Broadcast brought to you by GlacierTV.com

Broadcast brought to you by GlacierTV.com.

Broadcast brought to you by GlacierTV.com. All drivers escaped injury. Virtual mechanics not so happy!

It’s been a busy time for many of us here at TFR for the last few months, so apologies for the lack of news updates here! If anyone is interested in helping out and contributing some time to write a few news stories (even if it’s just 1 per season) for our front page – please make yourself known! Send us a PM or post on the forums, we’d really appreciate the help in keeping the site up to date.

GT1

Oliver Brandt fulfilled his potential this season, taking a well deserved GT1 drivers title ahead of TFR team driver David S Peterson. The two standout drivers from last season in the GT1 class were trading punches in the opening part of the season as David claimed victory in rounds 1, 3 and 5 and Oliver was unbeatable at rounds 2, 4 and 6. The pattern was broken when Oliver took victory at Sebring and David could only manage 4th. Consistent performances from Oliver whilst David hit trouble (despite a fantastic win from David at Silverstone) meant that Oliver wrapped up the championship after Round 11 at Mosport – taking a well deserved title and giving his nerves a rest for the final round! They didn’t have it all their own way though as Nico Brandt (no relation) won at Daytona whilst Farooq Manzar made good on amazing potential shown earlier in the season to claim victory at Phillip Island and Road Atlanta. Were it not for a costly error at Mosport where he crashed out of the lead, Farooq would have won the final 3 races of the season, so I’m sure he will go into new Summer GT SuperCup season with great momentum and some well founded hopes of challenging for the title.

The OCB Racing pairing of Christian Nüsslein and Nico Brant fought hard and clean all season, consistently finishing on or close to the podium which was enough to net them the GT1 teams title. Looking forward to next season, competition should be tighter than ever as we are joined by several new teams and drivers, among them Joni Bäckman and Tapani Linnaluoto from Glacier Racing (land of the GlacierTV.com penguins) and the newly formed ‘Alpha Team’ of Joshua Daniels and Ryan Thornton. GT SuperCup veterans David Ward and Jason Brown combine to form the new ‘Pink & Brown’ team. I shudder to think what their livery may be if they are brave enough to combine those two colours!

GT2

Kimmo Suominen took the GT2 drivers title with some superb drives, netting him the maximum possible score (200 points from 8 wins). He also joined Glacier Racing (the competitve arm of GlacierTV.com who broadcast our races) and has a new teammate for the new season in the form of Joni Hagner, a fellow Finn with a lot of GT experience and proven results, Joni has an iRating of over 5000 and a few official championships to his name. Competition is going to be tighter than ever next season since we’re also joined by Niek Versteege who finished less than 30 points behind Kimmo (1685 vs 1657) in the official Prototype & GT Challenge open series last season. For us mere mortals, podiums are going to be very hard to come by! Runner up in last season’s TFR GT SuperCup GT2 class was John Mallia, a regular and popular driver in our series who as always will be doing all he can to give the elite racers a headache. Mallia was the only person to beat Kimmo last season for a GT2 class win, except for Road America where Kimmo failed to finish through no fault of his own. One such great race between Mallia and Kimmo last season was at Road Atlanta, our final race of the season. Kimmo managed to briefly pass Mallia, but Mallia does not give up easily! It was a closely fought and exciting race, despite the fairly low turnout as many drivers chose to take some time to relax and recharge before the new season. You can view the full broadcast from Road Atlanta below.

Torque Freak Endurance drivers (Toby Bushnell and Stefan Coppens) narrowly took the GT2 teams title versus the legendary Team Shark pairing of Dave Gymer and Simon Gymer who put up a great fight all season long, the final standings were not settled until after the dust settled at Road Atlanta. Next season, the Gymer brothers are taking their reputation for clean, classy and competitive racing up to the GT1 class – where new challengers will await them!

A warm welcome to all of the new drivers that have signed up to join us for the new Summer season of the GT SuperCup!

(Most races next season in the GT SuperCup series will be broadcast live at www.GlacierTV.com from 19.30 UTC on Saturday nights)

I just updated the Championship Standings following round 6 of the series at Laguna Seca…

GT1 Drivers: Oliver Brandt regains the lead of the series standings after a troublesome round for Peterson at Laguna Seca. These two drivers have 3 wins each, with Peterson having won the odd rounds (1, 3, 5) and Brandt the even rounds (2, 4, 6). If they continue this pattern, it will be Peterson’s turn to win round 7 at Sebring (night) this weekend! David Ward occupies a solid 3rd place.

GT1 Teams: Torque Freak Racing (Peterson and McGuirk) maintain a moderate lead over Team Pseudo Racing (Hickman and Kell). OCB Racing (Nusslein and Brandt) in 3rd maintain a slim lead over the 1 man Team Pink that is David Ward.

GT2 Drivers: Suominen is dominating with 5 wins from 6 rounds! Can Mallia (currently in 2nd) or anyone else prevent Suominen from taking 8 wins and the maximum possible points haul along with the driver’s championship trophy this season? The battle for runner up spot is fierce with Mallia, previous leader Kiermeier and Veidorf separated by just 4 points. Kirsten in 5th showed great pace at Laguna Seca on his way to a season’s best 2nd place finish – definitely one to watch!

GT2 Teams: Torque Freak Endurance (Bushnell and Coppens) are tied for 1st place with Team Shark (D. Gymer and S. Gymer) – every point will count for the remaining rounds! Corse Competizione (Mallia and Venable) currently lie 3rd.

Coming up next… Round 7 of our GT SuperCup at Sebring is the first of two night time rounds for us, the latter taking place at Daytona’s Road Course. Racing in artificial light will add an extra challenge for all drivers over the next two weeks. Sebring is a long, fast, bumpy and challenging circuit with some slower technical sections which can be very costly in terms of laptime if you stray off line. The long straights at Sebring should make it one of the easiest circuits in terms of GT1s finding their way past GT2s but don’t expect a dull race as the super final and 1st corners at Sebring meaning that going two or three wide is viable, with good spatial awareness.

Will the pattern of the season so far repeat itself with Peterson taking the win? Can anything but a pit-stop or traffic mishap prevent Suominen from taking win number 6 of his season so far? Be there and be a part of the action!

If you’re not taking part, check out our LIVE broadcast of the race (with commentary, stats and analysis) via GlacierTV.com on Saturday from 20:25 GMT

Tune in LIVE for round 4/12 of our GT SuperCup from 20:25 GMT tonight, Saturday 25th February.
Watch live by clicking on “Media” -> “TFR TV” from the navigation bar above or watch directly on www.glaciertv.com.
Commentary will be provided by our comedy duo of Wil Vincent (the one that sounds a bit like Dermot O’Leary) and Rob Sutherland.

GT1 class preview
TFR team driver and last season’s GT1 drivers champion David S Peterson leads the drivers championship standings by 5 points from the hard charging Oliver Brandt, but as is often the case, David’s prediction for the race is more cautious than bullish: “I doubt I’ll have a repeat of running away from the field here. Mid-Ohio is a track that I love, but historically I just haven’t been all that fast.” David Ward currently lies in 3rd place in the GT1 drivers standings, his speed and confidence in the car continues to grow with every race and he has a great track record of battling with Peterson in the races after some relatively disappointing qualifying performances. The race is a long one, 90 minutes around this half and half circuit which is very high speed to start the lap and very twisting and undulating to complete the lap. Who’d bet against David Ward getting himself in the mix again this weekend? You can once again expect a closely fought battle throughout the field. The spirit is one of friendly competition, with last season’s GT2 champion Gary Hickman confessing he was struggling under braking (crucial at Mid-Ohio) since his move to the Corvette but Peterson did not hesitate to share some pointers and suggestions to aid his competitor.

Elsewhere in the TFR GT1 camp, 4th placed in the drivers championship, Ian Rogers will be looking for another great result after finishing 8th, 6th and 5th in the first 3 races. Ian’s solid pace, consistency and ability to keep out of trouble have made him a tough competitor to beat on the fringes of the podium places. John Moloney has shown great pace already this season with pole position at Road America and a podium finish, but he’s struggled for consistency so far and opted to run some other cars this season in the official series this week rather than continuing to bang his head against the wall. We’ve all been there, haven’t we! Karl McGuirk took positives from an encouraging showing at Suzuka, qualifying on P2 and finishing 7th after struggling to negotiate traffic on the narrow pressure cooker of a circuit. We don’t doubt that his confidence and consistency will improve as he continues to get used to his new rig which has granted him a much improved frame rate – which kind of helps!

Simon Roberts is likely to be on new-father duty this Saturday but I’m sure he’ll be tuning in, enjoying the broadcast and keeping our commentary team on their toes via Twitter on #tfrsupercup

David S Peterson drove way into the distance at Suzuka. Will he have it all his own way at Mid-Ohio this week?

GT2 class preview
Kimmo Suominen continues to be the class of the GT2 field but with drivers like Erik Veidorf, Peter Kiermeier, Toby Bushnell, John Mallia, Wiktor Bubniak, Daniel Kirsten, David Jordan and Daniel Arent Wensing all looking to deny him the win, Kimmo may feel like a hunted man and the competition from the chasing pack will be as fierce as ever. Getting to the top is one thing, staying there is quite another, but I have no doubt Kimmo will rise to the challenge with his usual cocktail of blistering speed, car control and class. Being compliant with faster lapping GT1 cars without giving away too much time will be absolutely crucial. Close battles between Suominen, Veidorf and Mallia in particular during this week’s official series races have shown that Kimmo should not have it all his own way and any mistakes may prove costly. TFR team drivers Mark Bird and Stefan Coppens have found themselves in the heart of the mid field so far this season, not quite showing the pace required to match the top 5 on pace alone but none the less finishing solidly, collecting good points and putting themselves in the perfect position to capitalise on any mistakes from the drivers ahead. Both drivers have their heads down and are focussing on finding that extra bit of pace. As with all forms of motorsport, your competitors are doing the same thing to try to ascend the running order, so taking the next step is no easy feat in such a large and close field!

If I had to pick one driver to take a ‘surprise’ win this week in the GT2 class it would be John Mallia, who finished 2nd in the drivers standings last season after a great close battle at the season finale with Gary Hickman. Mallia’s 5th place in the current standings is not representative of his true pace, he finished 2nd at the opening round behind Kimmo, had to miss the Road America race and drove through to finish 5th from the very back of the field at Suzuka of all places after just missing qualifying due to the iRacing Daytona 2.4 hours world tour event. Definitely one to watch out for, for GT2 drivers and onlookers alike!

Whether you’re driving, watching or just keeping tabs on us and watching the broadcast after the race, we hope you enjoy a great race with us this Saturday at Mid-Ohio.

(Report by Toby Bushnell)