DGFX Round 1 - Interlagos

It’s a beautiful Saturday AM and I’m busy taking care of my honey-do list when I get a DGFX email saying: “Good luck to whoever decides to participate... I don’t even want to race today and I’m not sure I even want to continue in the series with the way people are driving in the warmup! This is the worst possible track for 3 classes with such disparate lap times, with no understanding of how the classes can work together properly! GT's racing with HPDs to the apex or outbraking them because the HPD is off line in heavy braking zones; GTC's tracking all the way across the track because, ‘they need the whole track’!” It was one of those “oh crap” moments!

So, I decided to jump on TeamSpeak and check out the broadcast to see what was going on. I missed the start, but what I witnessed was a fairly horrific scene with 60 cars tightly packed into Interlagos running 2-wide around the entire track! Drivers couldn't even do pace laps without hitting each other. In a word…this race was horrible. I couldn’t even imagine trying to navigate that mess. Regardless though, our mates had no choice but to get to it and race the first round of the DGFX Series. As always, this Race Report wouldn’t be possible without their input and pictures, which are always appreciated. Thanks Andy, JC, Shane, Clark, Russell, and German – way to persevere guys…

Mercedes AMG GT3 – Team Blue:

GT3 Team Blue (Andy and JC) stopped early, got off strategy, worked their way up to 6th in class, then they got a penalty for hitting a Porsche that locked up the breaks in T1 but, it admitted fault in the unfortunate situation, took the

penalty, and persevered. From there, it got a little worse on their first pit stop as they blew past their pit stall, which was the 1st one on pit road, then had to limp around short shifting with only 0.7 laps of fuel, but… made it back to pits! Shortly thereafter though, they got taken out by a Porsche who lost it over the curbs at the exit of the Senna Esses and essentially ended their race. They finished P16.

Mercedes AMG GT3 – Team Red:

GT3 Team Red (Shane and Clark) got off to a rough start when Shane’s nVidia 980 Ti display port outputs stopped working 20 minutes before the race, but their race started smoothly.

After qualifying 9th in GT3, we had worked our way up to 4th place by the end of the first hour and were running about 8 seconds behind the class leader in a tight group with 2nd and 3rd place. They were FLYING (literally) and the track seemed to be coming to their setup as the run continued, but on L29 exiting T3, they moved to the inside to overtake a Porsche GTC car and looked to have the pass completed cleanly when the Porsche nailed the right rear corner of their car. The impacted caused total loss of control and the driver side made heavy impact with the outside tirewall.

They towed to the pits and after 17 minutes of repairs, were was able to get the car back on track. After a few laps coming to grips with the damaged car, they was able to get back within a second of their practice pace. Unfortunately Shane, driving with only the single monitor, came together with another GTC car exiting T3 ending their day. The stewards penalized the Porsche for avoidable contact, but what started with completive pace ended in tears and a ruined Mercedes; they finished P17.

HPD ARX - Team Purple:

HPD Team Purple (Russell and German) qualified P12 and after a clean start were running comfortably in P11. Unfortunately, during a safety car period they got hit in the rear in a chain-reaction incident when the car in front of them came to a near stop. The incident caused damage to the rear and they lost a lot of downforce making the HPD nearly undrivable. With no choice, they pitted the car but their normally faithful crew couldn’t fully repair the car without losing a lap to the leaders. So, they left the pits a little early and a still had a very loose, but drivable HPD.

Luckily, just as the leader was about to pass them on the track a yellow flag was thrown which allowed us to circle back around catching the back of the field. At that point, they put their heads down and started recovering the lost ground and just when they needed to stop for fuel and tires, a competition yellow was thrown while we were in P4. Soon thereafter, another yellow was thrown and on the restart they lost control of the car in T1 after a close encounter with another driver, then got hit by another car. Undaunted by the incident and 8 minutes of repairs, they preserved and finished the race P13.

I not sure our team’s might say they’re looking forward to the Nurburgring, but it is a fun track, but racing there may not be so much fun, but they will have a LOT more space to contest the Second Round of the DGFX Series.