The seventh and last round of Apex Cup season 2 was held on Friday the 20th on the highspeed circuit Kyoto Ring GP Long with the GTR class.
In qualifying it was J.Basford from My3id Gaming in the FZR that set a fast time on his first attempt with a 2:09.97. J.Lehikoinen from My3id Gaming 2 came in 2nd with the XRR. Later in the session it was C.Mitchel that put in a 2:09.88, which was good for a second place in the end. J.Basford managed to improve his time on his last possible lap, setting a great lap of 2:09.43 which was enough for pole-position. T.Iivonen from ineX Racing 2 was the last driver that managed a time within the '09, taking 3rd on the grid. J.Lehikoinen, S.Cattell from ineX Racing and N.Dakovic from My3id Gaming took respectively 4th, 5th and 6th while the championship contender J.Holmes from ineX Racing struggled with a 2:10.61, taking 9th on the grid.
The sprint race of 7 laps started without any problems for J.Basford and he was able to maintain his position into the first corner. C.Mitchel on the other hand had less luck, after some contact with N.Dakovic he lost several positions falling back to the 8th position. J.Lehikoinen had a good start with his XRR and managed to pass S.Cattell in turn 3, taking the second position. T.Iivonen passed his teammate S.Cattell in lap 2 and was catching J.Lehikoinen quickly. In the fourth lap of the race he got into his sliptstream and made the pass in the first turn, taking over the second place. One of the biggest winners in the opening lap was K.Leu from Concept Racing, he won 3 positions and finished in 5th position. J.Basford won the race with a 2,5 second gap to T.Iivonen. J.Lehikoinen finished in third as the best XRR driver, while S.Cattell took fourth. M.Daszkiewicz from Conquest Racing finished in 6th, with J.Holmes just behind him. Y.Laprevotte from Tiger Express Motorsports crossed the line in 10th which gave him the pole position for the main race.
The main race of 21 laps started with a collision in turn one, involving C.Mitchel, K.Leu and J.Lehikoinen. Unfortunately for Y.Laprevotte he wasn't able to maintain his first position after losing 4 spots on the start of the race. S.Cattell was one of the biggest winners after the opening lap, taking the first position already after starting from 7th. J.Holmes decided to pit early for his mandatory pit-stop in lap 4, coming back in 14th on the track. In the meantime it was J.Basford that was winning multiple positions in the first few laps, taking 2nd after overtaking M.Daszkiewicz in the 8th lap of the race. J.Basford started to close a 5 second gap to S.Cattell and in lap 18 he was close enough to take advantage of the slipstream and pass him into turn one. Both drivers decided to make their pit-stop in lap 19 of the race, when S.Cattell lost his chances for the win after making contact with the barrier when he came into the pits. J.Basford didn't take any risk in the last two laps of the race and took the triple and the driver championship win! S.Cattell finished in 2nd, 6 seconds behind the winner. K.Leu took a quite surprising but deserved 3rd position in the end when the others made their mandatory pit-stop in the last laps. M.Daszkiewicz took 4th, closely followed by N.Dakovic and J.Holmes. Y.Laprevotte, M.Kapal and Y.Cai were the last three drivers that finished in the points.
J.Basford wins the driver championship of Apex Cup season 2, with a 55 points lead over J.Holmes. K.Leu finishes in 3rd, 13 points behind J.Holmes. In the team championship it's My3id Gaming who takes the win with a quite big margin over ineX Racing and ineX Racing 2.
We want to thank all of the drivers for taking part in Apex Cup Season 2. With 68 different drivers, 40 teams and an extremely competetive field we think it was yet again a very good season which we can be proud of.
Finally we want to thank the commentators (Tommy Østgaard in particular), the admins, Flexwebhosting.nl, UKDedigamers, MultiBC and all the other people that supported us during the season. Did you enjoy it as much as we did? Please consider a donation so we may be back later this or next year with plenty of more action.
