Nurburgring Endurance Championship: Round 4 Race Review

Race Date: July 19th Prologue Hello and welcome back to the iRacing Nurburgring Endurance Championship for round 4/9 of the series.

We've had a 1 month summer break, and now we're back for the second half of the season with two races in four weeks.

Over the summer break, we had the iRacing Nurburgring 24 Hours - and with a month of practice beforehand, and 24 hours of circulating the 'Ring - those that competed had a monumental confidence and competitive advantage heading into July's NEC round.

TMS Central Racing (Kabort's new name/team for those that don't know) themselves won their split in GT4 Class. With Truswell sitting in 7th in the Championship (in GT4/division 6), he had a perfect opportunity to score some serious points this time around. With him competing in the Nurburgring 24 Hours last month - he had plenty of party tricks up his sleeve he was just itching to test out.

Qualifying

At 09:20am on the dot, the green flag waved to start qualifying. 9 minutes later, we got our first indication of the starting order.

By the end of the 30-minute qualifying session, Jose Carlos Hernandez would steal pole with an impressive 8:34.416 Second would be Trevor Hilton - one of the TMS Central Racing drivers that helped take the team to an N24 win.

Third would be a further 0.2 seconds behind.

Truswell would finish qualifying in 7th with a 8:41.500 - this being his best qualifying time around this layout of the 'Ring.

The Race

With the grid decided, it was time to go racing!

Team Lore qualified 4th, but opted to start from the pits, promoting everyone 5th and below up one position. All things considered, the start was incredibly civilised in the GT4 class, the top 4 tucking into single file through the final few corners and stayed as they started. P6 (starting behind Team Lore in the left row) moved into the vacant position, and followed P3 through the final few corners to start the race, replacing where the Team Lore car would have been, Valhalla unable to capitalise on Team Lore's pit-start.

Much in the same way, P8 was promoted up to P7, overtaking Truswell as the left line moved forward one place.

Truswell would start in P9/P10 as his new row-mate slotted in behind the newly-promoted P7 SimXP car in 8th. Team Lore would start from the pits, and Team FCancer would not start the race.

With that settled, the race properly began.

It was a good start for Truswell as he re-gained a position on 8th place as P8 made an early error going wide and hitting the barrier on the opening lap. On starting the second lap, the top 3 remained identical to their qualifying/starting positions, with SOY Motorsport in 1st from Pole, Flat-Shift Endurance (Hilton) in 2nd and Australia Wide Racing in third.

In fourth was BRL Lost Soul - them starting in 6th, followed by Valhalla Racing remaining in 5th.

SimXP started the second lap in 6th,

Truswell followed him in 7th.

Team Lore made a good start from the pits making their way up into 8th, followed by Off The Pace Racing whom fell to 9th after their earlier mistake.

Truswell narrowly missed catastrophe on the second lap as a 911 cup ahead decided to stop/park/retire his car right on the apex of a 120mph kink on a straight.

Whilst Truswell squeezed through by mere millimetres, Team Lore behind were unsighted and slammed into the back of the 911 Cup - a tragic end to what could have been a very strong result having caught up to the back of Truswell (7th) in just two laps having started from the pits.

Truswell escapes with his life, Team Lore, unsighted behind Truswell had no time to react

Truswell wasn't the only one involved drama in the GT4 pack on Lap 2 either! The Australia Wide Racing Green car, piloted by Ashli Sharp (whom I previously fought a separate GT4 Championship title for) also got into trouble.

Heading into Pflanzgarten, a GT4 Cup behind was powering through the GT4 field after an earlier incident - tried to get around the outside of Sharp - Sharp clouting a kerb on the left, the Porsche clouting a kerb on the right (the side he was overtaking on), before barging into Sharp, they touch, and Sharp is fired into the barrier, bounced off the ARMCO into another one, and their race was run and done.

By the start of the third lap, the top two remained as they were,

BRL were promoted into 3rd, Valhalla in 4th, SimXP in 5th, and Truswell returned to his starting position.

Following this, the GT4 class simmered down - the pack was spread out fairly evenly (a few seconds between each car) and everyone was staying to the track and behaving themselves.

Saying this, on Lap 5, BRL Lost Soul were taken out by a GT3 (BMW) on the exit of Brunnchen.

The BRL car escaping damage, but losing valuable time and third position.

By Lap 5 Soy Motorsports Team (Interval) Flat Shift Endurance (-4 S) Valhalla Racing (-17 S) (Off Flat Shift)

BRL Lost Soul (-34 S)

Sim XP (-5 S)

TMS Central Racing (-5 S)

Off The Pace Racing (-18 S)

BRL's day went from bad to worse on Lap 6 as they flew into the tyre barrier on the outside Plflanzgarten, causing more damage - and ultimately retiring.

They packed up pretty quickly thereafter, so it's unknown weather this was a genuine mistake, pushing too hard, out of frustration or a technical fault - or finding a reason to quit.

But with that said, Truswell pitted on Lap 6 to open the pit-window for the first time this race (for the GT4's) - and everyone followed suit the following lap.

With the pit-stops done, SOY retained the lead,

Trevor and Flat Shift Endurance were 10 seconds behind

With various incidents throughout the race, Truswell had miraculously made his way up into 3rd, jumping SimXP in the pits - but was under all sorts of pressure.

Truswell lasted a lap and 3/4 (almost 2 laps) before the SimXP driver behind had enough slip-stream and confidence to get around the outside of Hohenrain.

Valhalla would get past Truswell the following lap on the Hocheichen straight.

The Valhalla car was quick - and by the start of the 11th lap, was in 3rd position.

Up front? No change - Trevor was still hunting down P1.

It was on lap 11 Truswell's race unfolded - carrying a little bit too much speed into Hohe Acht - clobbering the apex kerb, which unsettled the car and ploughed into the barrier on exit.

Whilst the steering had avoided damage - the bodywork and indeed aero took a nasty hit. With no immidiate damage, he'd continue on to the end of his stint before pitting...

And there was no repairs. The team had bought no spare parts - there was damaged to be serviced, but no way to take the repairs. With the Dottinghoe Straight to contend with, Truswell knew he'd be seriously down on top-speed.

Truswell wasn't alone however, earlier on in the race during a battle in the previous stint, another car went off and hit the barrier - had Truswell avoided his Lap 11 incident - a much easier P4 could have been possible.

And this wasn't his only brush with the barrier - on SimXP's out-lap on lap 15 - they had another fairly hefty brush with the wall.

Following the second round of pit-stop, the GT4 field had spread out, and the track action had been reduced to a lull - gaps ranging from 16 seconds to over 50 seconds, SimXP pulling out a 16-second gap to Truswell behind, before diving into the pits at the end of the next lap - finally gifting P4 to Truswell after over an hour of waiting.

Just past the half-way mark, the GT4 field looked as follows: SOY Motorsport Team continued to lead Flat Shift Endurance. Valhalla Racing was in 3rd, with Truswell recently promoted to 4th, after SimXP's pit-stop.

~

Disaster can strike any driver at any time - especially at the Green Hell, and on lap 19, lost the back end at Brunchen, going a little wide, before making heavy contract with the barrier.

Hernandez would get going again, but the damage had been done - and the gap to 2nd was rapidly falling.

By the Dottinghoe, P2, Flat Shift Endurance, had caught and passed the limping car. Now, for SOY Motorsport, it was just about bringing the car home and finishing the race, to end Lap 19, they limped into the pits for repairs. For Flat Shift Endurance? They had a race to win!

With a 2 minute 10 second gap to the car behind, they could not have been in a better position.

The time slowly ticked down, and eventually 8 laps - and just one hour remained.

Valhalla themselves were also in no-man's-land with the next car ahead (P2) 30 seconds ahead of them, and Truswell for TMS a further minute behind.

And this is where things remained until the flag - Flat Shift Endurance taking a well-earnt victory, followed by Soy Motorsport - who were lucky to finish second after their late blunder.

In third it was Valhalla with TMS Central Racing not too far behind

NEC Round 4 GT4 Results

1st - Flat Shift Endurance (Aston Martin) 2nd - SOY Motorsport Team (Aston Martin)

3rd - Valhalla Racing Asgard (Mercedes)

4th - TMS Central Racing (Aston Martin) 5th - BRL Lost Soul (Aston Martin) (-1 Lap)

6th - Team Clint Morrison (BMW)

DNF - SimXP (Accident) - (24 L)

DNF - Team Lore (Accident) - (20 L)

DNF - Off The Pace Racing (Accident) (13 L) DNF - Australia Wide Racing (Accident) (2 L) DNS - Team FCancer

Nurburgring Endurance Challenge - GT4 Div. 6 Championship Standings After 4 Rounds

With just over half way in the season to go - can Truswell keep up his impressive form?