“drive to survive” – “Minimal effort and maximum result”
Neva Ring – it has nothing to do with contraception – it’s a race track. Nevertheless, the track designers have only built in “prevented” straights. Unfortunately, this has been the downfall of some drivers. The drivers all had their problems keeping the vehicles on track at top speed with the constant changes of direction.
As expected, the qualifying session was a “pretty tight affair”. Lap times of just over 1 minute give an idea of how little space the 34 drivers who took part had to make do with. In the end, Riccardo Corazzari took pole with a lap time of 1:03.732 minutes. He missed his PB time by just over a tenth. Jan Schmid started the race in 2nd place with the final words “Drive to Survive”. Maximilian Dehn finished the quali in 3rd place and said: “Minimal effort and maximum result is the goal.” Despite the short lap, 17 drivers crossed the timekeeper’s line within one second of each other. That promised an exciting race – and so it was.
The race then got off to a fairly orderly start a little later. All 3 riders mentioned above got off to a good start at the standing start and lined up directly. All the drivers had probably already breathed a sigh of relief after the first 2 bends and prepared themselves for the 90-minute battle with their rivals. Far from it – this calculation was probably made without the track itself. The fierce battles for position began right from the start.
Kai Brandt and Marcel Pomper touched each other in the turmoil and caused a crash that cost some riders their race. Meanwhile, Joris Scheepvaart was still standing in the pits at the red light waiting for his start signal – probably not the worst decision, as it turned out. Overall, this accident involved a good sixth of the field. Among those affected was last year’s GTW champion, who had already lost places after a poor start. But if you know him – there’s no giving up!
The rest of the race was peppered with spins and crashes. The continuous and never-ending sequence of right and left-hand bends obviously tired almost all the riders. Many of these incidents had a fairly mild outcome. Even a torn off front wheel could not discourage Markus Smetaczek from conquering the track. Unfortunately, Riccardo, who had pulled out a considerable lead by the second third of the race, was also caught out. He also had to park his car in the pits for a quick repair. The unscheduled second pit stop ultimately dropped him back to 9th place.
Throughout the entire scramble, Joris behaved calmly and made a lot of room for lapping unnecessarily, preferring to brake once rather than make up time, thus bringing his car home scratch-free. 12 places forward for starting from the pits and ultimately 19th place for him. Yes, making up 12 places is great, but you can do better than that, thought Milan Kort, who gained 13 places, and Andreas Walter, who gained an incredible 27 places. Andreas Walter did not compete in qualifying and had a great, almost faultless race.
Maximum result – yes, of course! It could hardly have been better – getting into the car overtired, bringing a bit of hope and showing his elbows, Maximilian Dehn took first place directly followed by his direct rival Jan Schmid, who defended his starting position and thus second place with dignity.
Third place went to Michael Marquardt, who once again did his laps from the background without a sound and proved himself in defence and attack. Andreas Hering was able to secure 12th place. After the bad start from P9 and the accident, I don’t think it was a bad result, even if he could have saved himself the 30 seconds for the tyre change at the pit stop – maybe next time. His team-mate, Markus Smetaczek, retired like 10 other drivers and parked his car after repeated problems.
Our new team “Bros Racing” celebrated a great start with #12 Jessy Monrose and #28 Daniel Erstling in the Ferrari. They achieved a solid first result with 6th and 8th place. This also meant the first 59 points for the team and 17th place in the team ranking.
All in all, a very exciting race for the spectators. Too bad for the drivers who couldn’t live up to Jan’s motto “drive to survive”. But hey! “Cheer up!” – The winter season has 2 strike results! So it’s all half as bad, or as Thomas Batzke always says: “Swallow, keep driving!” With this in mind, watch our stream on YouTube or Twitch with Roland Niemann and Jutta as commentators – you won’t be disappointed.
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