A Wild 7 Months At The 'Ring!

Hello and welcome back.

Upon looking back, I've had a wild old year on The Green Hell - scoring both podiums and retirements - so I thought I'd look back on my year so far.

Nurburgring Endurance Championship

Up until the final round of last year, I was absolutely sold on the Mercedes AMG GT GT3 - but to celebrate the final NEC race of the year, we (me and Dominik Gahlow - my team-mate) decided to test out the Aston Martin GT4 - and the chaotic race that ensued changed our minds completely - and going forth we'd be the Aston boys.

My first race at the Nordschliefe in 2023 was the first round of the Nurburgring Endurance Championship in early April - and despite a retirement, we still finished 8th in class (highest of the retirements) - 13 entered, 5 retired, 8 finished.

With the motivation that "all we needed to do was finish...and not have any major accidents" - we entered Round 2 in late April (23rd April) and surprisingly came home to finish 3rd in class - an absolutely MASSIVE achievement for me and Dominik.

Round 3 was in June - and was the part of a difficult weekend (technical issues) - but myself and new team-mate Kemble managed to come home with a solid 7th place.

In late June, it was Round 4, in an incredibly messy weekend.

The iRacing Nurburgring 24 Hours, 2023 (23rd May, 2023)

The Nurburgring 24 Hours was absolutely one to forget and very much a case of completely fucking up the one time it actually mattered - having done so many laps in the Aston at the Nordschliefe, I was pretty comfortable/confident in it - everything just went completely out of the window on race day - first crashing and then writing off the car whilst returning to the pits.

As they always say: always next year.

The Messy Weekend

As the weekend of the 24th-25th June rolled around, it became apparent that I had a fair few options open to me.

It was a weekend of many clashes - no matter what I did - there'd be a clash.

Global Endurance Series

Most noticeable was Round 1 of the Global Endurance Series - a 24 Hour Series allowing for the Le Mans 24 Hours to be held on iRacing - Round 1 was - quite interestingly - at the Nurburgring - and after driving the Chevrolet GTE around - I knew it was going to be a fun race...there was just a few problems.

1. Having only done x1 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race the previous season - I wanted to get more heavily involved in the series...do more races.

2. On Sunday, between 1pm - 2pm was a "Canoeing Session" at my local sports centre - I had been telling myself to go since discovering it back in May - and my plan was to do it this very weekend.

3. Two drivers was simply not enough - with one driver...driving and the other assisting/spotting - by the following morning, we would both be running on no sleep and feel shit/sleep deprived - which is not what you want whilst driving a 24 Hour race around Nurburgring Nordschliefe.

4. On the morning of the race - at 07:52am (race started at 8am) Dominik told me he was unwell...I think that was the last straw.

IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge

Away from the Nordschliefe, it was the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge - I chose to do the 4pm session, which clashed with an endurance league later that evening (6pm) - thankfully my team-mate wasn't ready either.

On Sunday, I did manage to attend my Canoeing session - and it was incredibly enjoyable.

July

Since starting back in early June, every race of the FRL (Formula Racing League) iMotoring Mondays has been just as exciting as the last - in the past 5 races, the championship lead has switched between me and Klaassens (championship rival) four times - every race it switches back to the other driver - wins at both Monza and Imola putting me back at the top of the table.

The most recent FRL race to date has been at The Nurburgring Nordschliefe.

Simply put...it was an absolute disaster... I was supposed to finish work at 7:15pm - cycle home and be ready for the evening's proceedings.

Due to having shorter hours on Monday (3pm - 7:15pm) - I'm only allowed a 15-minute break - I soooort of went over this - so to make up for this, I worked until 7:45pm - had a bit of a mad rush home - and then proceeded to have a shite race.

Qualifying

Only 5/11 people qualified - I was one of the ones who did...not.

Race

I lined up 7th. I knew all I needed to do was focus on the track ahead...

When putting the setup in - it failed scrutineering - so I had to go with one with about 3/4's of a tank of fuel - another great success...

The lights went out and away we went....or well...away THEY went - as I was fiddling around with fuel levels and setups, I missed the start...fun times.

Well - as they always say - start from 0, got nothing to lose - the only way is up.

From 11th - I managed to climb all the way up to 6th before being passed by two faster drivers behind who perished early on - but 11th to 8th was still massively good progress.

Right from the very start - with half (maybe 3/4) of a tank of fuel - I knew that the name of the game would absolutely be fuel-saving - so, whenever I could, I'd lift and coast.

Lap by lap, The Green hell would claim more and more victims.

Her first victim was Cooper in 4th place - whom went deep into just one corner, knocked his steering out of alignment and crabbed to the pits - gifting me 7th.

Next up was me - I went a little too aggressively into one corner, tapped my rear right on a wall and received serious aero damage out of it.

On Lap 4, Souto - who was leading at the time - had a technical problem and disconnected from the session (he wasn't in control of this) - moving the entire field up one position - including myself - 6th was mine.

At the end of Lap 4 - the leaders pitted - me being the only driver who saved enough fuel for an extra lap.

As I rounded turn 1 (Lap 5), I was side by side with P3 - the two leaders had already pitted and left the pits - and I still needed to pit myself.

P3 eventually dissapeared off into the distance - but I passed him after he crashed (cold tyres, heavy car, got a wheel on the grass).

As I pitted, I was 3rd - but whilst in the pits - 4th (side by side as I entered pits) and 5th both passed me - becoming 3rd and 4th - me emerging in 5th - about 3 seconds behind 4th.

This dropped to a second the following lap.

The issue was - I was only faster than Young ahead in the final sector - just after the Karussell - and round those parts, there's NOWHERE to overtake - and with the damage from the wall whack - I hadn't the straight-line speed to catch/pass him on the Dottinghoe Straight.

And by the third lap the race was over and done and dusted.

Klaassens taking 2nd place - but more importantly the championship lead by a mere point....I'm going to have to buy Magny Cours now aren't I?