Toronto, Canada, September 18 – Club Cup is back for it’s second season following an intensely fun and spirited competition in Season 1. It looks to pick up exactly where it left off with intense competition and beautiful racecraft.
In race one, the field would slightly spread out, although make their way back together in the final 10 minutes of the race. Lars Fisher of 5Star Motorsport got a fantastic start and took an early lead, with Neil Middleton in hot pursuit. While these two held a gap over the rest of the field, an untimely error in the braking zone saw Neil bump Lars into a spin.
Lars was able to mostly control the spin, but found himself in a compromised position to regain the track and had to wait for most of the field to pass. In a strong display of sportsmanship, Neil immediately recognized his fault and would wait for Lars to catch up to give the position back and hope to avoid further penalty. This opened up the front as a foursome of Brandon Hawkin, Marcello Pagnan, Dave Chapman, and Matheiu Hermann would swap positions and battle for the final 10 minutes of the race. In a fantastic show of racecraft, it would come down to the final lap where Brandon Hawkin of SRC Mivano Corse would narrowly take the win from Marcello Pagnan in their sister car, with Dave Chapman of Szybki Racing rounding out the podium.
Race 2 started off with a reversed grid; Neil Middleton of Torque Freak Racing would lead the pack to green. After a long hold, he got a solid jump on the field to lead them away.
Further down the field, the leading cars from Race 1 were looking to get an early jump but kept it relatively clean and would have to battle closely through the first lap. During these early and tight slaloming through Turns 1-4, Lars Fisher would continue his unfortunate first outing in the Club Cup – a spin from driver error would drop him back and fighting to catch up to the field again. He found himself in 10th, but was able to get himself back up into 6th in Race 1, so his day was not over yet. As the battling continued in the following laps, Marcello Pagnan and Nils v Pein of GermanSimRacing came together. This would end both driver’s days early.
Meanwhile, Middleton was able to maintain his lead out front, with Hans Poelmans of Flemish Simsports hot on his heels. This would continue to pack up, with Mathieu Hermann, Simon Erpelding, and Jorge Correia joining the party. The main players from Race 1 found themselves packed up again and working their way up the field, with Chapman, Hawkin moving together through the field in 6th and 7th with 20 minutes to go but joining the lead pack to make it 6 cars fighting for the lead!
As this battle progressed, Neil would be pressured by Mathieu at the beginning of a new lap and lose position through Turn 2. With the lead pack being this close, it was easy for others to carry through as Neil couldn’t take an ideal line and would lose just enough speed for others to take advantage. This pressure continued to build and Neil would spin later on in the lap, but make a quick recovery to return just behind the battle between Fisher and Erpelding who were running in 6th and 7th – a great recovery drive for Lars again to make his way back up the field from an earlier error.
With less than 10 minutes to go, the battles at the front continued; Chapman and Hermann were bumper-to-bumper, with Hawkin and Poelmans together only 1 second behind with Correia trying to run them down from a 3 second gap while they battled in front. Further down the field, Middleton was making a great effort to fight his way back and caught up to Fisher and Erpelding while Almeida was also able to pull himself up to this group to make it a foursome.
In the final laps, Poelmans would fall off the lead group and it was Chapman, Hermann, and Hawkin who would contest for the win. At this point, strategy needed to be considered – who wanted to have draft and at which points on track to ensure a good run to the finish at the end?
Dave Chapman continued his form from last season and would come away with the win, as Hawkin took advantage of a run into the penultimate corner to snatch second position away from Matheiu Hermann. Hans Poelmans and Jorge Almeida followed them through only 5 second behind – and separated by only 0.3s to round out the top 5. Another tight group came across the line shortly after with Lars Fisher, Simon Erpelding, Neil Middleton, and Bruno Almeida separated by only 0.9s at the line!
While the grid was slightly thin for the opening round (potentially in conflict with the SimExpo and 24H SERIES ESPORTS Pre-Qualifying), it was a delightful start to the season with incredible battles, top racecraft, and superb sportsmanship all on display. We can’t wait for the next one!
Images courtesy VCO Esports
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