Nurburgring Endurance Championship: Round 2 Race Review

Prologue

After an absolute dream start to the series, Truswell needed a strong finish to stay in contention for the Championship - could he do it? Or would the 'ring bite back?

Qualifying

As the sun rose on race-day morning, so did the temperature - by the time qualifying rolled around at 9am, it was a comfortable 17 degrees.

With clear skies, and warm weather - all 54 drivers spanning 3 classes could push to the absolute limit.

In the GT4 class, the competition was fierce - Freakybob Racing setting a provisional pole time of an 8:38 - before finding 3 seconds and setting a blistering pole lap time of an 8:35.794 - nobody could come close, but GoSquadra came the closest with an 8:39.771

A little ways back, Truswell managed to qualify 6th - matching his place in Race 1 - in theory, Truswell should be able to challenge for the podium/4th as he had done at the previous round, but, of course, there was a long and treacherous 4 hour race ahead.

Race

Admittedly, it wasn't the greatest start for Truswell - dropping to 7th off the line, and then realising neither he (nor the team) had put the fuel back in post-qualifying.

It was going to be a long race.

After temporarily picking up 6th from a spun BMW at Turn 1, at the end of the lap Truswell dived into the pits at the end of the first lap from 5th after another car ahead of Truswell went deep into the gravel at Planzgarten before re-joining behind Truswell

Truswell would drop to 8th and last of the runners. With a 1 minute, 8 second to 6th place, Truswell had a lot of work to do.

7th ahead also pitted, but was also 36 seconds up the road.

Luckily for me, however, the GT4 pack never stands still - and drama was just around the corner as the 6th-placed Fonte Team Racing Porsche GT4 spun on gravel strewn on the track at the top of Planzgarten II before hitting the barrier. He'd remove his rear wing in the process

Despite the driver's best efforts, he could only make it to Flugplatz the following lap - before spinning out - taking the P6 BMW behind with him.

For Truswell in 8th behind - this was an ideal scenario - two birds had been hit, and a lot of the work regaining time lost had been re-gained.

The badly damaged Porsche was quickly dispatched of, whilst the BMW pitted for major repairs.

Truswell was back in 6th with a full tank of fuel - this could turn out to be a very interesting race.

The drama kept coming as on Lap 5, as the second place Merc of GoSquadra Motorsport - who started on the front row, pulled to the side of the track and retired with an unknown issue - promoting Truswell into the Top 5 - that's the fascinating thing with Sim-Racing - if there's an urgent issue in the real-world that needs attending to - you can't just pause!

With an hour gone, just half the field remained on the lead lap, and Truswell was eagerly trying to close the gap to the Merc in 4th ahead - but Truswell had a trick up his sleeve - having already pitted - Truswell was on semi-decent tyres and still had half a tank of fuel left - so as the leaders peeled into the pit-lane on Lap 7 - Truswell had a golden opportunity to take a chunk out of the 24-second gap to the car ahead.

On Lap 9, Truswell pitted from P4 - where he came out would be crucial to the result of the race.

Truswell would eventually only lose one position, emerging in 5th - just 22 seconds behind P4, but on fresher tyres.

Lap by lap, Truswell slowly ate into the gap - reducing the gap to 15 seconds by the following lap.

By Lap 12, the gap was just over 5 seconds...and with the second round of pit-stops mere laps away, the race was heating up. At last, along the Dottinghoe straight that lap, I managed to pass 4th place. Next up was 3rd.

3rd was another 1 minute 16 seconds up the road - and he himself going rapidly.

Meanwhile, I had my own problems to worry about - such as the fact that P4 had snuck back past whilst I was letting faster traffic through.

Ironically, the same 911 Cup I let past (and lost the position), P4 had to yield to, and let me past in the process.

Racing taketh away, and racing giveth.

On Lap 14, as predicted, the leaders peeled into the pits for what was set to be either their final or penultimate pit-stop.

P1 had such a lead that P2 was half way down the Dottinghoe by the time that P1 had left the pits.

Truswell, on his alternate strategy, eventually pits on Lap 17 with just under 90 minutes (1 hr 30 mins) left in the race. Crucially annoying as a full stint (in the Aston GT4) is about 1hr 10 - meaning a splash and dash would be needed in the final 20 minutes/final 2 laps. Had I continued on (instead of pitting on the opening lap) - I MAY have been able to overcome this off-set.

But pit done and dusted, I had a 38-second gap to the next car ahead - but I knew he had been rapid all race.

I managed to match his pace - only dropping the gap to 36 seconds before the splash-and-dashers leapt into the pits.

After 4 laps in 3rd position, eventually my tank too ran dry, and I was forced into the pits - with just less than 15 minutes or two laps to go - the Nordschliefe is a VERY long lap - and there's a massive, 15 Litre difference between saving enough fuel for one lap and two - meaning - had I needed to save for enough - I would have had to save at least 30-45 liters - potentially costing 4th position.

But we'll look into the numbers, and see what could have been done.

After 4 (and a bit) hours of racing, the Squadra Super Veloce BMW won (this split) of Round 2 of the Nurburgring Endurance Championship from 4th on the grid, followed by grid-mate Team Luke McLane from 5th, with pole-team FreakyBob Racing in 3rd, TMS Central Racing taking their second 4th position in a row.

The brighter news is that Truswell finished 24 Seconds behind P3.

At round one, the gap was 43 seconds - so if that's anything to go by, the gap to 3rd is coming down...slowly - I just need to shave another 19 - 24 seconds off P3!

Race Results (GT4)

1st - Squadra Super Veloce - BMW

2nd - Team Luke McLane - BMW

3rd - Freakybob Racing - BMW 4th - TMS Central Racing - Aston

5th - Organised Jumble - Mercedes

6th - Virtuale E-Racing Team UNO - DNF (Lap 6 crash at miss, hit, miss)7th - GoSquadra Motorsport - DNF (Lap 5 Mystery Retirement)8th - PeterTongs Solo - DNF (Lap 1 contact with spun BMW)

9th - Fonte Team Racing - DNF (Lap 3 crash // no rear wing)

10th - Catgirl MeowMeow - DNS

Nurburgring Endurance Championship -

Driver Standings (GT4 Class - Division 6)

In terms of standings, in this split, I was the highest-finishing Division 6 driver, yet it was possible for others to improve as they had been placed in higher splits. Crucially, I've gained 7 places in the championship standings - sniffing at a Top 10 - Ingram dropping from an early championship lead down to 12th.

It's possible Ingram could be playing the long game, and has simply taken a drop week.

But just like Ingram - if any of the top 10 miss a week, it's free (championship) positions on the table.

But the 4th's and consistency are working - I'll just have to defend it - and hopefully sneak into the top 10 in the championship standings next time out on 17th/18th May.

Thank you for reading.