Blog A Day - Day 4: FalkenTyre SportsCar Challenge @ Spa

Edit: "Aaah! 01:30am and no Blog from yesterday!"

-Fear not, just means you’ll get 2 in the space of 14 hours)

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Hello and welcome to a rain-soaked Spa Francorchamps for the final round of the Season 4, 2024 Season FalkenTyre Sports Car Championship - Today and indeed this week will be the last chance for the drivers to improve on their championship standings for this season - all will be looking for a strong result today.

Today’s session is the 9:30am session - and unfortunately for the lower skilled in the session, it was a single-split session - meaning that the highest and lowest rating drivers are all pitched against each other in one race.

Being in GT4 class, I will not include any LMP highlights, unless they directly impact my result.

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Skipping straight onto qualifying - and Jay Balty sets the pace for qualifying, putting his McLaren on pole with a 2:51.574.

Truswell qualifies 12th - 14 seconds off the pole-time coming home with a 3:05.756 as a banker lap.

Come the race, Truswell - among three others opted to start from the pits.

The rest of the grid lined up as follows

1st Balty (6223 iRating) - McLaren 570s

2nd Fazlic (2120 iRating) - Mercedes AMG

3rd Gyuracz (2402 iRating) - Porsche 718 *(Pit Start)*

4th Au (2496 iRating) - Porsche 718 Cayman

5th Wen (2919 iRating) - Porsche 718 Cayman

6th Stein (1911 iRating) - BMW M4

7th Solheim (1839 iRating) - McLaren 570s *(Pit Start)*

8th Thon (3630 iRating) - BMW M4 GT4

9th Alvarez (1895 iRating) - McLaren 570s

10th Bermúdez (882 iRating) - Aston Vantage

11th Seok (1447 iRating) *(Pit-start)* - Porsche 718 Cayman

12th Truswell (1253 iRating) *(Pit-start)* - Aston Vantage

13th - Brewer (1013 iRating) - Mercedes AMG

14th - Skadhauge (4291) - Mercedes AMG

15th - Searle (2542) - Porsche 718 Cayman

Despite being only 30 minutes, the amount of attrition in the race was second to none - drivers swapping places like nobody’s business!

Upon leaving the pits on the first lap, Truswell was 32nd/32nd - just as at the Red Bull Ring, he was a man on a mission.

Not two corners into the race, Truswell’s decision paid dividends as he picked up three positions from cars facing in all sorts of directions heading up Radillion.

Before picking up more.

The beautiful thing about being last in a rainy race is that you pick up every single accident/freebies that come - essentially equalling free iRating.

Lap 1

Radillion: ^ 3 (29th) (Accident)

Bruxelles v 2 (31st)

Turn 13 (Les Fagnes) ^ 5 (26th) (Accident)

Start/finish: ^ 1 (25th) - further involved in accident

N/A - (^ 1) 24th ( +1 LMP) - Possibly Lap 2 (Accident)

Lap 2

Wen momentarily overtakes along the Kemmel straight before spinning at Bruxelles and returning 24th

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Lap 3

Start/finish v 1 (25th)

Kennel Straight v 1 (26th)

Lap 4

25th (+1 LMP) - Possibly Lap 4

Lap 5

P20 drops it at Pouhon on Lap 4 (24th)

P23 crashes out at Blanchimont (23rd)

LMP Retires (22nd) - L6

Lap 7 - Plopez Passes…proceeds to bin it. (22nd)

Lap 9 - P15 gets a wheel on kerb @ top of Radillion - Accident & Retires (21st)

^ 2 (19th) - Lap 10, Wen and Martinez last lap shunt, Pouhon

Due to the conditions, very little battling took place and most positions were gained due to retirements/accidents as opposed to on-track overtakes - hopefully next season sees a few more dry races and more overtakes to come!

Tomorrow's Blog: (Or rather, today's blog: Statacular 2024 - 2024 in Stats & Numbers!)