GPC FR2000 International Championship - Event 5 - Monaco

[Jaap Wagenvoort]

September 2nd, 2006. The final race of the FR2000 International Championship 2006.1 season. Both championship still undecided. In the Drivers Championship there are still 3 candidates. Two races are discarded for each driver, which means that Daniel Almeida and Jaap Wagenvoort are equal on points, with Phil Woodward only 8 points behind the leaders. In the Constructors Championship, RSC Motorsports is looking set to collect the championship. An important milestone as just two days earlier the team announced its complete retirement. Still though, both FWN and lastplace.com have a chance to shatter the dreams of RSC Motorsports.

42 drivers joined Pre-Qualifying in order to win themselves a position in the top 15 - a place that guarantees participation in the official event on Saturday evening. In the end, the 15 drivers made it through PQ. Some surprises were seen. Kirill Izotov, fastest in PQ in the previous Pre-Qualifying sessions, only finished in 19th. Alberto Canzi, Sam Skipper, Stan Manton & Colin Crompton did make it through PQ though.

How would this first official season finish? Who would take the championships?

Qualifying

Qualifying at Monaco is always something special. On one hand you really need to push, because a good qualifying is more important than anywhere else. On the other hand, take too much risk and crash and you can start from all the way back. The armco is very close and very unforgiving and gives the drivers little time to respond to action happening on the track.

After the qualifying session started, drama would soon unfold. Fifteen minutes of qualifying. The drivers immediately left the pits to record their first laps. Wagenvoort was the first car out on track, followed by Woodward and Almeida: the three championship candidates.

On his flying lap, things went all wrong for Woodward. He spun his lastplace.com FR2.0 in the tight harbor chicane. Instead of waiting, he turned his car around and then stalled it. Daniel Almeida was coming up, also on his hotlap. Almeida couldn't see the car of Woodward and crashed into the stalled car, ruining both cars. It got even worse as the next car on the track was Simon Neale. Simon, just like Daniel, could not see the crashed cars and crashed into Almeidas car.

As the clouds disappeared, three cars were out. Two of the three championship candidates were involved and now dramatically out of the race.

Jaap Wagenvoort, the other candidate, did not notice all the trouble as he recorded provisional pole-position a few seconds after the incident.

Morgan Purcell, also showing great pace in the preseason race held in Monaco, again showed that he feels well in the streets of the principality by recording a 2nd place on the sheets early on. Whitehead stayed out of trouble to record a 3rd time.

The other drivers all went out and tried to preserve their car for the race. All 12 cars, the 3 mentioned cars excluded, managed to clock a time. Sam Guest caused a huge stunt in the dying second of qualifying as he did a 1m41s5 to move up the ranks to 3rd place.

Wagenvoort did not go out on track after his initial run and Purcell & Whitehead did the same. All being careful with their cars. Alberto Canzi did most laps as he completed 6 timed laps to grab 6th on the grid to mark the best ever qualifying performance for the ProMoDo team.

In the end, Wagenvoort took his 4th pole-position of the season and arguably his most important in Monaco. Purcell took 2nd to record kerbcrawlers best ever qualifying performance. The second row was filled by Guest and Whitehead who both also got or matched their best season qualifying results. Dahlberg and Canzi would line up on the third row.

Race 9

The final event. Monaco. Nerves started to build as the race start procedure was initialised. As soon as the red lights became green, all cars engaged first gear and accelerated towards St. Devote, the tight righthander. Even though all drivers were pumped up with adrenaline, the tanks full and the tyres not warmed up yet, no incidents occured in the first corner. Wagenvoort held on to the lead, with Purcell close behind. Whitehead took 3rd as Guest got into trouble and had to start from the pitlane thereby losing his impressive 3rd qualifying position.

Jose Romero, on his first season appearance, had passed Alberto Canzi on lap 1 to move up to 4th place for the hp simracing team. Juha Pyy, after a not problem-free qualifying which saw him having to start from 9th, had moved up to 6th on lap 1. More trouble for RSC Motorsports though. Dahlberg got into some problems and only completed lap 1 in 9th place with Almeida not even in the race due to his qualifying crash. With Phil out of the race and no 2nd FWN in the race, the Constructors Championship looked still to be decided in favour of RSC Motorsports, but they were definately looking to score at least some point in Monaco.

Wagenvoort extended his lead over Purcell bit by bit, but could not really create a bit gap to the Irish driver in 2nd place. On lap 2, Stan Manton retired from the race in 8th spot and a lap later Sam Skipper, driving the 2nd Team Sexy Racing car, also retired whilst running 9th. This saw Tero Dahlberg and Sam Guest moving up to 8th and 9th respectively.

After 4 laps, halfway the race, Purcell still had Wagenvoort in sight as there was only 2,7 between the two drivers. Whitehead was settling for 3rd as he was a further 5 seconds behind Purcell, but also in the meanwhile 8 seconds clear of Romero who was working hard to keep the pushing Canzi behind him.

Things settled down in Monaco. The top 5 did not change as drivers were still happy to drive undamaged and they happily accepted the positions they were in as it would give them a good starting position for the final race of the season.

Purcell had a scare on lap 7 as he lost 7 seconds and which gave Whitehead hopes for 2nd, but Purcell held on to 2nd place keeping a 2-second gap to Whitehead.

After 8 laps, Wagenvoort took his 5th win of the season, a crucial win with both Almeida and Woodward not scoring any points. Purcell and Whitehead made it another very happy podium with Romero & Canzi scoring their first season points in 4th and 5th. Pyy took 6th, Colin Crompton took 7th and 4 points on his first official race. Dahlberg salvaged 3 points for RSC Motorsports as the team officially claimed the Constructors Championship of the GPChampionship.com FR2000 International Championship 2006.1 season. Sam Guest was the final point scorer as he made sure the total of 9 cars survived this first official race in the streets of Monaco.

Race 10

The 10th race marks the end of the FR2000IC 2006.1 season. The Constructors Championship was decided in Race 9, but the Drivers Championship was still to be decided in this final race. Two challengers left: Almeida & Wagenvoort.

Almeida's bad luck in Qualifying meant he had to start from all the way back of the grid and as everyone knows, there is no worse track to start at the back than Monaco. However, even worse luck was heading Almeida's way. Almeida suffered the same problem his rival had in Prato and others suffered as well earlier on this season. He could not join the grid and had to start from the pitlane with a delay of over a minute. His chances were already lower after the trouble, but this even made his day even worse. Still though, he is not the guy for giving up and he just went out and gave it all.

In the meanwhile, the lights went green to indicate the start of the final race of the season. Wagenvoort on pole, Purcell besides him and Whitehead and Romero on the 2nd row. Romero had a great start from 4th and passed Whitehead on the outside. Wagenvoort, like the first race, just managed to stay in front of Purcell.

The first lap was hectic as you can expect from a race in Monaco. Again, the driving standard was on an amazingly high level. No incidents at all in the first lap, except for Sam Skipper who went wide at Tabac in the first lap, crashing into the barriers that brought an end to his race.

Whitehead immediately put huge pressure on Romero. Stuart tried passing Jose at the swimming pool, but there obviously was not enough place to make a pass. Excellent respectful driving from both enabled both to survive. Trouble was just half a lap away though. Driving up the hill towards the Casino corner, Romero cracked under the massive pressure of Whitehead. He went wide and touched the armco on the outside of the long lefthander.

Romero's right rear suspension was damaged and his car spun to hit the armco on the left. However, behind Romero there was a group of 5 cars coming up. Pyy was driving right behind Whitehead and Romero. He had to make two avoiding moves to avoid hitting the spinning car. Pyy survived. Canzi was right behind Pyy, had massive oversteer in the same corner, but also made it past Romero's car. Now Colin Crompton came up. He went a bit wide and as soon as he saw Romero's car it already was too late. A big bang followed. Sam Guest drove right behind Crompton and had nowhere to go. He also crashed into the pack. Dahlberg was sitting behind Guest and he did everything right in the splitsecond that he had to decide. He drove right through the middle of the wreck and somehow made it through unscatched.

One driver was still coming up: Russell Daly. He couldn't take avoiding action in time and also hit the car of Romero. So, four cars out of the race on lap 2 in a typical Monaco race incident.

No problems upfront though. Wagenvoort immediately pulled away from Purcell. He was 8 seconds clear of Purcell after 7 laps and looked set to win the championship in style as Almeida was running in 7th place. Then, drama happened for the FWN driver. Wagenvoort spun his car at Portier. He managed to avoid hitting the wall, but stalled his engine. He got out of the racing line in time, but wasn't up to speed in time to keep the lead as Purcell roared by to take the lead of the race.

With vibrations due to flatspotting his tyres, Wagenvoort started chasing Purcell who suddenly really had a good chance to claim his first official win in FR2000IC.

More drama came 3 laps later. On lap 10, with 6 laps to go, suddenly the cameras focused on the #11 Skunk Racing car who had hit the armco. The car was damaged and even though he tried to continue, Stuart Whitehead had to retire from the race after looking confident to score another podium finish to end the season. Wagenvoort and Whitehead showed how important concentration is in Monaco. One small moment can mean the end of the race. Dahlberg retired his RSC Motorsports car on lap 12, giving his now 5th place to his teammate Almeida.

By this time - lap 12 - Wagenvoort had completely closed the gap to the leader Purcell. Wagenvoort was now in the gearbox of Purcell for two laps, but could not find a way past the green #121 kerbcrawlers car. He also had to race with the championship in mind. Just at the moment where the spectators thought that Purcell could really win it, the 35-year old Irish driver made a small mistake in St. Devote. He lost a bit of time, avoided hitting the barriers, but had to recover. This gave Wagenvoort just enough time to pass Purcell as the two cars powered uphill towards Casino. Wagenvoort just took the lead back from Purcell as the crowd wondered how on earth it was possible that this happened without an incident. Wagenvoort was pushing again now and developed a small lead of a few seconds.

There were only 3 laps to go now. Behind the two leaders, Juha Pyy had climbed up to 3rd place as the Finnish driver was looking to finish the season on a high for lastplace.com. Behind him, Italian talent Alberto Canzi was driving in an incredible 4th place for ProMoDo as the team management was nailbiting on the pitwall, hoping that Canzi would keep it together. The only other running car was Daniel Almeida who managed to put the disappointment aside and made the best of the situation. It brought him up to 5th place.

No changes were seen in the closing laps. After 16 long and intense laps, Wagenvoort took the chequered flag with both arms out of the cockpit. The 6th win of the season for the Dutch driver and, most importantly, the FR2000IC 2006.1 Drivers Championship! He won the championship in style in the streets of Monaco. Purcell finished an excellent second and Pyy took his 2nd podium finish after his amazing win in Zandvoort a few weeks earlier. Canzi took 4th and Almeida finished the season, very disappointed with the event outcome but still proud of his and his teams' performance, in 5th place.

Links

Pre-Qualifying Result

Race 9 Result

Race 9 Lapchart

Race 9 Driver Comments

Race 10 Result

Race 10 Lapchart

Race 10 Driver Comments

Driver Championship Final Standings

Team Championship Final Standings

The event at Monaco marks the end of the inaugural GPChampionship.com FR2000 International Championship 2006.1 season. Jaap Wagenvoort is the first official Drivers Champion and will be awarded the #1 for the 2006.2 season. Team RSC Motorsports, which ended all its simracing activities, had a great end as Daniel Almeida and Tero Dahlberg together won the Constructors Championship in the 2006.1 season underlining them being the best team all season long.

2006.1 has been a historical season for GPChampionship.com and the FR2000 International Championship. The success of the series was overwhelming. An average of over 45 cars participating in each event is simply amazing and GPChampionship.com wants to both congratulate and thank all the participating drivers and teams for their efforts and dedication to help make FR2000IC to what it became to be: a fantastic simracing league where drivers really feel what simracing is and should be.

With the season coming to an end, it is time to enjoy the holiday and recharge the batteries. The season has been intense for single person involved. FR2000IC will be back, with an improved series format, for season 2006.2!

GPChampionship.com hopes to welcome all drivers back, and hopefully welcome new drivers who want to face the challenge and enjoy the fun, as we prepare for the next season. If you want to take on the challenge, sign up now at GPChampionship.com and join the FR2000IC league as driver or with your own team. Again, thanks for your participation, enjoy the weeks without simracing stress and see you next season for more!