Great Britain
Division 1
The last race of the season on the track where it all started for Formula 1, Silverstone. The season finale with a title still to be decided. In theory three drivers could still win it, but one of them (Nellboy) was on holiday leaving just Evan and BeniBunno in the mix. Both won the championship last season as well, just in different divisions. At the start of the Grand Prix Evan had an 8 point lead over Beni. Of course there was also a constructors title to decide, but with Red Bull having a 23 point lead over Haas and them missing their lead driver Nellboy, Bogarovski and Hammers needed a small miracle to overcome the deficit.
The two title contenders had a good qualifying session taking 3rd and 4th, behind one lap wonder Athanasiou who claimed his 5th pole position of the season ahead of Klepy.
In a first lap incident we lost two cars, both Relliott and Xavi had to retire, resulting into a first SC situation. A second Safety Car came on track when Kavolis crashed out on lap 10 and that’s when the grid got shuffled around a bit as the drivers opted for different strategies. A pit lane collision between Zettervall and Hammers gave the latter a 5 second time penalty that he had to serve right away and with his team mate Bogarovski right behind him this was perhaps one of the worst double stacks you can imagine. It dropped Bogarovski from 8th to last and Hammers to 11th. Lil Mikey opted not to pit and inherented the lead, but on his older tyres that was doomed not to last very long. As soon as the SC went in he dropped down the field harder than rock thrown into the water. Just two laps later he wasn’t even in the top ten anymore.
Meanwhile up front Klepy made a mistake in lap 16 as he spun round while leading. New leader was Athanasiou ahead of Beni and Evan. Not much later disaster struck for Beni as he spun off in Maggots dropping him down the grid many places. This looked to be a title decider until in lap 22 Mikey crashed out and another safety car was brought out. This gave Beni the option to close the gap and perhaps even gain some points on his rival Evan. Beni however decided not to pit while everyone else went for fresh rubber. Beni was now in the lead, but with everyone else on new tyres keeping the lead seemed like a mission impossible even though we would only have two laps to race after the restart. A fierce battle with the car behind (Athanasiou) made him lose the car just a few corners after the restart and that brought an end to his title hopes. Hammers was off to a flying restart and benefited most from the chaos up front as he took the lead. On the penultimate lap Athanasiou went wide at Stowe making him lose more positions and he did the same a few corners later and lost even more positions as a result. Hammers crossed the finish line first, but a 3 second time penalty from earlier in the race dropped him down to third behind Evan, who secured the championship in style with a win and Zettervall who took his first podium of the season.
The results:
Final Standings:
Division 2
With the drivers championship already decided in favor of HammersUK, all that was at stake was the race win and of course the constructors title, but even that seemed like a stretch given the 35 point lead McLaren had over Red Bull.
Nevertheless Red Bull’s leading driver gave everything he had and secured pole position, just ahead of Lakatzis, with Hammers and Rycka starting from second row. A flying start brought Bogarovski into 3rd, while Lakatzis did the opposite and moved down from 2nd to 5th.
Not much later Hammers overtook Bob for the lead, but was never really able to create a gap. When Lakatzis dropped even further down the order and HummerGP was in 5th it seemed like these five drivers were on a different level from the rest of the field. The gap to 6th placed driver Manlikedonkey grew with at least half a second a lap while the top five drivers all stayed within DRS range from eachother. HummerGP and Rycka, who started on the Medium tyre, while the others started in the Hards, pitted first and tried to undercut the others, which partially worked especially when both McLaren drivers came in on the same lap. They thought they could undercut Bobspun with it, but Bogarovski clearly lost some time with it as when he returned to track he was in 5th, near five seconds behind HummerGP and Rycka. Hammers had regained the lead and even managed to create a 3 second gap to Bob, but in the last two laps things went wild. With Rycka and Hummergp battling for position and their tyres degrading Bogarovski managed to close the gap to the others, but when he went for an overtake on Rycka on the final corner on the penultimate lap he went on the kerb too much and spun round. Up front Hammers neared two backmarkers, Scully and Bajapanty, who not very easily moved over, in fact the shananigans cost Hammers his front wing and lost him the lead on the final lap, losing out to Bobspun.
The results:
Final season results:
This closes the ninth season of Formula 1 at DTR. A huge congratulations to all winners and mainly the champions, Evan, Xavi, Hammers and Bogarovski.
We will return soon for our 10th season on F1 24.
