The competition in the 2005 Sim Challenge F1c league has been super fierce. Qualifying attendances see nearly double the drivers trying to race than in the 2004 season. Wayne has found himself in unfamiliar territory, as his lack of practise sees him nearer the lower end of the qualifiers. An excellent 5th place at Melbourne has been the only points scoring finish in this year's season thus far. A dedicated effort meant Wayne qualified for the Spanish GP in a more respectable 12th place. Needless to say, John Harrison has not even attempted to qualify for these first few races, there being little point. He attempted a couple of stints for the upcoming Spain GP, but his 1.16 was 4 seconds off pole and he ended up in 23rd position. More effort is required to make even the lower portion of the grid at Monaco.

Click here for the results page.

Over to Dave:

"...Quite an eventful race when it eventually got underway. My qualifying time was poor but I was still in the top 10 which I’m relatively happy with considering the quality of the field. After only a few laps it was quite clear that staying out of trouble was going to ensure me a good finishing position as they were dropping like flies. On lap 9 I was up to 4th but it was short lived as a recovering Caspar Kahari regained the position. I pitted on lap 22, I hadn’t tried to pit before and did it show – lost a ridiculous amount of time faffing about and to top-it-all I went into the sand in on my out lap. After recovering I found myself in 6th and a lap down to the leader. When I discovered that Kieron Peace, who was running in the 5th, was only a sec up the road I went about my challenge and got passed at Les Combes, on lap 29, after a good battle. I shouldn’t have bothered as Kieron Peace hadn’t pitted but I wasn’t aware at the time and didn’t want to miss the opportunity. I crossed the line in 5th behind Team Redline’s Rich Towler and G.Huttu; Arkadiusz Polok and Caspar Kahari. There were a few areas of my performance that I wasn’t happy with but I would have been delighted with 5th before the race so I can’t complain.

Click here for the full race analysis.

We managed to calm Dave down enough to talk us through this historic race:

"...Bit of a dream result but I have to admit that fortune was on my side. An ok(ish) qualification lap put me in the top half of the grid which was promising. The first lap was uneventful but the same couldn’t be said about lap 2. I managed to regain 7th from J Roberts when he went in too deep at the hairpin and then made a further 3 positions at the very next set of corners where there was an incident between a couple of loti and an eagle. So starting the 3rd lap I was lying 4th in close pursuit of the guys in front. The positions stayed the same until around lap 8 when Nev’s Ferrari started to have engine problems and I was promoted to 3rd which became 2nd when I passed Steve’s Cooper at Sear’s on lap 13. Second was short lived as the recovering Nathan was flying and he got me out of the hairpin. I then dropped a further position when I pitted for fuel on lap 23. I was beginning to settle for 4th when I saw Steve recovering from an off and found myself on 3rd. I settled into a comfortable pace to make sure I didn’t throw away a possible podium finish. Then on lap 36 I saw Jernej Zorec’s lotus stuck on the banking at Sear’s - I just couldn’t believe my luck. I crossed the finishing line 7 laps later to take 2nd behind Nathan not realising that I would later be awarded the WIN on a technicality!

Click here for the full race analysis.

Chris Phillips retired on lap 6 for reasons as yet unknown, Paul McCluskey retired on lap 10 due to the game retiring him for being still in the pits for too long. He was in 7th position at the time!! John Harrison plodded along and finished 11th in his first outing in the UKGPL league.

A fuller report will follow...

Click here for the full race analysis.

Dave talked about his amazing recovery:

"...My BRM went quite well in qualifying and ended up ahead of the Cooper’s, Honda’s, the other BRM’s and a couple of Ferrari’s. I decided to go for the no-pit-stop route and filled it with 51 laps worth of fuel in the hope it would be enough. My plan was to just keep out of trouble and to see how things panned out after the pit stops.

My strategy of staying out of trouble lasted all the way to lap 2...Ralph Maiph got a better run out of T2 and was alongside me for T3. I thought he was through but as I turned in, to take the corner, my front and his rear wheels touched flinging me up the banking - fortunately, Ralph was unaffected by the touch - I rolled down the banking and back onto the grass verge where I trundled along as the others car shot by apart from Aidan Harrison who, unluckily, ran into the back of me. My suspension was broken forcing me to do a stop n’ go. After which I found myself adrift, in last – later I discovered that I had lost 40+ secs and the leaders were coming out of the last turn whilst I was entering T1!

I plodded along for the rest of the race lapping pretty consistently. Staying out of the way of anything fast and trouble and I found myself 4th with Michael Wrightson’s Honda just up the road. We had a good battle for quite a few laps but, as Michael said, a slight error in the last turn allowed me the draft I need for the T1 dive. Podium finish after the disaster of lap 2 – chuffed to bits! "

Click here for the full race analysis.

Another race with both John Harrison and Wayne failing to finish meant that Rel-Scot Racing ended the season in 6th place. Wayne took the individual honours finishing 9th out of 40 drivers in the Drivers' Championship.

Rel-Scot 2 ended 7th in the team standings from only a limited number of appearances from Chris Phillips and Omar Cappelli. Rel-Scot Racing is gaining recognition in the sim racing world!

See the F1C Sim-Challenge results page for details.

Frustrations early on for both drivers meant that unusually at first, Wayne was well off the pace. It took some setup tweaks to bring the times up to a respectable level. This also helped John find some pace for this the final race of the 2004 season.

The team would like to congratulate Christian Neumann in winning the Drivers' Title, and Netrex GP, who secured the Constructors' Championship. The race to secure 5th place is still wide open, with only one point separating Rel-Scot and Da Silva racing.

See the F1C Sim-Challenge results page for details.

Both Wayne Vickery and John Harrison were reasonably confident going into the penultimate race of the Sim Challenge season. However a loss of connection (thanks BT :-() meant neither of them were able to complete the race.

Luckily for the team, Da Silva's Dennis Hirrle did not finish either and Dominic Binz and Jorge Alamanza did not attend the race, so the points positions remain static. However with so few points left to score, it looks like Mayence F1 are secure in 4th position in the table.

See the F1C Sim-Challenge results page for details.

Over to Dave:

"...I actually set the Pau BRM WR a few weeks ago, during the B.R.E.A.S.T.S. weekly fun race, but didn’t realise the lap was what it is until I stumbled upon the GPLRank’s request for the lap to be uploaded. Pau is one of only 37 tracks (out of the hundreds for GPL) that are verified by the GPLRank admins making it that bit more special."

A replay of Dave's lap is available for download on Dave's profile page.