Tiger Express is involved in this Summer’s main LFS endurance league, the International GT Championship. For its fifth season, the league managed to attract a very appealing field, with former champions CoRe Racing, spdo Racing and Conquest Racing coming back, and defending against some of simracing’s finest teams(such as My3id Gaming, ineX Racing, Sonicrealms Racing or RaceStar ConverTTable), trying to gain their first crown. This season will be the shortest of the IGTC history, with 4 races of 4 hour each, all on open configuration tracks.

TEM has had a decent first season half. Round 1 at Kyoto International Reversed saw David Jundt and Yann Laprevotte finish in 13th out of 30 in their FXR. Round 2 was even better, with Karl Raudsepp and Yann making it to the top 10(9th/25) in the 4 wheel drive friendly Fern bay Classic(FE25), despite some heavy suspension damage in the third stint.

Also note the usage of special skins: a slightly tweaked Earthdreams based livery at round 1, which became quite an habit for the team in endurance Kyoto races, in tribute of their GTAL debuts back in late 2009. Round 2 saw a much darker livery, with Leucats on the sides of the car.

At the standings, TEM lies in 10th, and hope to stay in the top 10 until the end of the season, something the team has come so close to last year. Favorites ineX Racing tops the chart, after a win at round 1(despite a rather controversial last lap clash with My3id), and a second place behind ineX Racing 2 at round 2. Surprising FXR squad Sonicrealms Racing #2 is second, with My3id Gaming in third.

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Standings | Round 1 and Round 2 pictures by Andris Pavars

Andris, 18, has been around for quite a while in the LFS community. He is the former founder and manager of international Latvia-based 4 Stroke Racing, which collapsed in early 2010. He has a rather big experience in league racing, including races in top-level competitions such as LFS Pro Series, GT Series, Apex Cup, iTCC, or IGTC. He is also the manager of the Baltic Cup, and the LFS Photomode Competition, in which he is also showing his pic editing skills – which you can have a small overview with this article’s picture. Also, for the record, Andris is one of the very few(and perhaps the only one at this moment) keyboard racers holding an LFS World Record.

This new recruit makes two Baltic racers in TEM’s roster, after long time Estonian member Karl “TypeRacing” Raudsepp.

TEM got 8th in 2011 GTAL, after going not so far from the title in a mega close season. 7th in class in the prestigious Masters of Endurance, with a maiden podium as a bonus. A double crown(drivers champ’ and GT500 teams’ championship) in LFSES, a league that unfortunately suffered massively from interrest drops.

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Grand Touring Amateur League – Rounds 6 and 7

Last website update on GTAL came after round 5(out of 7), in which Oskari Rinne and Yann Laprevotte took a well deserved podium. Round 6, the 6 Hours of Kyoto GP Long was set to be a much harder round, due to its very FXR-unfriendly nature. Especially since the one-off Earthdreams-Leucat livery didn’t give luck to the Osku-Yann duo in qualifying, with a very poor 24th place due to a roll in the second session. No fear, however. Osku and Yann managed to pull a classic charge through the field, greatly helped by a spot-on-strategy. The TEM car eventually climbed from 24th to 4th, and finished only a few seconds from the mpower-DRUNK Team group fighting for 2nd. Some disappointment for the squad however, as second place was clearly possible without a pop-up occuring in the 5th stint. Still, this was probably TEM’s best ever GTAL performance at this date. You can read a detailed review of that race in Osku’s and Yann’s posts on LFS Forum.

Tiger Express came to the final round(12 Hours of Blackwood GP) 7th at the championship, with a mathematical – but very tiny – title chance. However, the main aim was to get a championship top 5. This time, the Yann-Oskari duet was completed by new recruits Chris Vourliotis(doing his first ever endurance race) and David Jundt. All was looking good during the first two stint, with Chris holding a bottom top 10 position, until the Greek’s PC crashed just before the two hours mark. TEM lost 3 laps in the incident, and rejoined near last position. A great shame, as the team had pace, which is what Yann proved right afterwards, following the leaders’ pack and unlapping himself for a few laps in his first stints. The team still managed to climbed to 12th, greatly helped by the huge amount of incidents occuring in that race. Not enough to satisfy the team however, as a position between 6th and 8th was possible without the PC crash.

Tommy Ostgaard’s Team Identity took the championship with a very small margin on DRUNK Team, Sonicrealms Racing, The Danish Racing Team and GraVT Racing, in an extremely close season(7 different winners in 7 races). The Tigers eventually finished 8th at the championship. Still very disappointing, as without round 3, 6 and 7’s technical problems, the team would have been extremely close to the top, maybe even champions. But of course, it is stupid to pretend that as almost every single team top 10 team could have the same talk, considering how close and incident filled this season has been. Moreover, TEM has often been been outpaced by most of their championship rivals. Looking at the bright side, however, the team has managed to pull a fantastic recovery after two awful opening round: from 20th to 8th at the championship, even making up 5 points on the lead position within the last 5 rounds(!). For the record, TEM has also been the only team scoring three top 5 in a row this season, with Team Inferno.

A big thanks to the administration and the other teams for making this season as much thrilling and fun. It has probably been the most enjoyable endurance season TEM has ever taken part so far.

Standings

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Masters of Endurance – Rounds 4 to 6

The team was also involved in the prestigious Masters of Endurance league in the meantime. TEM came stronger from its difficult maiden 24 hours race in round 3, with a surprise podium in round 4(6 Hours of South City). This was mainly thanks to ringer Chris Ford, who pulled a great qualifying performance(4th), and two great opening stints, settling in 3rd behind championship contenders ineX and spdo. Timo Höfer and Yann Laprevotte then only had to control CoRe Racing’s return to take 3rd, and TEM’s first ever MoE podium.

Round 5(6 Hours of Fern Bay Black) saw Masters of Endurance first ever visit to the Jamaican roller-coaster style track. Though it wasn’t very suiting TEM’s XRR, Chris Vourliotis, Yann Laprevotte, Lims Chebbi and Karl Raudsepp took a decent 6th out of 10th. The latter even got the squad’s best lap-time in the penultimate lap, for his official endurance debults. Meanwhile, Liane Solfrank finished 8th and last finisher with the one-round entry Epic Reunion.

The final round(6 Hours of Kyoto National) was set to be a good race for the XRR. The team didn’t capitalise on that during qualifying, with the last time. However, Karl and Yann pulled a great climb early in the race, passing Hellenic Racing and Coquest on track, and holding 5th place before half way point. Unfortuantely the second half was harder for David Jundt and Tom Parker: 2 punctures and a spin made the team drop to 8th.

Overall, it has been quite a difficult season for TEM. The 7th place gained at the GT2 standings isn’t very representative of the team’s season, as it was mainly due to the disappointing turn-up rate than everything else. But still, Tiger Express managed to finish all 6 races(for a total of 60 hours of racing!), which was the squad’s main aim before the season start. For the record, the championship was taken by ineX Racing in GT1, and spdo Racing in GT2.

Rounds 4 and 5 Gallery(by Michael Booth)

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LFS Endurance Series Season 5 – Rounds 5 and 6

Small mention to the LFS Endurance Series. Yann did 4th out of 8 in round 5(3 Hours of Fern Bay Black), though he had the pace for the podium, if he wasn’t taken out at turn 1. Then, the Chris-Yann duet took 3rd/5 in round 6(3 Hours of Aston North). With the last round being cancelled due to the poor attendance, TEM took the GT500 crown, and its lead driver Yann Laprevotte the overall drivers’ championship. No real joy however, considering how the championship ended.

Standings

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TEM will be back to business in endurance racing on June 18th, as the 5th annual season of the International GT Championship will kick off at Kyoto International(KY31). Tiger Express will take part in its mighty Earthdreams bus, and hopes to improve its overall 12th place gained in the 2010 season.

The race was dominated by poleman Rudy van Buren and 4th place starter Simon Cattell. The latter managed to pass both Matias Pikkarainen and Philip Ellis in the opening corners, and chased his Dutch ineX team-mate for the whole race, without ever managing to make a pass. Van Buren eventually won, 4 tenths in front of Cattell, with the two of them also sharing the fastest lap of the race(3:12:64). Philip Ellis completes the podium after a lonely race in 3rd, and makes an ineX Racing 1-2-3.

Matias Pikkarainen(spdo Racing) and Phil Diaz(ineX Racing) round up the top 5 after a rather uneventful race for both.

Things were a bit more difficult for the championship contenders. After a difficult qualifying session(8th), Joe Holmes span at lap 1 and dropped to 10th, putting his championship chances under danger. Fortunately for him, his team-mate Teemu Iivonen wasn’t in a good day, and blew his last chances in a spin from 4th at lap 4. Both ineX cars were nose to tail while Teemu recovered, but the Finish driver managed to pull away from Joe, taking 6th, while the young Englishman settled in 7th and secured the title.

The top 10 is completed by season long mid-field animators: Martin Kapal(Angel Power Racing), Yann Laprevotte(Tiger Express Motorsports) and Ditlev Errebo(DABAR Racing).

At the drivers’ championship, ineX succeeded to have 5 of their drivers in the top 5. Joe Holmes becomes champion of the Tiger Express Z30 Festival with 1 win and 3 podiums. The Englishman started the season on a high with a win in the STD round 1, and then managed to capitalise on that victory to control his team-mates’ return. Season long challenger Teemu Iivonen takes 2nd(4 podiums), in front of Simon Cattell(1 podium), who saved his season in the last round. Phil Diaz is 4th with 1 podium, while Rudy van Buren finished his rather “all-or-nothing” season(3 wins and 2 retirements in 5 races) in 5th place. “Best of the rest” is Matias Pikkarainen(spdo Racing, 1 win) in 6th, in front of Dennis Lind(Dennis .Inc, 1 win, 3 podiums), Yann Laprevotte(Tiger Express Motorsports), Ditlev Errebo(DABAR RAcing) and Martin Kapal(Angel Power Racing).

With no surprise ineX Racing comes on top of the teams’ championship, with almost 2 times more points than their closest rival. It wasn’t totally a Sunday drive for them though, with very tough opposition at times(Kliaudaitis, Lind, Pikkarainen, Kööts). ineX still managed to get an amazing record of 4 wins and 13 podiums in 6 races, a fabulous performance. Being them comes the group for 2nd place with spdo Racing(1 win, 2 podiums), Tiger Express Motorsports and Angel Power Racing. 1 car entry Dennis .inc(1 win, 3 podiums) completes the top 5.

Standings | Some pictures

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They said…

Rudy van Buren(ineX Racing. Quali: Pole, Race: 1st, 5th at the championship):

“Since the moment the calender came out this was the race i was looking foward the most. I tested some laps the evening before the race and had my setup pretty much sorted for the race. The quali went well, phillip put down a good time but i managed to get 0.1 of it and take the pole.
Start of the race was good with simon in p2 pretty fast, i could see pretty soon that he had a slightly better pace then i did so the only thing i could do was drive consistent and make sure he doesnt get in the draft. Though i made a mistake ones, and we swapped position but i managed to get p1 back and hold it to the end.”

Simon Cattell(ineX Racing. Quali: 4th, Race: 2nd, 3rd at the championship):

“Ever since the GTR round finished I was looking ahead to this race, FO8 is my favoured car on LFS plus the “KY33″ open configuration turned out to be a wonderful track configuration. I knew that racing alongside Rudy would make it tough to be the winner, but I pushed hard all race, and we pushed each other to the limits setting fastest laps all race. We both picked up similar damage during the race which made the cars a little bit tougher to handle but I enjoyed the fight with him and congratulate him on the win – he was just a little bit too fast on the day, but we had a great battle and both enjoyed it.
Also congratulations to Joe on the drivers championship and ineX dominating the constructors championship is also a great result. I hope there will be a new season and will look forward to that.”

Philip Ellis(ineX Racing. Quali: 2nd, Race: 3rd, 11th at the championship):

“Although I qualified in second I knew the guys behind had a better pace than me. After Simon passed me right after T1 I had a good fight with Teemu for P3. Unfortunately for him he spun out after losing grip. Now I had to push in order not to let Matias get any closer. After the pit stops he was right on my tail but also spun out after having slight contact on the start/finish line on the second last lap, giving me third. I enjoyed all 3 races I was in and I’m definately looking forward to the next season! ”

Joe Holmes(ineX Racing. Quali: 8th, Race: 7th, Champion): “This round was very hard, i usally struggle in the FO8 and this wasnt any different. I did a reasonable qualy lap and got a fairly average starting position. In lap 1 i hit a buggy curb which spun me around and set me far back in the field and also put my championship title hopes under pressure.
I kept pushing and got back to 8th place, but with Teemu running close to 3rd place the championship was looking very close. Somthing happened to Teemu in the draft and he dropped behind me, but hit pace was just too fast and he quickly got back past but made an early stop. I did my pitstop on lap 7 and exited the pits ahead of teemu. I made an error into one of the turns and got very bad damage and i dropped away from the pack i was chasing.
In the end i did enough (with some luck) to get the title and i had lots of fun every single round, there was a very high standard of drivers in this league which was very great to see!
Thanks to the admins for a great job, and the drivers for very clean, fair and close racing!”

Alexis Georg(French Street Racers. Quali: 16th, Race: 16th, 19th at the championship): “What a race! I’ve done this race especially for having more experience with FO8, but what i’ve seen, it’s that I still have many things to learn about how driving this car. I have make many mistakes, but anyway, I had a good race with some nice battles. Maybe my setup wasn’t good because I used a BL1 setup due to change game (my 0.6A1 is in a different folder than my 0.5Z, so I just had some old setups here…). Thanks Yann for this championship, it was a pleasure to race with these people, and congratz to Joe “Mc Nish” and ineX for their titles.”

Tom Parker(Tiger Express Motorsports. Quali: 11th, Race: 19th(DNF), 40th at the championship): “That race was a pile of wank.
Should’ve practiced the combo beforehand and the inexperience really showed when I was over 6s off the pace in qualifying and then even further off the pace in the race. After doing my planned pitstop and repairing damage it was only uphill struggle especially after planting my car in the wall on final corner on my outlap and releasing speed limiter by accident giving me stop-go so ragequit was the spectacular result.
Decent season, consistently high turnout and epic admining “

After a difficult season start(6th in round 1, DNF in round 2), Matias Pikkarainen(spdo Racing) came back stronger, and took a commanding win from pole. Matias took spdo Racing’s first victory in a Tiger Express sanctionned event, since TEM’s First Birthday event in August 2010. The Finnish driver won 6 seconds in front of Joe Holmes(ineX Racing), who had a great recovery drive after spin dropping him to 7th, in the opening laps. Teemu Iivonen(ineX Racing) completes a 100% FZR podium.

The chasing group comes 20 seconds behind the winner, with Phil Diaz(ineX Racing) taking 4th in his XRR, just in front of the leading bus of Yann Laprevotte(Tiger Express Motorsports), and Simon Cattell’s FZR(ineX Racing), after having a race long fight for 5th.

Reno Kööts(spdo Racing) comes in 7th after a difficult race. Jack Ward(Team Vires), David Jundt(Tiger Express Motorsports), and Angel Power Racing’s top-driver Martin Kapal round up the top 10. Alexis Georg(French street Racers) is the last driver to finish in the lead lap, in 11th.

Round 2 winner Dennis Lind ran out of fuel from the final lap, from 5th, which puts him out of the contention at the championship. He is nevertheless classified in 12th, just in front of Philip Ellis, who had any chance for a good result ruined after a contact with Lind early in the race.

Lind wasn’t the only Dane to run out of petrol. This also happened to Ditlev Errebo(DABAR Racing), breaking a great series of 4 top 10 in 4 races. The only other major retirement in this race was for round 3 double winner Rudy van Buren(ineX Racing), who crashed at turn 1 from 3rd.

With a great 2nd place, Holmes extends his lead at the drivers’ championship. Only his team-mate Teemu Iivonen can beat him anymore, but the Finnish driver must win the final round, and Holmes be 4th or worse. Things are closer for the runner-up spot however, with Iivonen, Dennis Lind, Simon Cattell and Phil Diaz all grouped in 18 points.

At the teams’ championship, ineX are now officially champions, after a dominating season: 3 wins and 10 podiums in 5 races. With Pikkarainen’s win, spdo Racing now looks safe in 2nd place. 3rd place is still at stake coming to the final round, with 18 points between Tiger Express Motorsports in 3rd, and Angel Power Racing in 4th.

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Results | Standings [worst round not yet dropped] | Penalties | Pictures

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They said…

Joe Holmes(ineX Racing, Quali: 2nd, Race: 2nd): “I was looking forward to this round as i really like the track. I made my own race and qualy setups and i managed to get p2 in qualy which was very good. In lap 2 i made a mistake going into turn 1 and nearly spun, i lost alot of time and alot of places. I managed to fight back and get back to p2 in the end, was a good result and very fun racing.”

Teemu Iivonen(ineX Racing, Quali: 5th, Race: 3rd): “I enjoyed driving something “new” with the GTR’s, actually had to put down some testing-laps to get a setup that was well balanced. Not like on normal tracks where everyone already has the setups pretty much done. Shame about Dennis running out of fuel on the last lap, I haven’t had the time to check the championship results but I have a feeling it’s quite close up top.”

Simon Cattell(ineX Racing, Quali: 4th, Race: 6th): “Hoped I could dedicate a few hours to practice for this race as the combo looked extremely enjoyable, but I ran out of time and could only turn up thirty minutes before the race, so was a little unprepared. The track is simple though, so didn’t take much preparation, had a reasonable qualifying lap to start 4th. Race was little messy, had contact on lap 1 which sent me to 15th, but worked my way back to 6th, it was a good race and I had a great fight with Yann for most of the race. It was enjoyable and I look forward to the next one.”

David Jundt(Tiger Express Motorsports, Quali: 19th, Race: 9th): “Finally a Top Ten result. After a disappointing roll-over in R1, a disco in R2 and some average performances I get to finish a race with a good performance. I could have beaten Ward to 8th though, but he was so much quicker on the straights, I could resist for short time only. His try at the last fast turns was suicidal and unnecessary though, he could have easily outbraked me into T1. Nevertheless, a good battle and a nice result for the team. Only gutted that Karl had such a misfortune.“

Martin Kapal(Angel Power Racing, Qual: DNQ[starting 25th], Race: 10th): “I missed the qualifying because of a Kyoto 500 practice session, so I started from the back. I didn’t mind, because I expected some crashes in the first lap. Even though I didn’t practice much for this race, I was happy with my pace. I was scared of the pit entry but I was careful and managed to pit without a scratch. In the end, I finished in the top 10, which is great.”

Alexis Georg(French Street Racers, Quali: 13th, Race: 11th): “What a good round for me! Great surprise of succeed to be on the mid-grid (13/25). I did a good start and was on the top 10 before 1st turn, but I got pushed by someone. I’ve managed to stay on track with a nice drift. And lose my progress on a racing incident with Reno Koots. Finally I fall to 19th place. Then I started a nice recovery. I was on my limits on most of laps, and I made some scares for myself. I liked the manner in which I came to pit lane with handbrake! Finally, I finished to a deserved 11th place, which make me happy by this climb of 8 places! Next round will be a real challenge, especially because it’s with FO8, a car that i’ve still to learn.”

Philip Ellis(ineX Racing, Quali: 7th, Race: 13th): “can’t get any worse than that.”

Karl Raudsepp(Tiger Express Motorsports, Qual: 17th, Race: 23rd[DNF]): “Felt quite strong before qualification, but failed doing a superpole. So started far from back. Start was great, rised some places. First 10 laps were quite good too, had nice FXR a.k.a grip and FZR a.k.a speed battle. My race ended in pits, messed it up myself…“

Coming back from a so-so road car part(4th overall), Yann Laprevotte never looked to be worried this time. Despite taking zero pole, Yann used all his experience of sprint races to beat his opponents at each race 1(Morgan Trollé in round 1 and 3, TLP’s Bruno in round 2), and then stay up front in the following races. Results speak for themselves: 7 wins and 11 podiums. Yann even managed to smash Jean-François “Worm” Sebire’s record of 3 Ligue FR victories in a row, with 6 consecutive wins. Though, standards have of course faded out since the championship creation back in 2008.

In second place comes Karl Raudsepp, making a superb come back to league racing. The start of the season was not so great: 6th, 7th and a retirement in round 1. However, the Estonian managed to get a great performance in round 2, taking two 5th and a second place, despite getting a weak 14th in qualifying. Karl came close to the podium in an incident filled round 3(6th, 8th, 4th), before taking two final podiums in the final round. In the end, a well deserved second place at the championship.

The podium is being rounded up by the only female driver of the league, Liane Solfrank. The German started the season on an high with two third places in round 1. Then three top 5 in round 2, including another podium. Aswell as Karl, she had a bit of “all or nothing” round 3 at South City with lots of incidents, but also a brilliant 2nd place in race 2, from 11th on the grid. Sadly she missed the final round of the season, otherwise she probably would have been in front of Karl at the championship. She still manages to get a great 3rd place overall.

Also, mention to Chris Vourliotis. The Greek did only 6 races out of 12, but managed to get 4 victories. 3 of them were in the final round on Fern Bay Gold with NGT, a combo he knows very well for holding the World Recond on XFR a while ago.

Unsurprisingly, the TEM-FSR alliance takes the teams’ championship aswell, with TEM taking all points but 1. The lead FSR driver Alexis “Kova.” System takes 6th at the championship.

Full Championship Results

Rudy van Buren came back stronger after a difficult round 2, and set pole, leading an ineX Racing 1-2-3: championship leader Joe Holmes was alongside him in front row, in front of series newcomer Philip Ellis. “Best of the rest” was reigning Formula Ford World Champion Dennis Lind(Dennis .Inc) in 4th.

Holmes and Lind took the best starts and were leading the early laps. However, a tangle between the two of them after a few laps made Holmes drop several positions, while Lind would quickly give up places aswell due to slightly overheated tyres. This meant that poleman van Buren would be back in the lead after half-way, despite a shy first race half. The Dutch driver would eventually win, in front of Teemu Iivonen(ineX Racing), and early leaders Joe Holmes and Dennis Lind.

Race 1 finish order was taken in order to set race 2’s starting grid. No surprise at the start this time, front row starters van Buren and Iivonen kept the two first places. Iivonen passed his Dutch teammate for the lead at lap 2, but didn’t manage to keep the lead more than a few laps: van Buren was back in the lead once again at half-way, and then cruised to another victory. The ineX train would be splitted by Dennis Lind this time: the Danish, starting in 4th, managed to pass both Holmes and Iivonen to get an important 2nd place for the championship, taking race fastest lap in the process. Iivonen and Holmes follow in 3rd and 4th.

The ineX domination is completed by Philip Ellis, who took 5th in both races. Right behind him, 2010 iTCC champion Karolis Kliaudiatis(My3id Gaming) kept consistant scoring with two 6th places. Also note that best non-XRT driver was Jack Sedgewick(Fred Loves Pie), taking 7th and 8th in his FXO.

The drivers’ championship lead is officially kept by Joe Holmes(117 points), far in front of Dennis Lind(86), Karolis Kliaudaitis(78), Jack Sedgewick(75), and Teemu Iivonen(73) – former 2nd and 3rd place runners Egon Liibeon(spdo Racing) and Phil Diaz(ineX Racing) dropping to 9th and 10th after missing round 3. However, if you already drop each drivers’ worst round, the situation is pretty much different: Lind would be leading, 1 point of Holmes, and 13 in front of Iivonen. The championship therefore remains wide open, at only 2 rounds to go.

At the teams’ championship, with 237 points, ineX Racing extends its lead to 136 points on 2nd place group. With only 182 points to give away, ineX will most likely get the teams’ title, bar any misfortune. Things are a lot closer in the battle for 2nd place, with 6 teams grouped in 26 points: spdo Racing(after lining-up zero car at round 3), Angel Power Racing, Tiger Express Motorsports, and one-car entries Dennis .Inc, My3id Gaming and Fred Loves Pie.

They said…:

Rudy van Buren(ineX Racing. Quali: 1st, Race 1: 1st, Race 2: 1st): “After a bad race with the FOX, I was hoping for a better result with the TBOs. The track was really cool to race on and as far as i fought on track it went fair and hard. The races required quite some attention to the tires, to not overheat them too early, but it all went well for me with the pole and double win.”

Dennis Lind(Dennis .Inc. Quali: 4th, Race 1: 4th, Race 2: 2nd): “Second race I had in the championship, and this track was very fun, lots of tire strategy was needed, and I think that was the only reason I got ahead of Teemu Iivonen in the middle of race 2, All in all great race(s) once again! I’m looking forward for the next one.”

Joe Holmes(ineX Racing Quali: 2nd, Race 1: 3rd, Race 2: 4th): “Qualy went well for me, getting p2. Race 1 was a little difficult as i had huge tyre problems on my fronts and dropped away during a bad heat peak, but managed to get back up there and get p3. Race 2 was very hard, i made changes to the setup and it just made my rears very hot, i could only manage p4.”

Jack Ward(Team Vires Quali: 14th, Race 1: 12th, Race 2: 13th): “Absolutely Epic race. That is all :D”

Standings | Some Pictures

Round 1 has been dominated by Joe Holmes(ineX Racing). The English teenager drove his XFG perfectly on the Fern Bay Classic Reversed(FE25R) layout, and took a commanding hat-trick, without ever being worried by his rivals. Egon Liibeon(spdo Racing) takes 2nd place, despite losing track in the traffic after making his compulsary pitstop earlier than his opponents. Sonicrealms Racing’s recent recruit Tommy Ostgaard takes 3rd after a brilliant climb from 14th on the grid. ineX Racing’s Simon Cattell and Isaac Price round up the top 5 after a brilliant scrap in the last few laps. Only 21 drivers saw the finish, but this is mainly due to Fern Bay’s high kerbs and dangerous barriers, which ruined many drivers’ hopes, including second place starter Reno Kööts’(spdo Racing).

Round 2 took place on the very tricky Aston Cup layout(AS24, a combination of AS1 and AS2), with the FOX. spdo Racing’s Matias Pikkarainen was on pole. However, 3rd and 2nd place starter, real life 2010 Formula Ford World Champion Dennis Lind(Dennis Inc.) and FOX specialist Teemu Iivonen(ineX Racing) passed him at lap 1. The order stayed the same up front, until Iivonen passed his Danish rival for the lead at lap 10. Lind then stayed no more than 2 second from the lead, and made a concrete attack at 4 laps to go. Iivonen looked to be able to hold on, but he then span and almost rolled at the AS1 turn 1, letting Lind take an impressive victory. Behind him come an ineX train in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th, all less than 6 seconds from the winner. 2009, 2010 and 2011 Kyoto 250 winner Phil Diaz comes in 2nd, having started only 11th. Then poor Iivonen comes 3rd, in front of championship leader Joe Holmes and fastest lap setter Robin Friskopps. “Best of the rest” is 2010 iTCC champion Karolis Kliaudaitis, finishing in 6th more than 26 seconds behind, having beaten Jack Sedgewick for less than a tenth.

At the drivers’ championship, ineX Racing’s Joe Holmes keeps the lead with 83 points. Then comes spdo Racing’s Egon Liibeon with 58, and Phil Diaz(ineX Racing) with 57. 3 drivers are tieing for 4th with 50 points: round 2 winner Dennis Lind, Karolis Kliaudaitis, and the very surprising Jack Sedgewick(Fred Loves Pie). Everything remains open however, with the worst result being dropped for everyone at the end of the season.

The situation is a lot clearer at the teams’ championship, with ineX Racing and spdo Racing topping the sheet with 148 and 101 points each. The battle for the 3rd podium slot is a lot closer, with Angel Power Racing, Tiger Express Motorsports, Dennis Inc., Sonicrealms Racing, My3id Gaming and Fred Loves Pie all grouped in 13 points.

Standings and Results | Round 1 Pictures | Round 2 Pictures

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They said…

Joe Holmes(ineX Racing. Round 1: 1st, Round 2: 4th): “Round 1 was a great round for me, grabbed pole, the win and fastest lap. Round 2 was a loupe harder with only getting 6th in qualy but a close 4th place in the race after having a spin.”

Dennis Lind(Dennis Inc. Round 1: Absent, Round 2: 1st): “First race I’ve done a long time, so I’m really satisfied comming back, and beating most of the top guys.”

Karolis Kliaudaitis(My3id Gaming. Round 1: 9th, Round 2: 6th): “Lots of fun so far, because the combos are new and the starting grid is full. Like the idea about superpole, not always the bests are in top as i experienced that myself the 1st round starting from back of the pack by little mistake.”

Reno Kööts(spdo Racing. Round 1: DNF, Round 2: 8th): “My first two races has been totally shit. 1st round DNF because of roof and round 2, my own team-mate pushed me to spin falled down to laast place. Finished on 8th place with blowed up engine.. So, i hope that my races will be better in future. Thank you, it has been fun so far, only some foolish guys in the rear of grid.”

Andris Pavars(Independant. Round 1: Absent, Round 2: 16th): “Nothing much to say about the race. Came to server just 5min before the qualification start. Had not done any practice before for the race, so the qualification lap was the first one for me (didn’t have time to get the setup, so just took the some setup from another track). Also first time playing LFS in an open config since the new patch has come out, so I didn’t know the track either..”

The start of the race was pretty chaotic as I was still trying to get use to the track, so I span and braked into grass few times. Then nothing much really happened, just kept driving and driving without any action at all

Alexis Georg(French Street Racers. Round 1: 20th, Round 2: 17th): “It’s funny to discover some new tracks config with this championship! I had 2 bad superpole session due to too many pressure because we shouldn’t make any mistake in the only lap you had, for qualify yourself for the race. For both race, I won many positions, but I have met again some problems, like racing incident at race 1, and some personal mistakes (spins) at race 2. I hope I will do better a qualify session, in the others rounds, and doing good races for scoring many points.“

Tiger Express Events and Tiger Express Motorsports are proud to announce the Tiger Express Z30 Festival. This new league aims to propose some racing on some of the new tracks opened by the brand new Z30 patch, in a fair, fun, but nevertheless formal athmosphere. A wide selection of cars will be used, from the STDs to the FO8.

Four of the events will consist in a 45 minutes race, one in two 20 minutes races. All of them will be held on Monday nights.

You must have LFS Z30, or a more recent test patch, in order to participate. However, the management reserves the right to request drivers to move on a more recent patch than Z30, if a new incompatible test-patch is released before the end of the season(especially if it contains qualifications/flags support).

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Calendar(Date-Cars-Track-Laps):

Round 1: 16th May, STDs, FE25R* [Map|Layout], 25
Round 2: 23rd May, FOX, AS24 [Map|Layout], 27
Round 3: 30th May, TBOs**, KY21*** [Map|Layout], 14/14
Round 4: 6th June, GTR****, AS11R [Map|Layout], 36
Round 5: 13th June, FO8, KY33 [Map|Layout], 15

* FE23R with updated Turn 1. Final layout and map to be released.
** 4% intake restriction for the FXO
*** KY2 infield with the Turn 2 oval section. Final layout and map to be released.
**** 25kg ballast for the FZR

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Go to this thread for sign-ups.