Qualifying

Defending champion Pete from TC Racing took time out of his schedule to partake in this race, and even though he had been out for nearly a year, he showed none of his skill had left him, putting his XRG in 3rd just ahead of SIDUS's Gabor. Trespasser set the pace early on as we were expecting, however, Michal slowly paced himself and soon traded positions with the TRR driver, with both drivers neck and neck in time, with Trespasser just grabbing the pole by the smallest of margins. The Race Green duo of Redbot and Mandula remained inseparable in 5th and 6th ahead of World Class Lion's T.Soini. LCS-R Onur qualified in 11th ahead of Elmo, with PitlaneRacer bringing up the rear.



Race



With two XFG's in front of him, Pete was looking to get a jump onto at least the rear of Trespasser - however, it was evident that the launch of the top 2 were perfect, and the field headed past Turn 1 as they were, with Pete having to duck back behind Michal. Further back, Onur had made a bad jump, and was swamped by the field as they headed into the lap, with the only challenge coming from Michal, who briefly drew alongside Trespasser.



The end of the first lap saw JJD come through the pits for an extremely early stop, with the intentions to leapfrog his rivals, however, a slow out lap, contact with the walls and slow pace saw his intentions nullified.
Meanwhile, Pickard had begun to pick his way past drivers, going clean around the outside of Soini to elevate himself up into 6th, and to set off to chase the Race Green cars ahead. The other Race Green car of Maciek also found an invoice past Soini, with a clean pass entering Sector 3.

At the front, Trespasser set the blistering pace he had showed during practice and qualifying, edging away from 2nd placed Michal as Pete and Gabor set after the MRc driver.



The midfield battle was between Gabor, Mandula and the charging Pickard, all 3 were close together and Gabor swapped positions with Mandula as the pair fought up front.



As the drivers settled into a rhythm, it looked as if it would be a great tussle for the podium, until JJD brought out a Safety Car after flipping off track coming under the final sector bridge. With most drivers past the pit lane entry, no one gained much, with all the drivers peeling right into the pits for their "cheat" stop. To the shock of most, Pete had forgotten to set "damage off", which resulted in a long stop, and would eventually bring us one hell of a battle to the flag!



The restart saw an even getaway by all the drivers, with Pete missing the jump slightly and falling ever so slightly back into the clutches of Maciek behind. The TC-R driver soon set his sights purely on the cars in front, and muscled his way past Mandula and set after pressuring Gabor and Pickard for 4th. The battles kept going, with Pickard and Gabor tussling and the latter blasting past after a run in with the wall by Pickard saw him drop back.



The final lap saw PitlaneRacer turn turtle at Turn 1, however, no Safety Car was called as the field was already half-past. This allowed us a full battle, both for Pickard and Pete, and Mandula with Maciek. It was a close battle from Pete who had now put his car up into 5th after his earlier pit stop debacle - and was now right on the rear of Pickard, who was overheating his rear tires. However, there was no way past and both held station to the flag. Maciek was also stuck behind his team mate, with the passing opportunities exhausted.

At the front however, it was a dominating performance from our current championship leader Trespasser, who extends his advantage over Michal!





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 25th of July for Round 6 at Monaco!