Back to Back 2nd Place in SCO
The pair of Simone Maria Marcenò & Simon Feigl would drive together once again, looking to back up their second place finish on debut in the series, as achieved at Circuit of The Americas. On this occasion, the battleground would be Autódromo de Interlagos in Brazil with familiar foes Williams Racing Esports, Virtualdrivers by TX3 “Iracing” and CoRe SimRacing.
Simone would do an excellent job in qualifying, which would see them line up P4 on the grid. It was a fairly solid start for Simone before going on to make moves up the order. The boys decided to go for the safer even tyre strategy, thinking that the afternoon sun would be punishing for the tyres in the final hour, and gaining an undercut early and building a lead. As such, this turned out to be the alternative, with almost all teams opting to go long-long-long-short across the four hour race, taking no tyres for the final stint. This alternate view kept everyone guessing just how it would all turn out, with projections looking very even for both.
Simone would take the lead after the first hour and gaining the benefit of the undercut, before handing over to Simon with the final two hours remaining. Unfortunately for Simon, technical gremlins and an early 4:30am start would prove to make his morning eventful, with no iRacing spotter and no comms with teammate Marcenò. It wasn’t until the final pit stop with one hour to go that the radio was able to be resolved, and luckily they remained unscathed.
The final hour is when the two strategies would meet, and by the time that main competitor Williams Racing Esports at the hands of Alexander Voß had pitted, the challenge was set. 34 minutes and 20 seconds to claw back – a very difficult task.
Despite his valiant efforts, Simon able to bring the gap down to 6.3 seconds by the chequered flag, with traffic causing difficulties for both cars throughout the stint. While the win was not achieved, it was a fantastic race and thoroughly entertaining across the 4 Hours. Congratulations to Williams Esports on the win and CoRe SimRacing on their podium finish. Now onto 8 Hours if Silverstone in a few weeks time!