Vermin caught some fish! some fish THIS BIG!, An excellent showing from everyone in Formula Trout, with the fastest drivers in the world (in Assetto Corsa) competing it was great to see Vermin Racing team mix it up with 2 podiums and also a trio of our cars in the top 10 in Race 2. A very well deseverd congratulations to all the Vermin drivers. Sadly due to not being very well Roel had to miss this race, but hopefully he will be fully recovered for the next round at Imola. Vermin Racing Team is very proud of all the hard work all our drivers did in preperation for the event. A lot of testing and setup tweaks and then mix that with their skills and we had impressive results. Hopefully this will be the start of something big for us. I really would like to thank the guys over at Formula Trout for organizing and running such a great race. I managed to write up a race report, despite not being able to compete myself (I am now the Trout test driver). thanks to watching the excellent twitch stream replay. (watch that here) So here is the report: Qualifying It was the Inforward racing cars that would start a chain reaction of cars piling out of the pits desperate to put in some qualifying times. As expected Jaap Wagenvoort was the first to top the time sheet posting a 1:22.595, followed by Arttu Nieminen in his Scuderia Toto Rosso who was around 0.200ths slower at this stage of Qualifying. The sister Inforward Racing car of Martijn Van'T Land would quickly knock Nieminen to third place, before Nieminen lost another position to his team mate Sammy Salem. Oscar Williams made a huge effort and posted the 2nd fastest time to be within 0.150ths of Wagenvoort's time. Nieminen then put in a skillfully and excellently time fast lap to beat Wagenvoort with a time of 1:22.065, with around 50 seconds remaining in the session. Williams tried to push his car further but ran wide on the final turn, remaining in 3rd. Wagenvoort put in a brave and fast final lap to improve to a 1:22.108, but to no benefit as he still would be lining up behind the rear end of Nieminen. All the way down the field the times were close and the level of driving on display was amazing. Top 3: Nieminen: 1:22.065 Wagenvoort:1:22.108 Williams: 1:22.327 Race 1: The deafening thunderous roar of 20 cars revving their engines as the lights fade and the wheels spin up... There are a few cars that get too much wheel spin and collide with the outside wall, one unfortunate driver being Salem, who started in 5th. All cars are able to continue on however despite a few minor contacts. Wagenvoort has to defend from the feisty fast start of Williams. Nieminen has a text book get away and leads the pack into Turn 1. As the cars speed down towards Turn 2, Archii in the third Inforward car slips into 4th place, getting past Fox Gek and Van'T Land, out breaking himself and drops back down to 8th. Williams Manages to make his move into Turn 2 and comes out of the corner in 2nd place ahead of Wagenvoort. Williams defending into turn 3, loses the position again from a well executed overtake down the inside into Turn 3 was Wagenvoort tucked up the Vermin drivers rear wing and dived out of it into the braking zone. As the pack settled slightly, there were some great focused battles throughout on lap 1 with no real contact or issues. Mizzy, driving a car very similar in colour to the Vermin livery, running right behind Quizno, capitalizes on the Octan Jr driver's mistake as Quizno catches his car mid corner off of Turn 1. A unusual error by Van'T Land sends him bouncing hard over the grass on the inside of Turn 4, He tries to recover to the track but ends up directly in the path of Mizzy, who has no time to react or avoid, the pair make heavy contact and both end up in the gravel. Mizzy and Van'T Land rejoin in 19th and 20th places. Archii made a mistake and contact with the tyres would drop him further back after he had been recovering well. As he rejoined the track, forcing Decovarion to have to react fast and avoid him. The top 3 had now pulled a nice gap, with Gek just about hanging within striking distance in 4th if anyone was to make a mistake. The top 4 covered by under 5 seconds, there was a gap of 5 seconds from Gek in 4th to Clive Melbourne running 5th. Further back Salem was droping places and found himself outside the down to 11th as he lost out to Archii and Jack Smith on the same lap within a couple of corners. Wagenvoort made a mistake allowing Williams to snatch away 2nd unseen by the stream cameras. Salem, obviously driving his car hard was now chasing down Smith and now was running 10th having passed Archii again. Nieminen now had a 4 second lead over Williams who was holding the gap for the most part, even beginning to catch the first place man. With just under 9 minutes left, a small group of cars were now starting to create a train on track, Melbourne dropped his car at the exit of turn 1 and was punished heavily for the mistake as the train passed him and drops him down to 10th when he had been running nicely in 6th. Smith took 7th away from Archii as the two continued to race trading positions throughout each lap. Melbourne continued to struggle with Salem overtaking him into turn 1, Melbourne tried to cut back but could not get the power down and ran off the track, avoiding any contact. Going in to the final 5 minutes of the race, Nieminen had managed to extend his gap to Williams to just over 3 seconds. The Archii/Smith battle continued to rage on, with Smith overtaking for 7th as they cleanly and fairly executed overtakes with each other, however these two fighters were now joined by Salem as they all raced down to Turn 2, 3 cars wide on the track. Salem stuck his car in the middle of the track, sandwiched by the Vermin and Inforward cars, Archii had to run a little wider to avoid any contact, slotting in behind Salem who had a better drive off the exit than Smith with them now neck and neck approaching Turn 3, with Salem hanging on around the outside to gain the position on Smith. Archii was able to then take advantage of Smith losing grip into Turn 4 and running slightly wide. Syntax, who had been running a very lonely but clean 5th was now being caught by several drivers behind. With less than a minute on the clock, Smith was desperate to re gain at least 8th from Archii, his first attempt saw him run on the outside and lacking grip just kissing the grave, his next attempt would see him pass Archii down the straight to turn 2, only for Archii to slip back past when Smith had a tiny oversteer moment. Williams and Nieminen crossed the line for the final time, Nieminen dominated the race, but Williams had managed to stay within range throughout. Wagenvoort managed to keep hold of 3rd with Gek in 4th. A clean and sensible race by almost everyone and the pace was relentless. Top 3: Nieminen Williams Wagenvoort Race 2: After a short break to catch a breath, it was time for the second race. With a mixed up grid, it was Archii who found himself going into turn 1 leading. Smith overtaking Melbourne into the same corner snatched him 2nd place, only for him to clatter the curb on the exit of 2 and let Melbourne get on the inside for Turn 3, Smith held the outside line but again ran up the curb and Melbourne was able to breeze past into 2nd. Smith's mistake began a slew of cars coming past as he recovered from being off line and with dirty tyres. Battling with for 4th with Salem. Salem and Smith run wide. The opportunistic Williams got excellent drive out of the final corner to pass Salem and slot in behind his team mate. Melbourne made a a mistake, letting Decovarion and Smith pass him as he recovered just in front of Williams. Nieminen had a steady start to the race running in 8th and slowly working his way up the numbers and having to dodge his team mate Salem sliding into the side of Melbourne in front of him. Melbourne had made good use of the slipstream down the straight and past Salem, Salem decided to try down the inside into Turn 3 and touched the rear wheel of Mebourne sending them both sliding through the corner and rewarding Nieminen's excellent avoiding action by giving him 2 positions and now running in 5th. The midfield from 7th down to 15th was very close on track with many drivers trading places multiple times per lap. Syntax made his move for 7th stick down the inside of Salem into turn 1, losing speed down the straight towards turn 2, Salem got back past dragging along the Inforward racing car of Wagenvoort who seemed to be struggling slightly at this stage and could not make the pass stick on Syntax. However Wagenvoort managed to pull a move on Mizzy as his team mate, Van'T Land watched on and began to set up his own move on Mizzy. Syntax entered the penultimate corner trying a pass on Melbourne, He clipped the curb, sending him into a high speed slide and forcing Melbourne wide. Although it was a close call for the drivers behind, everyone picked their way through. Van'T Land almost had a similar accident watching this unfold directly in front of him but kept the car pointing in the correct direction and onwards. The unlucky Melbourne who had managed to just save the car lost the back end through the final corner and ended up spinning off. The biggest benefactors of all this action were, DJB, Mizzy and Vyachaslav Potapenko, who had all now been promoted into the top 10. It was a brief entry into the top 10 for Potapenko as Van'T Land took that position a corner later. DJB was now chasing down Mizzy, who was having a scruffy lap. DJB tried a move on him, only for them to collide wheels when Mizzy turned sharply into the side pod of DJB. Van'T Land took advantage and came out ahead after another 3 car wide fight. DJB had to drop further back when Gek flew past for 10th. Mizzy's continued scruffy driving, must have been down to earlier contact as he lost another places due to running wide and being unable to do anything but watch Gek overtake him on the outside into turn 4, then having another half spin mid corner in turn 5 and 6. Towards the rear end of the field, the racing was still as furious as it was towards the front. Maurizio Gioi attempted a move down the inside of Quizno for 13th place. Gioi hit the rear of Quizno, then hit him again as Quizno tried to save his car. Quizno held his position with an excellent save. A lap later an aggressive but fair overtake was made by Gioi to get in front of Quizno. Quizno then made heavy contact with Gioi's gearbox in turn, taking them both into the gravel trap. Back at the front, Williams had now closed the gap to Archii to under 2 seconds with just under 7 minutes remaining in the race. Decovarion and Van'T Land were going neck and neck down into Turn 2, Decovarion maintained the spot but Van'T Land had gone for the early switch back and managed to just make it through into turn 3 with both drivers showing each other equal respect and no contact. Decovarion had a mid corner wobble, Gek drove around the outside of him out of Turn 6 for 7th. Potapenko who had kept his head down and now had made it back into the top 10. Behind Potapenko, Mizzy and Melbourne were close on track, Melbourne had out braked himself into Turn 3 which gave Mizzy a good look at overtaking him. Mizzy then lost grip on the final corner and hit the pit wall on the straight, losing a lot of time but able to continue but he was now in the clutches of Syntax. Syntax was able to slipstream past as they went wheel to wheel for a lap. Mizzy had another spin whilst trying to follow Syntax through Turn 4. A rare mistake from Williams dropped him from 2nd to 5th, dropping the car on an exit of a corner and behind Wagenvoort. Nieminen was now running 2nd and catching Archii quickly with Smith slowly catching. As the leaders entered the final lap, it was Nieminen applying hard pressure to Archii, looking for anyway past him, coming close out of turn 1, but it wasn't enough as Archii took a well driven win, just 0.148 ahead of Nieminen and Smith bringing his Vermin Car home in 3rd. Wagenvoort just ahead of Williams for 4th and 5th. Another impressively fast and furious race with mostly clean racing up and down the pack. Top 3: Archii Nieminen Smith Tippet Screenshots - Jack |
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AuthorR.T. Driver for Vermin Racing Archives
January 2019
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