A Fun Week Of Racing - Pt. 1: FalkenTyre Sports Car Challenge @ Nurburgring GP

Good afternoon, I hope you are well.

With the exception of FRL at Spa, the week of the 19th - 26th July was thoroughly enjoyable - myself enjoying some seriously good racing action throughout a number of leagues and races.

Wednesday 19th July, 2023

FalkenTyre Sportscar Challenge (Nurburgring GP)

I was in a bad place heading into the 6th round of the FalkenTyre Sportscar Challenge - attempting Ringmeister series absolutely destroyed my iRating - so much so - following Zandvoort I had the second best iRating of my career - heading into the Nurburgring GP, I was now 27th - lower than 2022's record - and 28th overall - I'd need some serious gains if I was going to be back at my best.

For the first time in the series, I had my first All-GT4 split - which happened due to my slight dip in iRating. (Split 3/4 - one above mine had a Strength Of Field/Average iRating of 1500 - which I was before...Ringmeister)

Qualified

Here are my season qualifying results to date (in class):

(W1) - Oulton Park 7th

(W2) - Watkins Glen 17th (W3) - Long Beach 14th (Top Split)

(W4) - Mosport 12th (Top Split)

(W5) - Zandvoort - 7th (W6) - Nurburgring GP - 9th The Race Whilst I qualified 9th, myself and 11th started behind 12th as 7th (car directly in front of me) had a flickery connection - which sent his car on flying into the air repeatedly - this put me off and I gave him as much room as possible.

Coincidentally, the two cars that started ahead of me - 10th and 12th took each-other out at Turn 2 - putting me back in 9th, before I got an absolute run on P8 on the exit of Ford Kurve - although saying that, he did get caught up in the shenanigans of P7 who was still flickering like he was using hotel WiFi.

At the start of Lap 2, I managed to wiggle my way into 6th - passing both the Hotel-Wifi User of P7 and 6th who spun at turn 2 after getting his left wheels on the dirt on the inside of Turn 2.

I then realised I had overtaken the trickiest driver on the grid - and in turn could use His Flickerness as a buffer to the drivers behind - his flickering made him notoriously difficult to pass - and I had done it - and yet my competitors behind hadn't - all I had to do now was create a gap - as it wasn't long before "my buffer" went wide and let through the small queue that was building behind him.

At the end of Lap 3, I'd lose 6th to a faster Mercedes behind

After a few laps of just putting in laps - on Lap 7/15 - the race suddenly livened up -

P2 pitting for fuel and tyres, promoting me up into 6th place.

On Lap 8 - Redman behind caught me and we had a nice little tussle for 6th before P3 ALSO pitted (for tyres and fuel apparently) - both drivers throwing away what seemed like a fairly easy podium finish - but more importantly the Redman/Truswell battle was now for 5th - Despite a thrilling late fight - I had no answer to Redman's pace - and he got away - taking home 5th, myself taking home 6th - had I taken home 5th, it would have been my fourth 5th place finish of the season.