The Summer Series enters its final round following two stellar rounds at Watkins Glen & Spa

Championships still in contention in each class

Toronto, CA – July 30, 2020 – Following an extremely dynamic first two rounds at Watkins Glen and Spa-Francorchamps, the Summer Series is headed to Imola for its finale. 

The stage is set in Italy for what is bound to be another absolute thriller as each class still has many cars vying for both the championship and top 3 placings. And with teams now having had ample opportunity to learn and adapt to the added uncertainty of Safety Car Periods, they are beginning to face ongoing strategy changes. 

Dominic Ollivierre of Black Eagle Sim Racing says “The TCR class has been quite competitive throughout the spectrum. With the Safety Car Periods acting as a reset and reshuffle of the race, raw pace and consistency have not been as important a factor for doing well, until of course, the last half hour of racing. Even though we were able to achieve comfortable leads in the first hour of the races, the opposite would have happened on some of the restarts so making the right calls on pit strategy during these periods as well as maintaining an unscathed car proved to be better tools throughout the races. Traffic management of course has also been a major key to gap management, breaking and/or maintaining draft when necessary as well as fuel management.”

The addition of Safety Car Periods has certainly made the races unpredictable and action packed from start to finish. There is no doubt this will keep up and is a good signal for future races in the upcoming 2020-2021 Season. “We’re very happy with how the Safety Car Periods have added a dynamic element to the races and how drivers have welcomed them. With it being a new process to the league we had some small bumps to iron out at the beginning, but we’re thankful for teams’ and drivers’ patience with this and we think we’ve done a good job internally to constantly adapt to needed changes” says IVRA’s Julian Bell.

The high level of driving standards throughout the first two rounds has already resulted in some fantastic battles, and the signs are looking good for more of the same at Imola. “From the POV of Race Control the driving standards have been excellent through the first two rounds. In both races so far we have seen fewer incident reports compared to some 2.4H races we have run in the past. This has meant that RC has been able to actually follow and enjoy the broadcasts live, something that we have not really had the luxury of doing before. As the first handful of races run under the IVRA banner, the Summer Series field has surely set a lofty target for the teams and drivers in the 2020-21 season when it comes to driving standards!” explains IVRA’s Casper de Kort.

The Summer Series Finale will be broadcast live on the iRacing eSport Network on Saturday, August 1st beginning at 1530GMT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiEOOekCCw0

The 2020-21 Season will see its first ClubSport race in October, with registration opening on August 15th together with registration for the IVRA Endurance Series and IVRA Club Cup. Registration for the IVRA GT Sprint Series will open on Imola race day.