Sunday,21st January
18:30 UTC / 19:30 CET / 20:30 EET
Round 3 is the 2nd round towards Cross challenge award,but unlike in 1st one this will have mixed surface as parts of track consist of paved surface. The lightweight buggy was run also last season in this same track,just in reversed direction,but surely also in original direction it has a potential to go few seconds under 1 minute mark. The weak part of this car is known - it's the clutch that can't handle too much beating when jumping as the high revving 2 liter 4-cylinder can spin the wheels to high speeds while car being in air.
After the 2 rounds championship table still has only first few sketches of what's possible,but noone has influencing advantage yet - is this the round where someone will start running away with lead or the round where someone from behind or even newly joining in will start the deciding chase?
This round was back to the classics in a certain way - the AWS idea was created on race in Blackwood,back then running the slicks only wearing FXR. Now we have come a long way as the GTR car is replaced with a lightweight buggy in the 12th edition of Blackwood RXGP which is even faster than the origins car. Just 10 drivers gathered up for this round,recording season's lowest attendance,4 of them doing "double duty" of having 2 events on same day.
The fastest in qualifying was Lorenzo,who outrun the competition by very slim advantage,scoring his first ever AWS pole position. His previous best was 3rd place in qualifying,recorded first year ago in the same car on same track,just in reversed direction. His race however was not so convincing as the italian fell down to 4th position. The best in race was the 2019 AWS champion Sobis,who started from outside of the 3-wide front and rallied up positions to lead the last 2/3 of race distance. It was his 3rd AWS race win,previous 2 were scored on his championship season. Arska started from 1 position lower than race winner and eventually followed him through field to finish 2nd,also repeating his previous best race result in the league,however his previous 2nd place finish was achieved in 2017. Another front row starter finished 3rd - Thehemuli led 13 laps before losing lead of the race,eventually losing also 2nd place.
With standings leader winning the race it's clear who keeps the lead in the table - Sobis trippled his advantage over competition in this round and now is 12 points clear of 2nd place which is now taken by Lorenzo. Thehemuli and Rony are another 2 points behind,the first of them is ahead on tiebraker. If reclaiming champion's title is still long way ahead,Sobis has set sights on repeating the Cross challenge winner's glory - he needs "only" top4 finish in last race for the award to secure the award. Thehemuli is currently 2nd with 10 points disadvantage. The fate of this award will be decided in round 6.
Rookie of the year standings lead has been retaken by RD2,who finished 5th this round. S.Martin is 2nd just 3 points apart,not attending Stiefla has fallen down to 3rd with 7 points gap to leader.
2 teams scored 26 points in the latest round and both are now leading the table - the defending champions RGA took over the standings lead and is now 11 points clear of WCL. LLM is now 3rd,while previous leaders S1dus have dropped down to 4th due not attending. For the 3rd round in row Finland has scored most points between nations and the northern country is on the best way to defend the title. Lithuania is still 2nd with exactly half of the points count of leaders,Italy has climbed up to 3rd.
Next round marks the middle of the season - 4th round of 7. It will be a repeat of round 7 of previous season - Rockingham 150. It's a 150 kilometer race around Rockingham's oval with the 250 horsepower car hailing from the 80ies,which has R4 slick tyres in it's equippment,meaning the car certainly does not lack grip through the turns of english oval track,teamwork can be an important factor in the race. Last year the race ended in a very close 3-way finish - can this be repeated once again?
