost the entire race, and I wonder how much time was lost by having to block and being buffetted around by anxious computer drivers trying to get past.

Lot's of people have commented that racing in the wet is nasty. Even when you don't have to spend the whole race weaving about trying to keep the ultra fast computer cars behind you. :) Someone suggested that we scrap wet races altogether and as things stand at the moment I think that this isn't too bad an idea. At least the number of wet races should be reduced. Grant has suggested that a special WET datafile would be better, and this sounds like a good solution. What do you guys think?

Well, it's taken me a long time to get around to saying it, but it looks like Rob Buis has got this year's championship in the bag. Both of them too. Single handed! Rather amazing really, considering that he's taken on probably the best F1GP players in the world and literaly just walked away with it. Some have come close, notably Mark Wendt and Rene Smit, but no-one has ever really challenged him. With twice as many points as any other competitor RB has simply achived the biggest coup in Internet F1GP history. Maybe next championship someone will get close enough to worry the champion. Maybe the top two men from last year will come out of retirement to rise to the challenge set before them. Maybe it was all a dream (or nightmare? :-). We shall see. But the question of the moment is: Who's going to be second?