Tag Archives: Magny-Cours

Magny-Cours Preview

Posted on March 13, 2019 | 2 comments

Race 7 on the 2018-19 SBMRL calendar takes us to Magny-Cours, France.

Magny-Cours

The Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours was originally constructed in the 1960’s and saw Formula 1 race there in the 1990’s and 2000’s. It has played host to the SBMRL once previously, which took place two seasons ago.

A clockwise circuit, Magny-Cours is known for its extremely high speed stretches. It will certainly tax the engines as they rev to full throttle.

The pit straight is fairly short, with a quick left hander called Grande Courbe to open things up. From there, a smooth right by the name of Estoril can be taken pretty much as fast as the cars are able to push. The long Golf straight that follows is one of the longest we’ll see this year, and the cars will be flying down it as fast as they possibly can.

The Golf straight ends at the sharp Adelaide hairpin, one of the hardest braking corners this season. Expect some cars to get it wrong here, but it may be a case of fast in slow out as a preference over the norm. The straight that follows isn’t particularly short, but the Nurburgring corner is more of a slight shuffle than the chicane it is officially listed as.

The next corner is a 180 degree bend to the left. Were it sharper, it’d be a hairpin, and were it less sharp, it would resemble the Estoril corner from the first sector. As it is, it’s basically the inside line of that corner heading back in the other direction, and it falls between the two extremes. It’s followed by a relatively lengthy straight before the Imola chicane, a bend similar to the Nurburgring corner seen earlier.

Chateua D’Eau follows Imola in quick succession, one of the only real rhythm combinations on the track. A moderate straight and the Complexe du Lycée is all that stands remaining before the pits.

Starting Grid

There’s a new leader atop the driver standings and a bit of a shuffle in the ranks after South Africa. The result is that the grid for Magny-Cours shapes up as follows:

  1. Launch Bornado (FR)
  2. Sheila Dinkum (RM)
  3. Rask Sjofar (SB)
  4. Bubba McQueen (SR)
  5. Jaap Snellrijder (RM)
  6. Delilah Whipplefilter (FR)
  7. The Stig (SB)
  8. Whiplash (SR)

Each team sports a driver in the top 4 and each team has one in the bottom four, highlighting how evenly matched things are this year.

The order of pit selection is the order of team standings:

  1. Sprite Racing
  2. Scandinavian Blitz
  3. Force Ravenswood
  4. Regency Motors

Magny-Cours is the home race for both Jaap and Rask.

Track History

While Magny-Cours has only held one SBMRL event, it was an eventful one. Launch took the victory after starting in 6th place on the grid, so it’s clearly a track where every driver has a legitimate shot at victory. Only Launch, Jaap, and the Stig participated the last time out. The Stig finished 7th and Jaap crashed out, so they’ll be looking for some redemption. Jamonito del Verde and Mater were the other two drivers on the podium.

SBMRL @ Magny-Cours

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Magny-Cours Recap

Posted on May 2, 2017 | Leave a comment

A beautiful, clear day with highs in the mid-60’s welcomed the SBMRL to hte Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours in France.  With good weather and a number of high speed straights, the day was set for a thrilling ride.  The cars lined up as follows:

P1 – Captain Slow (Jason)
P2 – Nero (Frank)
P3 – Mater (Ryan)
P4 – The Stig (Jason)
P5 – Ice (Ryan)
P6 – Launch Bornado (Frank)
P7 – Jamonito del Verde (Frank)
P8 – Danger Wheel (Ryan)
P9 – Jaronimus Maximus (Jason)
P10 – Jaap Snellrijder (Frank)

Both the Stig and Launch Bornado managed to time the lights perfectly, getting the jump on Mater and Ice, respectively.  Battles commenced immediately up and down the full length of the field as the cars raced to the first corner.  Captain Slow took the early lead, with the Stig, Launch, and Nero all in hot pursuit.  The Golf straight saw a lot of passing, with the Stig failing to keep up with the front runners and getting caught up by the likes of Jaronimus and Jaap.  Ice and the Red Bull drivers joined Jamonito at the back.

Nero takes to the inside in Adelaide

The second sector first saw the Stig, then Launch, take the lead as the battles at the front continued to go back and forth.  Captain Slow kept up as best possible, but Nero started to fade.  That allowed Jaap and Jaronimus to reel him in.  Jaap then found speed to burn through the straight leading to Imola and was among the front runners in short order.

Launch in the lead

Sector three didn’t see a lot of movement in position other than Jamonito beginning to sneak up on the midfield.  When they came round to the pits, Captain Slow was first across the line, skipping out on a stop due to a clean first lap.  Launch had nursed his tyres well but found an adjustment to his abused gear box was in order.  That gave Jaap the chance to complete lap 1 in second place as he barreled on.  Ice was the third and final driver to skip his pit stop, gaining several places after having fallen all the way to last coming around the final bend.

Ice charges past the pits

The second lap saw Captain Slow leading the pair of yellow Regency Motors cars down the long Golf straight.  Ice’s gambit allowed him to slide into 4th position.  Launch Bornado was the driver who handled the Adelaide corner the smoothest, and he was first in, first out, but without good speed heading into Nurburgring.  That allowed Captain Slow to gain on him.  In contrast, Jaap’s inability to emulate his teammate left him battling with Ice and a charging Jamonito.  The rest of the field followed closely, with the lone exception of Danger Wheel, whose opening of the second lap left a lot to be desired.

The midfield converges after the Golf straight

Skipping back to the midfield runners, who looked to be well behind Captain Slow at this stage, things began to shift over the course of the second sector.  The most obvious and shocking event of the race was seeing standings leader Jaap Snellrijder pull off to the side of the 180 corner after his engine gave out.

Jaap’s engine gives out

What was far less obvious as it was occurring were the rise of Mater and Jamonito.  Jamonito had caught up with Ice and Jaap in the Adelaide corner, and kept up with them both until Jaap’s engine demise.  He was subsequently able to catch Captain Slow in Imola.

Mater, on the other hand, was bottom 3 until an inspired 2nd sector charge.  He found speed aplenty in Imola, reeling in Ice a short while later.  While Launch cruised to his first victory, Captain Slow saw both Jamonito and Mater pass him by around the final bends.

The battle for 2nd comes down to the wire

Nero managed to pip Ice for 5th place as they crossed the line, and the Cobalt teammates finished one after the other for the 4th time this year.  The Stig’s 7th place finish was extremely disappointing after an extremely promising first lap.  Jaronimus finished just ahead of Danger Wheel to round out the field.

Final Results

Driver Start Lap Finish
Launch Bornado (RM) 5 3 1
Jamonito del Verde (ORC) 7 5 2
Mater (RB) 3 10 3
Captain Slow (SB) 1 1 4
Nero (CO) 2 7 5
Ice (CO) 5 6 6
The Stig (SB) 4 4 7
Jaronimus Maximus (ORC) 9 8 8
Danger Wheel (RB) 8 9 9
Jaap Snellrijder (RM) 10 2 10, dnf

There were a lot of interesting things about the race in France, but the first two are obviously the diametrically opposite fates of the Regency Motors drivers.  Launch Bornado finally wins a race in his 16th attempt.  Despite a fair amount of success, he was the only driver from the inaugural season who had yet to tally a win.  That leaves Jamonito as the only active driver without a win.  Jamonito’s 2nd place is the 4th time this year that he’s been the bridesmaid, so he has certainly had his share of success.  Mater rounded out the podium in 3rd place.  After his victory in Austin earlier this season, it marks his second podium of the year and the first time he’s ever finished in 3rd place.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Jaap’s failure to see the checkered flag marks the first time he’s suffered such a fate.  Given that he was as high as 2nd place during the race, that’s a tough pill to swallow.  For race fans, though, it’s a great boon.  The driver standings are now about as tight as they can get heading into the final race of the season.  Jaap holds a 2 point lead over Launch and Jaronimus, who are tied.  Jamonito is within 10 points of the lead trio.

A final note of trivia comes from the fact that for the first time in SBMRL history, the top 5 cars came from 5 different teams.  Jaronimus finishing ahead of Danger Wheel was the only thing preventing the bottom half from being a mirror image of the top.

On the team level, Regency Motors extended their lead over Osito Racing Company but only slightly.  The team title will come down to those two teams, as Red Bull is just a few points too far back to take the crown.  They can, however, steal second place away from Osito if things work out just right.  The bottom two teams scored the exact same number of points as each other.

With Jaap’s win in Sochi, Regency Motors have back-to-back wins for the first time.  The only other team to have accomplished that is Cobalt, who’ve done it twice.  Nero and Ice won at Sebring and Hockenheim last year, then had season-spanning back-to-back victories with Valencia and Spa-Francorchamps.  There was only one race between those pairs of wins, meaning that Nero and Ice won 4 out of 5 in that stretch.

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Magny-Cours Preview

Posted on April 14, 2017 | Leave a comment

The Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours will play host to the penultimate round of the 2016-17 SBMRL season.  The track is a new one for SBMRL drivers, and one that Formula 1 drivers haven’t raced on since 2008.

Originally designed and built in 1960, with several corners named in homage of the tracks that inspired them, the circuit didn’t play host to Formula 1 racing until 1991.  Due to poor attendance and financing issues, Formula 1 left after the 2008 race, and many were not disappointed due to a lack of overtaking.  That’s unlikely to be a problem for SBMRL drivers, who’ve shown a proclivity for the pass.

A lap around Magny-Cours starts on the relatively short pit straight with a short run up from the starting line to Grande Courbe.  This is an easy left hander followed by a short straight, and then the corner on the track that will have everyone drooling.  The Estoril corner is the longest, smoothest corner on the league calendar.  It can easily be taken in 5th gear with little concern for consequences.  The incredibly long Golf straight follows, meaning there’s no need to worry about what’s coming ahead.

That opening combination in the first sector means that it’s entirely possible for cars to spend a good portion of the sector in 6th gear.  Cars near the front of the grid will be at a slight disadvantage if they can’t get off the line quickly and pick up speed.  Those in the middle of the field will have the easiest time shifting up through the gears smoothly as they get under way.  For those who’ve managed to handle it properly, there will be no need to downshift at all in the first sector.

The second sector is where cars will have to slam on the breaks.  The Adelaide corner is a tight one that will have cars downshifting rapidly after the Golf straight.  This is where things might start to look tricky, but Magny-Cours will likely prove to be more forgiving than it initially appears.  The Nurburgring bend won’t slow cars down too much, and the 180 corner after that is tight but manageable.  Hit it right, and cars will be flying off to sector 3 and Imola.

The final sector has the quick combination of Imola and Chateau D’Eau, which will slow the field moderately.  This will be a good spot to pass if cars can maintain speed through it, as the straight before the final Complexe du Lycée can catch cars in between gears.  That last chicane will really slow the field down before heading out on the second lap.

Magny-Cours is a circuit that will test each driver’s ability to get the most of their car, and will also reveal a lot about their tolerance for risk.  There will be ample opportunity to stay in the higher gears, but running at the front will be key to making that tactic work.  If the ideal racing lines get closed off in front, it will be much harder to tolerate the risks of running too fast.

STARTING GRID

Sochi shook up the standings quite a bit and has left everything in turmoil.  That said, with two races left to go, the drivers and teams at the back of the standings are just about out of time if they still hope to catch up.  It’s now or never for them.  Here’s how the grid will shape up on race day:

  1. Captain Slow (SB)
  2. Nero (CO)
  3. Mater (RB)
  4. The Stig (SB)
  5. Ice (CO)
  6. Launch Bornado (RM)
  7. Jamonito del Verde (ORC)
  8. Danger Wheel (RB)
  9. Jaronimus Maximus (ORC)
  10. Jaap Snellrijder (RM)

Mater gets tie breaker preference with the Stig after finishing behind the Stig in Russia.  Likewise, Launch gets preference over Jamonito.

Pit selection is reverse order of average starting grid position, with ties broken in reverse order of team standings.  Osito Racing Company and Regency Motors are tied in terms of average starting position, so Osito gets first pit choice due to being farther down the team standings.

  1. Osito Racing Company
  2. Regency Motors
  3. Red Bull
  4. Cobalt
  5. Scandinavian Blitz

Since this is our first trip to France to race at Magny-Cours, it’s hard to know what to expect out of the teams.  The most similar track we’ve raced at is probably Interlagos, where Osito Racing Company established themselves as serious contenders for both championship titles.  Expect some high speed wheel-to-wheel action and possibly even a blown engine or two.

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