Archive for March, 2010

Behind The Scenes is all about the people behind the visors. What are they doing and what do they like or dislike are the main questions for this section. For the first issue we sat down on the paddock in Malaysia with Stuart Fields, one of GPO’s multitasking men with some questions. In this article we get to know a little about the man Stuart Fields and his views on certain matters withing his GPO staff role, his team principle role and as a driver.

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After the Australian Grandprix, the three podium finishers joined the press in the post race press conference.  First place finisher David Dominguez of GRIDline Racing UK, second place finisher Redspeed GrandPrix’s Muhammed Patel,and third place finisher, Rothmans Canon Racing’s 3 team driver Drazen Cokor.

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After 29 laps of intense battling and overtaking moves, here we have the three podium finishers for the press-conference . Race winner Redspeed’s Robin van Brenk, second place finisher of GRIDline Racing Nick Oldenhuis and third place finisher Malcolm Rice, driver and team owner of Rice Racing.

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Round 2 of GP-O’s inaugural season ready and set for a showdown. With just under 5 hours to go, a few remaining drivers are now gracing the land of the wallabies with their presence.Some chose to hang back to enjoy the luxuries of the gulf in Bahrain and have been spotted making their way off their chartered carriers. With the current £40 million budget cap imposed by the FIA, we’re seeing fewer G5s arriving at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.

The man to beat from Round 1, Jan-Moritz Kammann, managed to edge Williamson Dynamics GP’s Camilo Nino off the leader board earlier in the week only to see GRIDline UK tear that sheet up into shreds. Lukas Euler sits more than half second clear of teammate David Dominguez hanging on to a one-hundredth of a second lead over the current points leader. We wait to see what last minute changes will surface and if these guys can find some more pace before qualification.

The GPO-O Sprint series drivers are simply bidding their time now, waiting to jump on the circuit as soon as the post-race celebrations end. In a quick chat with one of the crew members sporting a suit clad in BackMarkerBrigade colours, he mentioned that PSRTV’s coverage of the Challenge race will be an eye-opener in picking up the parts of the track where to really push the car and find the difficult overtaking spots.

After such a great opening performance by all GP-O teams in the maiden round, the atmosphere is simply ecstatic. Large numbers of visitors have dropped by to say congratulations to the guys in Melbourne, and the enormous quantity of fantastic feedback online, confirms the exciting growth of GP-O amongst the F1 circles. Jet-lagged crews tweaking cars for optimum performance, all the while adjusting to the 10-hour time difference did not make anyone available for some good interviews, but expect a few words after qualifying. I did grab a quick chat with Sven Hesse of RedSpeed Grand Prix who had noticed some of the new drivers joining the line-up. “I know some of these guys, and they are crazy quick”, he said “expect some really good battles on the track.

So Albert Park, GP-O is here. The track itself, set in mown parkland, is easy to walk around so anyone with general admission will have a blast of a weekend. Those in the grandstands will also be but be caught with gleaming faces at the beginning and end of each lap. Heading back down to the paddocks from my room at the Crown Towers with stunning views of Port Philip Bay to get ready, I’m giddy with bounce and ebullience: 2 races, 2 championships, 2 electrifying days of fun… get ready to go racing!

-reporting from the grid, this has been EB with ‘GP Inside’

Check out Episode 3 of CrashcastFM over at CockpitFM.net. This episode features an interview with Keith Barrick, league owner of the American Touring Car Championship.

Simon Smith and Maurice Zondag pose the questions and bring you more news from the world of sim-racing.

At GPO we are constantly searching for new ways to improve the service we can provide, thanks to one of the latest applications developed for the iPhone by Oscar Martin we are now able to provide live timing direct to your iPhone.

To access the new service you must go to the App Store on your device and search for “LiveFactor”. The App costs just £0.59, all proceeds go to the developer in order to fund the LiveFactor servers.

Once you have the application installed on your device simply open the application. In the search bar at the top, input “Grand Prix Online”. Our server is the only one on the list at this time, simply select our server and you will be presented with a box asking for a password, unfortunately we are required to use a password so we have set it as “gpo”; something that is easy to remember for everyone. The application will then connect and you can enjoy GPO live timing on your iPhone.

The application provides session data, driver names and split times aswell as a lot of other information as you can see in the screenshots attached to this post. The best part about this application is that it means the live timing can be accessed anywhere, even when you are out and about.

After an eventfull race in Bahrain, where Kammann and Rice took the first wins in the Challenge and Sprint series, the field now gets ready for round two of the championship. And what a venue this is promising to get.

The Track

Traditionally the Australian Grand Prix was the season opener of the Formula 1. This year however, the first venue was in the desert of Bahrain.
The semi-street circuit in Melbourne, running besides a big lake, is 5.303 meters long and counts sixteen corners. Ten of them turn right, leaving 6 left handed corners.
The Challenge series will run 58 laps, the sprint series will do 29. Qualifying starts at 19:45 GMT on Saturday for the Challenge series, race start is scheduled at 20:30 GMT.
The Sprint series will race Sundays, where qualifying starts at 10:00 GMT, the race will go green at 10:45 GMT.

The Race

There are quite a few drivers looking for the win in Australia. Some of them had a disappointing race in Bahrein, like Camillo Nino who struggled a lot during the race. Others are looking to match their result
in Australia. Drazen Cokor for example found himself on the second spot on the podium last race, sure a place he didn’t expect to be in on forehand. Kammann however is looking to expand his lead by winning his second Grand Prix this season.

In the Sprint series Malcolm Rice is the man to beat. After a stunning drive in Bahrain, his main contenders are looking to finish in front of him, making sure he doesn’t increase his lead over 2nd place man Nick Oldenhuis and third place finisher Michael Pieneman. Ed Wiliams however is looking for his first finish of the season, after showing great driving in Bahrain, where he got into an accident and unfortunately had to retire.

Make sure you tune in to PSRTV this Saturday to follow the race LIVE.

The broadcast starts at 19:45 GMT.

Don’t miss it!

With the teams now preparing for the tough streets of Melbourne, GPO hits round two of its inaugral sim racing season. With both Challenge and Sprint series’ seeing dominant wins, everyone will be eager to show that no one will be having it all their own way in 2010. You can catch the GPO Challenge qualifying and race live on PSRTV this saturday from 19:45 GMT (race kicks off 20:30). Bring you drinks and snacks and be prepared to cheer on your favourite driver!

Albert Park is the place for the race, GPO is the race in your own place!

Jan-Moritz Kammann took a dominant win in GPO’s inaugral Bahrain GP in the main challenge event on Saturday. Kammann won by 30 seconds from Drazon Cokor and Stuart Fields snuck home in third.

The stage was set for a dramatic opener around the newly redesigned Bahraini circuit and with Kammann on pole with Camilo Nino alongside it was looking set for an almight duel. The midfield looked particularly tight with 5th Jody Fannin to Brian Oates 14th seperated by just 0.7 of a second.

However on the off it was all to come crashing down for Nino. Who touched who didn’t matter but Nino’s hopes of victory were out the window and onto the dirt track, along with Rothmans duo Graham Dickinson and the perennially unlucky Keith Doherty, who were both caught up in the melee and was out. Also joining them on the sidelines would be Rizwan Sarwar & Sven Smits for European F1 and Jordon Norwood for Deletraz BMB. 5 down, 17 remaining.

Next to go would be Heniz Vanderhoydonck from accident damage and then Erik Brodan for Redspeed Sweeden would follow suit, although he had looked uncomfortable all weekend. He would quickly be joined in the sand traps by his teammate Fredrick Arbegard with an uncharacteristic DNF.

However as they went off two by two, Jan-Moritz Kammann was going from strength to strength and was busy dragging teammate Mikael Folcher along for the ride as the two battled hard for the lead for Millenium Racing. Third was a delighted Mihajlo Vicentijevic however he too would over do it and crash out – the new section proving extra tricky for the drivers. This allowed Drazon Cokor into third with Ari Kesseli and Stuart Fields having a ding-dong battle over fourth and fifth.

Furtherback more action was unfolding as Benjamin Chong recovered from earlier drama’s to overtake first Erick Davis, then Brian Oates and finally Jody Fannin to find himself back in the points. He shouldn’t have worried however…

Ben Ross had retired with technical difficulties for OrangeTech before teammate Brian Cowley, new to this type of racing found  himself a working experiment that tarmac is better than gravel! With both OrangeTech’s out, it was a bad day for Williamson Dynamic related teams with Camilo Nino finally ending what had been a miserable day in the wall too. He had been suffering from food poisoning and one had hoped he’d not done a Mark Webber…

Up front however Kammann remained unfazed even with Michael Folcher refusing to let up. The pair had opened a massive gap over the battling Kesseli and Fields and it was heading for a great show down. Folcher was one stopping and Kammann was two. Kammann came in for his second but had not pulled out enough of a gap and Folcher retook the lead. It was going to have to be decided on the track… that was until Michael Folcher suffered terrible luck and retired due to technical difficulties! What rotten luck.

Jan breathed a sigh of relief and then gave us the fastest lap for good measure before crossing the line to win the Bahrain GP. Drazen Cokor stayed out of trouble to claim an impressive second while in the last few laps Fields dived passed Kesseli taking third away from the Finn and giving GRIDLine a third podium slot in the weekend.

Jamie Rush had been quiet most of the race but came home a well deserved fifth ahead of Benjamin Chong who recovered to sixth despite many problems early on. Jody Fannin came home seventh meaning R&S Motorsports were the only team to get a double finish and points for both. Brian Oates gave his usual steady and dependable performance to claim eighth and some valuable points early on while the final finisher was Erick Davis after three stops and being lapped four times.

So Jan has laid the gauntlet down for everyone at Melbourne and it will be interesting to see how everyone, especially teammate Folcher, will react. As a great lyric once said “Kammann if you think you’re hard enough!”

Malcolm Rice took the win in the inaugral GPO Sprint Bahrain Grand Prix. Nick Oldenhuis came home a fighting second with Michael Pieneman rounding off the podium finishers in third.

The newly created Sprint series, which takes place on Sunday mornings (GMT), saw 15 eager drivers on the grid ready to impress and Rice, in his own car, coverted his pole position to the lead down into turn 1 while behind, Oldenhuis battled for second with Rothmans Racing’s Ed Williams, the pair swapping positions constantly. This allowed Malcolm Rice to pull out a small lead, until Ed Williams crashed out on lap 9 of the race trying to keep up with Oldenhuis’ new GRIDline Racing car. This allowed Pieneman into the final podium slot.

Behind the lead three, an almight battle over the rest of points finishers was keeping everyones attention. Jermaine Venhorst had avoided some turn 1 jockeying to take fourth and was holding up Craig Johnston, Simon Smith, Maurice Willems and Ken Hunter. Hunter would lose control of his Rothmans on lap 3 taking himself out of the equasion, which then allowed Willems in his his BackMarker Brigade DNQ to attack his sister car stablemate Simon Smith, however an ill planned move lost Willems his front wing in the final corner and so he was in for an early pitstop. This then proved to be a blessing in disguise for Maurice as after dispatching Emmanuel Baako and Patrick Wier, he ran in clear air for the rest of the race, gaining time on the position swapping fest that was Venhorst, Johnston and Smith.

By the time everyone had pitted, Rice had opened up a good 15 seconds over Oldenhuis and over fourty seconds on a lonely Pieneman in the second GRIDline. The battles behind had not quite finished however as Smith, who’d lost out in the stops dispatched Venhorst for fifth and closed down Willems quickly only to have a costly spin in the closing laps and hault his charge. Further back we’d lost Flavio Nobrega from a points scoring position and also Emmanuel Baako who’d worked his way to 9th when he retired his Deletraz in the barriers. The other retirement was Myles Dixon who suffered a screen freeze and by the time the game returned, he was already missing some vital pieces of his car!

Malcolm Rice took a comanding win with a lights to flag victory and fastest lap for good measure – a fantastic achievement for Rice Racing and a race that will go down in history as the first ever GPO Sprint event. Oldenhuis and Pieneman make sure GRIDline take the constructors lead with second and third overall and team boss Stuart Fields will be delighted with that.

Behind Willems takes a delighted fourth ahead of a stunned Simon Smith grabbing one of best finishes in his sim racing career to date. Patrick Wier took sixth after a determined drive and playing catch up after a cautious start, however his end lap times were on pace with those in front. Jermaine Venhorst was demoted to seventh after two drive throughs in the closing stages for ignoring blue flags, marring what was a stiring drive for RedSpeed. Craig Johnston came home ninth after a lengthy pitstop to repair damage following an off whilst James Scanlan improved his pace over the course of the race to claim ninth and Lee Massey grabbed the final point with a dogged drive to 10th depsite being significantly down on pace.

GPO’s inaugural race at Bahrain’s 2010 new layout, will be fuse two new designs and both will be broadcasted for the first time in Sim Racing history live on PSRTV. You’re commentators for this exciting event will be the much loved Michael Lam, technical minded Phil Roberts and highly respected driver Nick Rowland.

The event will kick off at 19:30 GMT where you get to experience the battle to qualify for the grid before the race itself gets underway around 20:30 GMT.

Who will win the first ever GPO race? Tune in and find out – only with PSRTV!

Check out Episode 2 of CrashcastFM over at CockpitFM.net. This episode features an interview with GPO’s very own Creative Director and race driver Stuart Fields.

Simon Smith and Maurice Zondag pose the questions and bring you more news from the world of sim-racing.

Round 01 of Grand Prix Online kicks off this weekend in the desert with two races around the Sakhir Circuit in Bahrain.

GPO Challenge kicks off on Saturday evening with a 49 lap event followed by the GPO Sprint Series on Sunday morning with a 25 lap race.

Grand Prix Online has managed to secure the rights to run the 2010 F1 configuration of Bahrain so be sure to tune into PSRTV on Saturday evening for the opening race of the 2010 Season.

Following the creation of GPO back in January we never considered the option of having live broadcasts of our races so early on in our existence.

Fortunately, everything we have done so far has gone ahead incredibly smoothly. Everything has turned out to be much better than we expected, however the biggest coup is that we have managed to gain access to the PSRTV beta program.

This fantastic opportunity to participate in this beta program enables us to be able to broadcast the opening round of the GPO Challenge Championship in Bahrain Live on PSRTV next Saturday. At this point in time the Bahrain event is the only confirmed broadcast but we are busy in negotiations with PSRTV in order to extend this to a whole season of racing.

Following this great news, we have worked towards gaining a team of commentators to provide an enjoyable commentary. We have been fortunate enough to have secured the services of three of the best commentators in the sim-racing community.

You will all be familiar with Michael Lam; he is one of the most experienced sim-racing commentators around. Michael has commentated on a number of series including FSR, GRC, SSCA and the Simtona 500. More recently Michael has been focusing his commentary skills on the many iRacing events that PSRTV cover.

Phil Roberts will be working alongside Michael in the booth, Phil began his commentary career as a pit reporter during the FSR 2009 season, he made the move into the booth at the Spanish Grand Prix when he was promoted to work alongside Michael. As with Michael, Phil has commentated on GRC events in the past and has taken a leading role on many occasions.

Finally, we have secured the services of Nick Rowland. Nick is the most experienced racer of the trio and will bring a racers view to the booth. Nick, as with Michael and Phil, commentated on FSR 2009. He was the lead commentator in a number of the broadcasts as well as working alongside Michael and Phil on a number of occasions.

We are all raring to go at Bahrain for the first round of the Championship in just under a week. With a high quality broadcast alongside a trio of the best commentators in sim-racing we are all in for a treat.

Make sure you tune into PSRTV next Saturday to catch the opening round of the GPO Challenge 2010 Championship.

In order to view the scheduled dates for each event, please click the “Calendar” button at the top of this page.