Toronto, Canada, September 14 – As the fall winds begin to gust through the mountains of Eifel, we met on track for the first time of the 2021-2022 season in a whirlwind of multiclass action in the Endurance Series at the Nürburgring.
This season, the teams of the Endurance Series will contest each race over 1000km with a 7h timecap. A new format, with the addition of a PRO and PRO/AM GT3 class, plenty of new teams on the grid, and several regulation revisions, culminated in anticipation which was obvious in the first stages of the race.
As the green flag flew, the 1000km of Nürburgring began as a mix of clean racing and incidental hiccups. The LMP2 class got off to a clean start throughout the field, with close-quarters battling from the get-go. While VRS Satellite Racing dialed in their qualifying setup to-a-T, Puresims looked to take an immediate race lead for an early on-track advantage. They pushed Satellite hard and early, ultimately making a beautiful pass around the outside of Dunlop and would continue to build a lead reaching 6 seconds before the LMP2s reached their first pit stops. Further down the field, the intense rivalry between 2020-2021 class leaders Team RSO and DeltaSport continued; the two were side-by-side on the exit of the chicane during the beginning laps, and following an unfortunate loss of control by Team RSO, they would collect DeltaSport leading to early race damage for both cars. Team RSO were able to dive directly into pitlane to take repairs, and would come out to pick up their race 6 laps down on the leader. DeltaSport were able to continue however were seemingly slightly down on pace, opting to wait for their first pitstop – or a safety car – to take repairs as they deemed their damage to not be a significant enough disadvantage to warrant an early pitstop.
Meanwhile, the GTE class would get away smoothly however the GT3 class suffered a miscommunication which resulted in seven cars passing the pole-sitter at the start. These cars would later all receive a drive through penalty (DTP) for incorrect start procedures, bringing that pack back to relative positions at the start. Much to the chagrin of some teams, this did not completely revise the starting order, however given the unique and novel circumstances the overall effect of the DTP penalties were largely as desired.
As the race continued to progress over the next several hours, the anticipation of the season and fever-pitch of competition was obvious. Contacts were present throughout – both inter- and intra-class, in widely varying degrees of severity. While this is not completely unexpected or unusual in a season opener, it certainly seemed that a higher degree of anxious aggressiveness was present as teams lunged, pressed, and squeezed their competitors throughout the roughly 5 km-long circuit. This competitive behaviour resulted in several safety cars throughout the race, and even in their absence there were certainly teams whose races ended prematurely. However, despite this early-race folly there were definitively top-tier driving standards on display and the overall atmosphere of the race would shift in the second half as drivers began to settle into a new season after such a long absence.
As the race approached the latter stages, and with the field settled in, we saw teams finding their rhythm and we began to get an idea of ultimate pace and positions throughout the classes. While some teams showed fantastic qualifying pace, others opted for a race-centric focus and were able to slowly chip their way up the order throughout the race. Fiercely Forward were one of these cases with their LMP2 competitor, who started near the back of the grid but ended up with a solid 6th place finish – a great debut in an all-PRO class after their LMP2 AM category win in the 2020/2021 season. With some teams fighting their way up the grid, there were also others who looked consistently strong and would fight for podium positions throughout the race. In the GTE class, RSR by G-Performance looked very strong but ultimately the consistency of Alpinestars Geodesic Racing would prevail as they came away from Round 1 with the class win. In the GT3 class, newcomers Apex V2R were strong during the whole race. They would qualify second in the PRO class, and go on to win the race. However, as can be the case with newcomers they had an unfortunate oversight and miscalculated their drive times which resulted in a post-race penalty. This would move Impulse Racing, Puresims Esports, and Maniti Racing up one position each to complete the podium in the GT3 PRO class. In the GT3 PRO/AM class, Team Eleven – a perennial IVRA contender – looked strong from the start putting their car on pole only fractionally ahead of VRS Satellite Racing. They continued to look strong throughout the race, however had a very unfortunate accident after just barely touching the grass which would lead to heavy damage and end their day. High Calibre Autosports, who first drove with IVRA last season and showed impressive pace in their LMP2 AM entry, would continue their form and pick up the win from VRS Satellite Racing and Maniti Racing in 2nd and 3rd respectively (following a 20s post-race penalty to the Maniti team).
Despite a frenetic start, the Endurance Series season kicks off reasonably well with its most competitive grid ever. Round 2 takes us to the hills of Styria where teams and drivers will tackle the 1000km of the Red Bull Ring – a high speed and flowing grand prix circuit which should be another thriller from front to back.
Relive the first round here: