Welcome to the round four race report of the VBTCR Championship. This week, the drivers took a very special trip ‘down under’ to Sydney, Australia to set some laps around a very tight and technical Oran Park Raceway. Although the venue shut down in January 2010, the benefit of sim racing is that superb tracks such as this can still be enjoyed virtually for years to come. At just 2.620 km (1.62 mi) and 12 corners, Oran Park has played host to many elite series over the years including the V8 Supercars, Australian Grand Prix and the Superbike World Championship, but now it was the turn of the VBTCR.
qualifying
There is no doubt about it, Terje Flåten is firmly setting himself as the man to beat in qualifying, earning himself pole position for the third time in as many races! The Luminous Racing driver even managed to dip into the 1:10’s, with an ultimate lap time of 1:10.979! Damien Owen Harris from Fiercely Forward kept up his qualifying form with another front row start but missing out on his first pole by the slimmest of margins, with a time of 1:11.001. Andreas Gillmann would start in third, Martijn Asschert in fourth and VBTCR newcomer Jaroslaw Cebula rounding out the top 5.
race One
It was a very even start for almost all of the drivers in race one, with the grid remaining largely unchanged off the line. All 31 drivers managed to navigate lap one cleanly and on such a tight track, this was a great thing to see. Simpli Digi Racing driver Dom Cottenham was the biggest mover on lap one, getting himself up into 26th position after starting from the pit lane.
The ever so tricky turn one would be the cause of many off tracks throughout both races but Jaroslaw Cebula from Semper Racing was the first victim of the corner, getting slightly off line and causing a huge slide into turn two. This would drop him from 7th all the way down to 14th place, although it must be said that he did an exceptionally good job of avoiding heavy contact with Jack Johns meaning that they could both continue relatively unscathed. Other drivers would not be so lucky here over the course of the evening.
Although race one was a relatively uneventful race compared to usual VBTCR standards, it was really great to see a very high standard of driving from the whole grid. Oran Park was definitely not the easiest of tracks to overtake on but all of the drivers had the planning and patience to make clean overtakes, when the time did come.
There was only one change in the top five and that was at a cost of Jaroslaw Cebula’s previously mentioned incident, where Jan Böhl would pick up the fifth place. Although Jaroslaw had a brilliant recovery to still finish in the top ten, he’s definitely a driver we are looking forward to seeing more of in the remaining rounds of the season! Terje Flåten once again lead a race one from start to finish to pick up his third VBTCR win and his fifth podium! Ben Denyer was the biggest gainer in race one, earning himself a top ten position after starting in fourteenth.
race two - reverse grid race
The full reverse grid put Ignium Motorsport Spark driver Neil Stephenson onto pole position and he made the most of it, getting near perfect traction off the line and keeping himself out of any pressure into the first braking zone of turn two. A bit further back some running wide and a couple of ‘optimistic’ overtaking attempts sent four or five cars off onto the grass between turn one and two but almost everyone managed to continue without any major damage.
A good start from Shane Dunn and some defensive manoeuvres from Alfie Mcgarrity gave plenty of screen time for the Spud Motorsport drivers to show off their one off ‘down under’ livery at the sharp end of the grid. Neil Stephenson was doing a fantastic job out front and was maintaining a good gap to the rest of the field but a bit of oversteer sent Christopher Emms straight into the back of Neil, effectively ending both of their races. Such a shame to see as although it was early in the race, both drivers were on for their best ever finishing positions. However, Ignium Sparks loss was the sister teams gain as Dan Mould took over the lead of the race where he would remain unchallenged for the remaining 17 minutes of the race. Although Dan has firmly been a front runner in the championship since this beginning, almost unbelievably this was his first VBTCR win! Shane Dunn followed in second with Jack Johns rounding out the podium, with both drivers also earning their best finishes of the season so far.
summary
It was another great couple of races for championship leader Terje Flåten; but after picking up a couple of post race penalties Dan Mould has managed to close the points gap slightly, now being just 25 points behind the first place man. Martijn Asschert has once again maintained his third place in the standing but Andreas Gillman has now jumped ahead of Shane Dunn for fourth place.
Impulse Racing have extended their lead at the top of the teams championship with Ignium Motorsport dropping another place for the second round in a row. Luminous Racing have now taken over the second place spot. Spud Motorsport have slipped down to fourth with Insignia Racing not too far behind in fifth, Jack Newell is showing the other Rookie drivers how its done, another two consistent finishing positions for the Simpli Digi Racing driver means that he has further opened the gap to Tom Holland and Alfie Mcgarrity, the second and third place rookie drivers.
We’re already halfway through the season but the drivers and teams championships are still wide open; plus with a joker round still to come it’s impossible to predict who will come out on top! To witness the full excitement of VBTCR please have a watch of the race broadcast and make sure to come back in two weeks time to see how all the drivers fair as we bring it back to the UK for a trip to Oulton Park!
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