Difference between revisions of "Tom Parker"

Revision as of 05:41, 19 February 2012

Tom Parker

Nationality	British
Superleague Career
Active Years	2010-2012
Team(s)	Woods Racing Nordsjoen Racing ST Racing Nijo Racing
Grand Prix	10
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podium finishes	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First Grand Prix	2010 Australian Grand Prix
Supercup Career
Active Years	2011
Team(s)	Kernow Sport
Grand Prix	12
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podium finishes	2
Pole positions	1
Fastest laps	0
First Grand Prix	2011 Supercup Austrian Grand Prix

Tom Parker (born 13 August 1993 in Ascot) is a British sim-racer and co-owner of the PB Racing Supercup team.

Tom has driven for ST Racing, Nijo Racing and Nordsjoen Racing in Superleague events. He is currently driving for Woods Racing in the Superleague. He is also a regular member of the GPVWC commentary team.

Early years

Parker began his sim-racing career in early 2008 with the already established game F1 Challenge 99-02 competing in small local leagues. It was in these early days that he met several racers from the GPVWC community such as Nijo Racing team boss Chris Williamson, Ben Warren, David Jundt and Simon Cattell.

In the early years of his career, Parker used a keyboard to control the car and whilst he had relative success against his fellow racers, he felt purchasing a wheel would enhance his abilities further and he eventually bought one. This led to Parker achieving results he had not been able to before and success was much more frequent in races he competed in. It was at this stage in his career that he had changed to racing on the very popular and successful rFactor simulator which further enhanced his understand of racing.

GPVWC Career

2009-2010 Megane Trophy

Parker first heard of the GPVWC through Ben Warren and decided to follow him to the league. The league had just finished the regular Superleague season but the Megane Trophy series was just around the corner which meant Parker could pit his skills against some of the best simracers in the world in a different car. The mod used for the Masters series that year was the Megane Eurocup series which Parker had raced on-line and felt he was very comfortable in. These results showed when Parker took a podium position in his début race after a race long battle with Mark Stanton which impressed driver and manager alike up and down the paddock. Sadly, Parker could not keep this strong start to the season up and he slowly slipped down the order eventually finishing ... in the drivers championship. But his performances throughout the course of the season had attracted the attention of team managers up and down the pits and an offer for a drive in the 2010 season was imminent.

Masters series 2010-11

Parker took part in the final race of the GPVWC Masters 2010-11 season at the recently revamped Silverstone circuit. Parker showed very impressive speed in the event, it being the first time he had driven the car, and was chasing down Mark Stanton for 3rd position when he made a mistake and relinquished 4th spot and ended up low down the field. Parker had been struggling with lag issues which had prevented him from putting on more of an attack on drivers earlier in the race and this severely hampered his race. Parker made an impressive overtaking manoeuvre on Samuli Leinonen during the first race in which Samuli himself admitted not only surprised him but impressed him hugely. Parker had taken to the grass to force the gap open and take the position in a very aggressive but satisfying move.

The second race of the weekend went badly for the young Englishman as he fell down the order and finished towards the back. The pace shown in the first race had proved once more that Parker did have the speed, he just needed the car to win.

2011-2012 season

Parker has teamed up with David Jundt to form Tiger Express Motorsports for the 2011-12 Masters series which features an extremely strong field and record numbers for GPVWC. TEM are looking to show that they have the pace with Tom, David and Erik Tveit forming the team for the season. The team name stems from the team Tom and David race for in the racing simulator Live for Speed. In the opening round at Norisring Masters, Tom attained two points finishes to help Tiger Express to 2nd in the standings after one round. Tom was issued with a 10s penalty in the sprint for causing an avoidable collision which dropped him a couple of places but he still attained a 15th place whilst in the preceeding feature, Tom had finished in 10th place. Tom then announced he could not attend the rest of the races in the season due to real life commitments and the team approached Simon Cattell to replace him from Istanbul onwards.

Superleague

2010

Before the season had started, Mark Fuller, team principal of the newly formed ST Racing approached Parker to drive for the team in the upcoming Superleague season. Parker jumped at the opportunity and took to the track eager to impress his new team. The pre-season testing times showed Parker had promising pace and the team were confident on a strong season.

The first race of the season at Australia had Parker qualifying in the middle of the pack. Parker survived a attrition filled raced to finish 5th in his début race. Critics were impressed with Parkers willingness to finish the race rather than risk a higher position and possibly crash. Although a high finish was recorded, the race was not without incident as Parker lost a front wing and span just in front of the leader Janne Tanskanen as the Finn was coming up to lap him. Nevertheless, it was a strong start to the season for the young Englishman.

The next race of the season took place in China. Parker struggled in qualifying and the car was towards the back of the grid as they lined up. Parker managed to get to the end of the race in a respectable 11th position, just outside the points. The following week at Japan, Parker took 12th at the finish after a hard, physical race for the Englishman. Abu Dhabi a week later saw Parker retire from the race which was his first DNF of the season.

It was after this race that Parker chose to focus on real life commitments such as exams and his appearances in the Superleague after Abu Dhabi were limited to two performances which both ended in DNFs.

In the 2010 Italian Grand Prix, Parker had survived a race with heavy attrition to lie in 3rd with only a handful of laps to go. As he came up to the Parabolica with about seven laps to go and about to claim 2nd place from a stricken Mark Wicks, his brakes failed him and sent him crashing into the wall in speeds of over 100mph. The crash ended high hopes of both his and ST Racings first ever podium finish. Although disappointed at crashing out, the paddock was impressed with Parker's speed at the event and, although the race was very incident filled, they were confident he would have been high up in the order nevertheless.

2011

Fresh from the Masters series, Parker was offered a contract to race at Nijo Racing for the 2011. Once again in pre-season testing, Parker looked like he could challenge for points early on in the season, having once again joined a team new to the league.

At the first race in Australia however, Parker struggled in qualifying and ended up starting down the field in 17th position. This was further hampered when on the formation lap, Parker made a rookie error attempting to warm his tyres up and crashed. He then elected to start from the pitlane. At the start, he made several places due to accidents ahead and held 11th place at around the half way stage. Earlier in the race, Parker had produced a very opportunistic pass on Christoph Lichtenstein which impressed people and once again showed Parker's strength in that particular field.

Just before Parker's second stop of the race, he was racing Ben Morgan hard for 10th place. After around 10 laps of trying to find a way past, Parker made a critical error coming out of the final corner, hitting the wall very hard, causing suspension damage and a rear left puncture. Parker, not realising he had the puncture, continued at racing speed only to crash going into the first corner, ending his promising race prematurely.

The next two races for Parker also ended in DNFs for the young Englishman although neither of these were through fault of his own as his connection had let him down in both China and Japan. In Japan, Parker had been holding a 7th place after a very impressive start moving up from 19th on the grid to 11th at the end of lap one before connection issues ended his race.

It was after the Japanese Grand Prix that Parker stepped down from Nijo to allow Ashley Walsh to rejoin the team, hoping to improve the team results over the course of the season. Parker is still heavily involved in activity at Nijo and does the occasional testing session with the team members.

During the four week summer break, Nordsjoen Racing principal William Ponissi approached Parker to become the new test/reserve driver for the team due to Davakos leaving the team and Lylykorpi sidelined with real life commitments. Parker took the opportunity with both hands and is looking forward to showing what he can do with arguably the best car on the grid alongside two extremely quick drivers in 2009 World Champion Joe Consiglio and Pavel Loknovski. Pavel has said that he may not be able to make the remainder of the races in the season due to real life commitments so Parker has been told he will hopefully get at least one race under his belt for the 3 times constructors champions before the end of the season.

Parker got his first opportunity to impress under the Nordsjoen banner at the 2011 Spanish Grand Prix after being involved in the previous 2 races free practice sessions (even topping the session in Monza). He got off to a good start by qualifying on the front row of the grid for the first time in his career albeit over one second off his illustrious teammate Joe Consiglio. He got off to a good enough start to keep ahead of the pursuing Red Archers and went about building a gap to David Jundt which would have been vital to make his 3 stop strategy work against David's 2 stop strategy. This all went wrong when Tom made a mistake in the final sector of Lap 6 and not only lost 9 seconds to Joe but he surrendered 2nd place to David and almost lost 3rd to the battling duo of Gregg Lawson and Dave Carr-Smith. After getting back into a rhythm Tom was the 2nd fastest driver on track (even at times matching Joe) he had a good pit stop and only emerged 5s off David and set about catching him. After around 10 laps of the 2nd stint, Parker and Jundt started battling and Jundt managed to hold the hard charging Englishman back before finally losing 2nd at the hairpin and Parker was about to go off into the distance to try and salvage 2nd place for himself when disaster struck. 4 corners after Parker had completed the move, heartbreak for Parker as he disconnected from the server having almost got 3rd place assured even with an extra stop to make than Lawson. This cost not only Parker his debut podium but Nordsjoen the opportunity to take the lead in the constructors champion from Red Archer. Although Parker retired, he drove a solid race and his pace was enough to hold 3rd although some critics are saying it is the car rather than driver but Parker has shrugged them off and is looking forward to another opportunity to prove himself at the front.

Parker was due to compete in the final race of the season at Singapore but he was sidelined by issues with his internet literally hours before the race so he had to pull out at the last minute. Parker knows that he may not get the chance to drive such a good car again so was disappointed at this as he had shown quick pace through the weekend during the Supercup race the day before having got pole position and led most laps of the race before lag issue put a paid to his maiden win. Parker had also taken part in free practice in Spa and Zandvoort once again topping the sheets in Zandvoort after having arguably equal pace to his teammate Consiglio in race trim.

2012

Parker announced that he had signed a deal to race for Woods Racing in the 2012 season to replace the outgoing Mark Wicks after being approached by team manager Ollie Woods and will race alongside Kieran Ryan in what will be the teams 10th year in online racing. Tom has expressed his gratitude to Ollie for coming to him and has promised him complete dedication and hopefully the results that Woods had enjoyed in 2009 and 2010 seasons after a poor 2011 seasons by their standards although, having figured out what went wrong, Woods and Parker are confident they can be back at the front of the grid for the 2012 season.

Supercup

2010

As owner of PB Racing

For the 2010, Parker and Scott Bennett teamed up to form PB Racing with Bennett and Chris Williamson at the wheel. Due to real life commitments, Bennett was unable to make many of the races so PB went on to compete with Williamson as the sole driver until the very end of the season when David Jundt joined to make the team a two-car one once more. The team enjoyed a very successful début season with Williamson almost claiming the Supercup title, narrowly losing out to Lichtenstein in the points standings whilst the team finished 2nd in the constructors championship.

2011

For the 2011 season, PB Racing were reformed for the Chinese Grand Prix with Simon Cattell and Tim-Oliver Wagner behind the wheel. Cattell was three laps away from a début victory for himself and the team in 2011 before losing his rear wing and ending the race in 8th position. Many critics were impressed with Cattell's speed in his opening race and it looked as if, although they had entered the season late, PB Racing could challenge for the teams title. After China, Teemu Toikka was taken aboard as cover for Cattell and Wagner and he raced alone in South Africa, having a bad début.

For the French Grand Prix, PB managed to pull off a massive coup and signed Jason Muscat as the main driver alongside Cattell which many believe up and down the Supercup paddock to be the strongest pairing in the league. In their début race as team-mates, Cattell and Muscat took a dominant 1-2 with Cattell lapping the entire field but his team mate to bring PB Racing up the constructors table. Although having had a few bad finishes, PB Racing still remain in the hunt for the title thanks to the strong pairing of Muscat and Cattell and the two drivers' speed and consistency leading to points finishes.

As driver

Parker approached the recently reformed Kernow Sport team leader Mark Wicks to enquire about a drive for the season after stepping down from the Nijo Superleague outfit. Wicks immediately snapped Parker up and he made his début at the Austrian Grand Prix. Parker surprised many by being at the sharp end of the grid for his first ever Supercup outing and was touted as a dark horse for a podium. However, Parker endured a nightmare race, eventually spinning into retirement with about ten laps to go. Parker had the pace to be on the podium and he was seen to be extremely angry after the race. Parker missed the French Grand Prix due to issues with his wheel.

Parker scored his first points of his SC career at the 2011 Supercup Monaco Grand Prix with a solid if quiet afternoon resulting in 7th place. Parker had to do with use of a non-ffb wheel which he felt hindered his chances of putting more of a fight up to the leading pack. The next race of the SC season was the 2011 Supercup British Grand Prix and it was here that Parker started to make a name for himself in the Supercup. After a disappointing qualifying from his own admission, Parker would go on to battle David Jundt for 4th spot for virtually the entire race. It was only after a mistake on the penultimate lap from Parker that lost him the spot. Critics were impressed with both drivers for their extreme fairness and sportsmanship after a very close battle. Parker also made a extremely exciting and clinical overtaking manoeuvre going into Vale corner with 5 laps to go to pass Jundt which impressed everyone up and down the paddock.

The 2011 Supercup Bahrain Grand Prix would be the race where Parker would claim his debut podium in the series after a gritty drive through the field to claim 3rd spot. Parker had qualified in a decent position of 7th and had made a decent start when contact with Phil Perkins early on left him down in 9th place before a fightback occurred. As before in Britain, Parker made use of impressive overtaking to get ahead of both Ryan Walker and Gregg Lawson within 2 laps of each other to get him back up to 6th place before his pit stop which he overtook debutant Alex Cooper on his outlap to rise him up to 5th. After pit stop problems for Lewis Redshaw and Jason Muscat, Parker found himself in 3rd and defending hard from Muscat for the final 12 laps to claim the final spot on the podium. Muscat had closed a 3s gap on Parker with 3 laps to go but missed his braking point for Turn 3 and span into Parker who luckily had no damage but this incident all but guaranteed the spot on the podium for the young Englishman. Parker was said to be relieved at finally getting a podium and then spoke of his aims to win a race before the season is over. Kernow Sport boss Mark Wicks was also on hand to congratulate Parker and back him on his claims of a race win being in sight before the end of the season.

Next round was 2011 Supercup San Marino Grand Prix where Parker qualified in a joint best 5th place on the grid and went on to finish in that place having lost 4th place on the final lap due to brake failure after having to manage worn brakes for the final 8 laps in which Parker managed them well to stay on the road and finish not only well but in the top 5 again. The next round in Turkey saw Tom qualify in a season best 4th although that was the only highlight of the race weekend. After an ordinary start, Parker was tagged in Turn 4 by Kenney Lybeer and had to wait for the entire field to go past before resuming down in last place. A fightback was staged but after an unsual error, Parker going into the final lap blew his engine from 8th place and crept over the line to finish 10th a lap down and a crucial point in his race for top 5 position in the drivers standings at the end.

The 2011 Supercup Mexican Grand Prix was one of huge controversy for Parker. After qualifying in an ordinary position of 8th place, Parker had a good start and was up to 6th by the end of Lap 1. As others fell off, Parker found himself in 2nd place and set for his 2nd podioum of the season and a season best finish when Gregg Lawson and David Jundt managed to catch Parker and pressure him for the 2nd spot on the podium. Parker went wide at one instance and Gregg passed him but Parker pushed far too hard, feeling hard done by after a questionable move from Gregg after the move was completed and lost his front wing gifting David the final spot on the podium. Managing to hold off Ben Warren on the final lap, Parker rushed over to the Woods motorhome and had a blazing row with Gregg which resulted in sanctions for Parker from the GPVWC admins. Parker later apologised for his actions and he and Gregg now get on well.

The next round in Canada saw Parker qualify in 7th position and after having to manage his brakes in the 2nd phase of the race to prevent them failing, he finished in a good 4th place missing out on a podium thanks to an impressive comeback race for Sam Millar. In Brazil, Parker was once again on target for a podium after qualifying in 5th position and, although having an awful start which saw him down in 9th place after lap 1, fought back to find himself 3rd with a handful of laps to go. He then entered an exciting battle with a hard charging Pavel Loknovski and a very quick Ryan Walker and Parker lost out to both of them and ended up 5th which he felt pleased with after the poor start. Italy saw Parker qualify in 7th and after embarrassingly spinning out of his grid slot, he charged back through the field to finish in 6th place although it was a lonely race for the young Englishman.

At the 2011 Supercup Spanish Grand Prix, Tom qualified in 6th position and, due to an unusual light system, stayed on his grid slot whilst others rushed past him. Having mucked his start up, Parker set about going for 4th place and was pushing hard to catch Ben Warren when an error on pit entry caused Parker to have a drive through penalty for speeding in the pitlane, dashing any hopes for 4th place. Parker served the penalty and chased after Ben as hard as he could but he had to settle for 5th place, a good result considering the start and the penalty. It should be noted that Tom cut a 20s gap down to 6s in the remaining laps trying to catch Warren which showed the impressive speed Tom was going to take into the final few rounds of the championship. However, at Belgium, Parker suffered his first retirement for over 10 races as he collided with Roy Schroten and whilst in the pits, suffered a disconnection dashing any hopes of points.

The next round was held at Zandvoort and only an error in the final sector caused Parker to start off the front row of the grid for the first time in his career and he ended up in a still very good 5th position. As the race got underway, Parker held station and set about catching the drivers ahead when he had a spin which put him down to 7th place. After passing teammate Wopke Hoesktra and Ryan Walker succumbing to an engine failure, Parker found himself in 5th position where he had started. After an error from Redshaw put him out of the race, Parker set about catching Jason Muscat and David Jundt for the final 2 spots on the podium. After racing up to the back of the squabbling pair, Parker attempted the undercut which, in practice, looked to have been the right decision to jump the pair but the two ended up ahead of Parker after they had stopped. An uncharacteristic error from David saw him crash out leaving only Muscat standing in the way of 2nd place. In the end, Jason did just enough to hold onto 2nd place but Parker still took his 2nd podium of the season in 3rd place and was pleased he was able to take the fight to the front runners in the race.

The final round of the season was one of glory and controversy for Parker in Singapore. With the big names choosing to miss qualifying, Parker took his maiden GPVWC Supercup pole position, just ahead of Ben Warren. As the race got away, Parker had a clean start and led the race, leaving the others behind as he cruised into a 20s lead at his first stop. After the stop however, and with De Vos catching him fast, Parker suffered a screen freeze in the worst place possible with 8 laps to go, leaving him with no front wing and a maiden win cruelly thrown out of the window. He ended up 8th on the road but was then disqualified along with Ojay Clark and Ben Warren for excessive corner cutting which Parker took full responsibility for and accepted his punishment. Parker ended the season 7th place in the drivers standings, an impressive achievement having only competed in 12 races and helped Kernow Sport to 6th place in the constructors standings, only a couple of points away from 5th placed Water Blue Racing having scored 70 of the teams 80 points.

2012

As team manager

Tom announced that PB Racing will return to Supercup full time in 2012 with an unchanged line up from the end of the 2011 season with William Tringas and Teemu Toikka flying the flag for the team.

As driver

Tom is due to compete for Tiger Express Motorsports in the 2012 Supercup season alongside Chris Williamson and is harbouring title ambitions after a very strong end to the 2011 season.

Formula Challenge

2012

Tom has entered Tiger Express Motorsports into the inaugural Formula Challenge season with David Jundt and newcomer to the league and friend of Parker and Jundts Janne Vaananen being the teams drivers for the 2012 season. Tom has stated he will not race in the league though he may step in should a team ask at a couple of races.

Racing Career Results

Superleague

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)

^† Driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.

Commentary

With GPVWC receiving coverage on Simrace.tv, the league was on the lookout for a commentary team for both the Superleague and the Supercup. Parker applied for the position and was accepted. Parker has since commentated on most Supercup and Superleague races.

Parker is a highly emotional commentator and he sometimes says things which are taken the wrong way. These Parkerisms have become something of folklore legend in the GPVWC community and are repeated during some broadcasts and in the forum as testament to their either silliness or absurdity. Parker has been noted to be an extremely good commentator, always catching the action and giving out little bits of information on the teams and drivers.