Portugal
Division 1
This Wednesday 15 drivers attended the Portugese GP. During qualifying we saw the usual names up front who battled for pole position. Greek Ace Athanasiou managed to secure his second pole of this season, just ahead of Klepy, Evan and one lap wonder Maridako. In 5th a surprising Bobspun, who usually drives in a lower division.
With an overcast weather prediction ahead and thus a chance at rain later on in the race, drivers made quite a few different choices strategy wise. Gooner and Bogarovski for example opted to start on the hard tyres, something they would regret not much later. Once the red light went out we saw the usual race development in this division, Maridako dropping back as the race evolves, Nellboy working his way up through the field after starting last and Klepy, Athanasiou and Evan battling up front. And let’s not forget BeniBunno, who always manages to work his way up during the race. When halfway through the race most drivers who started on the soft or medium tyre had to pit for fresh rubber there was still no sign of rain, despite the earlier forecast. A surprise for the commentator was that race leader Athanasiou changed his mediums for a set of hards, who as stated earlier, are a tyre you don’t want to use as they simply do not provide enough grip.
In lap 25 of 33 we saw the first drops of rain and immediately a driver came in to change his tyres for a set of intermediates. Again Athanasiou made a wrong strategy call. By now you’d think he was driving for Ferrari, but that team already has two other drivers who stink it up near every race. In the laps after this the rain was slowly getting heavier, but it took a long time until the track was actually wet enough to justify making a pit stop for intermediates. That moment arrived with just 3 laps to go. Those who stayed out on dry tyres benefited massively by simply not pitting. Who they were? Nellboy, Evan, kzngll and two of them got rewarded with a podium. In Nell’s case it was his third win in four races, which also got him the lead in the championship.
Results
Standings
Division 2
While a night earlier the race ended under wet circumstances it was a wet start of the event on Thursday as the qualifying session was under full wet circumstances. The best driver in the wet conditions was HummerGP, who lately has been on fire with two podiums in a row. He took pole just ahead of Bobspun, with Connor in third and championship leader Hammers in fourth.
Going into turn 1 at the race start just like in Monaco Bobspun and Hammers collided, but this time only Hammers was effected by it, with him dropping to 8th place just behind his teammate Bogarovski. The McLaren drivers are leading by quite a margin in the championship but had work to do now. The first position they gained was thanks to Pavlossidor who spun off. Not much later they both overtook Skipper moving them up to fifth and sixth. When Bogarovski saw he couldn’t match the pace of the cars ahead they switched positions giving Hammers the option to try to close the gap. Meanwhile up front HummerGP was leading the race and building a gap tenth for tenth on the very strong driving Connor. In third, but struggling with the tyre was Bobspun, who first lost a position to Ralph, then Hammers and when Bogarovski was right behind him he spun on the final corner and lost even more time.
Ralph and Skipper who started on the softer tyre pitted in lap 15 trying to undercut the other drivers who would all pit around four to five laps later. A strategy that clearly worked as Ralph ahead of Connor and Hammers after they pitted. Bogarovski, who had a very poor pit stop dropped down to sixth and was eight seconds behind Ralph, but first had overtake Skipper to be able to close the gap to the leaders. On his softer tyres Skipper was no match and Ralph lost nearly a second a lap after that. It wasn’t until a lap before the end of the race that he finally overtook Ralph and secured fourth. All of that was around 15 seconds behind the man of the Grand Prix, HummerGP, who got his second win and third podium in a row, moving him up in the championship. Hammers got second ahead of Connor who scored his first podium.
Results
Standings
Next week we go to Japan for round 7
