Division 1
Round 2 brought the drivers to Melbourne, Australia with the return to the grid of some drivers that missed the first round, as for example both Ferrari drivers lil_mikey and Wazza.
Qualifying was spectacular with a very close field. 13 drivers were within 7 tenths from pole position and the gap between the first two was just 24 thousands. The man on pole? Greek Aston Martin driver Athanasiou, just ahead of Gooner and hayward surprisingly on the second row together with the other Aston Martin driver nhonwkey. Haas ace Nellboy who got unlucky last week on the final lap, made a mistake on his own this time and didn’t manage to set a time, letting start from last. His team mate was swapped for this, as Bogarovski and Hammers share the 2nd Haas car this season.
When the lights went out Gooner had a phenomenal start and him and Athanasiou both went side by side through turn 1, but that’s where Gooner lost his car and spun round dropping him from first to last and he had work to do for a good result. He did get help when Kavolis crashed on lap 3 and a safety car was called upon. A second safety car came out not much later when hayward lost the car lost his front. He did however manage to continue his race, although from the back. When the race finally restarted on lap 12 the field was shuffled a bit due to some drivers not pitting while others did. In the lead we had Zettervall, ahead of Connor and Mikey, who all had not pitted yet. The group behind them and fighting for the virtual lead were honwkey, relliott, Evan, kzngll and Athanasiou. Even though honwkey seemed in a great position when he was the first one to clear all the drivers on old tyres and took the lead, he did damage his front wing while doing and when not much later his team mate got involved in an incident as well a Virtual Safety Car was brought out and that’s when both the Aston Martin’s pitted and were out for a top finish in this race. This opened up a fight for the win between three drivers: Relliott, Evan and kzngll.
A group fighting for fourth contained Mikey, Brandon, Bogarovski and Gooner who worked his way up after his spin on the opening lap. When Brandon made a mistake all three others were able to move up and Gooner, now in fourth was even closing in on the leaders, who had a great fight and kept changing position over and over. On the penultimate lap kzngll and Evan had a slight contact that resulted in a spin for Evan, promoting Gooner to a podium spot. This gave Alfa Romeo a double podium finish as his team mate and brother relliott was able to hold off kzngll and won the race. Bogarovski managed to finish in 4th ahead of Brandon and Nellboy, who was stuck in traffic for most of the race.
Both Ferrari’s however, ended without any points and are now still pointless after two races into the season.
The results:
Standings:
Division 2
In DTR’s 2nd division the story of the night was to not make mistakes or lose connection.
Qualifying ended early for last week’s race winner Hammers, who not got past turn 1 on his first hotlap and had to start from the back. The fight for pole was between Bobspun, Bogarovski and Lakatzis. Bogarovski was in first position for a long time, but saw his time being improved by Bob and went out on track again. Unfortunately for him, technical issues made him lose his connection and he wasn’t able to improve futher and that dropped him behind Lakatzis, but just ahead of Adam and the surprisingly quick Dubble.
Bob, who started the race on softer tyres than everyone else was able to hold onto the lead at the start of the race, while Lakatzis and Bogarovski fought for 2nd place until Lakatzis lost control of his car and ended up into the wall. This promoted Dubble into 3rd. At the restart Bob lost traction and was off track for a brief moment. Bogarovski and Dubble took the lead but got summoned to let Bob back past as the game saw this as an illegal overtake. The situation was confusing for everybody, but when Bob was back into the lead he got chased down by Bog and they were bount for a good fight for the win. At the end of lap 8 Bogarovski once again lost connection and with the AI taking over he dropped down the field quickly. A lap later Paqman retired from the race bringing out another safety car. With Bob pitting it was Dubble who for the first time in his racing career took the lead in a race. Behind him was Hammers who thanks to the safety car situations managed to move up through the field quickly. A lap later disaster struck for Dubble as Hammers made contact under the SC and Dubble had to retire from the race. Hammers did however survive the incident and even took the lead with it. When the race restarted Bob, on fresher tyres did all he could to chase down Hammers, while Berzerk was in 3rd, looking for his first ever podium. In lap 14 Bogarovski finally managed to overcome the technical issues and returned to the race. With him down to 8th the chance for winning this race was basically over, but he did manage to work his way up the field and with just a few laps to go him and Berzerk were even fighting for the 3rd podium spot, with Bog coming out on top, behind Hammers and Bob. Even though Bob managed to pass Hammers on track with a lap to go, his penalties moved him down in the final classification to 2nd. Hammers got the win. As the result initially looked great for the McLaren duo Hammers and Bogarovski with 1st and 3rd, they will end up with much less points at the end.
Hammers will most likely get a penalty given his incident with Dubble earlier in the race and as Bogarovski missed quite a few laps due to technical issues he later that night got disqualified from the race, promoting Berzerk to a well earned first ever podium.
The (provisional) results:
The (provisional) standings:
Next up the circus will move to mexico for round 3, see you all there
