One of the favourite circuits and also an historical one makes a return to the LRL calendar for Season 2020 - and it delivered as usual with excellent racing!




Qualifying

Heading into qualifying, it was evident that run-away championship leader Trespasser would be absent from the round - thus, fan favourite Michal from team MRC was expected to make the most of a grid position. However, it was Born2Race's Ayoub who took the challenge, setting the pace right from the start of the session ahead of team mate Twincam. Michal soon found more pace and pole was set to be a straight out dog fight between the two, until Pickard set a fastest lap mid-way through the session - he would miss out on the pole after Ayoub beat him by the finest of margins. Further back, JJD, Race Green's Maciek and TRR's Salminen fought for the spot on the top 5, with the gaps being ultra tight; a good sign for the race!




Race



With a track position key around the track, the drivers were weary for the start - the race kicked off with Ayoub getting jumped by Michal and Pickard off the line, with Michal challenging and getting past to the lead, whilst Pickard ran wide and dropped down the field. JJD got up to 3rd in the chaos, and TC-R's Elmo, after a brilliant start, found himself on the gearbox of Pickard in 6th. Further back, Air Attack's Berdy found himself in a fight with Maciek, going into the tunnel side by side, whilst LFS Team Hungary's Lacko picked off positions after starting last. M.Linde and Salminen got together down into the Sector 2 left hander, dropping back but recovering well.


Ayoub getting past Michal for the lead

Ayoub managed to get past Michal for the lead shortly after and set off to make a gap, whilst the drivers behind were caught in a log jam behind JJD in 3rd; with M.Linde getting past into Turn 1 and bringing a few drivers with him. Meanwhile, Lacko, who was already up to 10th by the 2nd lap, dueled with Zeinberg77, and both misjudged the braking into the Sector 2 left hander, with Lacko coming off worst. Meanwhile, the momentum loss for Zeinberg saw Jereloco and LCS-R's Onur slip past.



As the race stabilised, Pickard, who was now up to 3rd, slowly clawed onto the back of Michal, who had now dropped off the pace of Ayoub. Maciek was now chasing Elmo for 5th, and Twincam and Salminen were locked in a battle for 9th. That was until Twincam made an uncharacteristic error into the penultimate corner down in the tunnel in the same spot as Michal in Season 2019, crashing out and bringing out the Safety Car! This saw the pit-stop sequence filter out, with most of the drivers down from 7th making the split decision to take the cheat stop, with the leaders hussling around the lap to lose little time as possible during their own stop.

To Twincam's luck, he managed to get himself free and continued on, pitting due to damage and dropping one lap down.



The restart saw Ayoub mistime his launch, catching up to the Safety Car too quickly, resulting in Michal getting a storming run down into turn 1, bringing Pickard with him, with the pair tussling it down into turn 2, piling on the pressure until Michal ran wide coming out of the tunnel, losing his lead and giving the positions right back, with Pickard slipping into the lead and covering off Ayoub. Lacko slid past Maciek for 9th in the recovery drive, whilst Elmo had gotten past JJD and up into 4th, only to make a mistake to let him past again.



As the race drew to an end, Elmo capitalised on an error from Salminen to get into 5th, only to succumb to the pressure and spin out exiting the tunnel, letting Linde and Lacko past - only for the latter to outbrake himself, dropping behind the TC-R driver, and setting a battle to the flag, of which the LFS Team Hungary driver would win. Further back, Zeinberg, who had driven a messy race thus far, held off Soini for the better part of the race, whilst Jereloco and Maciek fought for 8th, with the pair swapping paint to the end.



At the front however, it was Pickard who came out on top to claim his first victory in Season 2 of LRL, a well fought victory with the likes of Ayoub and Michal. Behind the top 3, JJD finished in a worthy 4th ahead of Salminen and M.Linde, both of which performed excellent on their debuts. Lacko fought up to 7th from dead last, and Elmo finished in 10th.




Full race results and Driver's Championship Standings can be found at https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1955979#post1955979
Join us next time on the 11th of July for Round 5 at 9397 Erebus!