Deltasport’s Sean Campbell, and Division 2’s GermanSimRacing were crowned champions of their respective categories during the Round of Road America and the mammoth task for those trailing them finally became impossible. Between them, they’ve won in their category 9 times this season, and with a round to spare, they are more than deserving of their accolades.
Coming into the race, Team Heusinkveld in Division 1 and Deutsche Payment Esports in Division 2 needed to gain points on the leaders to even keep it alive into the championship finale at Bathurst. But similar to almost every race this season, Sean Campbell once again took pole, with GermanSimRacing’s Division 2 BMW alongside them.
As it has been this season, it was much closer in Division 3, which saw Viraco E-Sports narrowly edging out Prestanda NOMAD by just one hundredth of a second. On the start, Adam Wulkowicz would take the overall lead away from Sean Campbell, but all class leaders remained on top through Lap 1.
And despite lots of incidents, including three at the kink, the Safety Car would not be called early on. Nearly 20 minutes in, Campbell would regain the overall lead as Wulkowicz ran wide out of the carousel. This would allow Niklas Schafer for Deutsche Payment Esports to also overtake for the Division 2 lead, but he would immediately run into Massimo Locatello at Canada Corner, earning himself a penalty.
The likely event of GSR clinching the title suddenly looked almost certain. Less than 5 minutes later, Division 3 points leaders Prestanda NOMAD took the lead of their category, meaning every championship leader was also the race leader at Road America.
Through the pit stop phase, Divisions 1 and 2 remained the same, but Prestanda NOMAD had a very long stop which dropped them to 6th. This gave Viraco E-Sports a 30 second race lead, and left Prestanda NOMAD fighting their way back through the field to regain points.
It was all relatively calm until a Safety Car was called 20 minutes from the end, this time V-Racers had found the wall at the kink. It closed everything up for a nervy restart just under 10 minutes later.
Because of lapped cars between 1st and 2nd, most class leaders didn’t have too much trouble, but Valorous Motorsports did give a spirited effort in Division 2, only to finish just over a second down. However, up front, it was Sean Campbell again.
Once again he was unstoppable, and now he can’t be caught. The win at Road America crowned him champion of the IVRA GT Sprint Series powered by Heusinkveld in Division 1, while GermanSimRacing’s win made their lead in Division 2 unassailable as well.
Division 3 saw World of Simracing have the best day of the championship contenders, as they finished 4th, but it was Viraco E-Sports who took their first win. It will be a very exciting finale at Bathurst to decide the champion.
Historically, it’s pretty rare in IVRA racing that titles aren’t decided at the finale, but this season there have been some competitors head and shoulders above the rest. And in this series, Deltasport and GermanSimRacing seem to have barely broken a sweat before taking titles in this championship.