Victory at Silverstone – Championship Runners Up
Mr “Mamma Mia” Simone Maria Marcenò and Vedran Kralj put together an excellent performance in the final round of the Sports Car Open Series of 2018-19. Starting from Pole Position, Simone lead the field away and built a strong 10 second lead by the end of the first stop.
Where our strategy was to run as long as possible and over-cut, the bulk of the competition opted to put with an even tyre strategy, stopping on the hour and undercutting us. This was put to good effect by Thrustmaster Mivano Racing and ROKiT Williams Racing Esports, and the differences in strategies would prove to make it a fascinating contest, with the lead changing hands throughout the race.
Simone and Vedran shared the car for the first half of the race before Simone went on a rampage, tearing through the field determined to make the strategy work. In the end one of the pivotal moments where we knew things were looking very strong, was at our second last pitstop we came out ahead of the Mivano Ford, when they had just a few laps before their final stop.
We knew that with Mivano requiring around 25 minutes more fuel than us at the next stop, which would give us a nice buffer to run to the line. Simone did an excellent job of managing risk, and crossed the line to take the victory, our first in Sports Car Open. WINNERS!
With the victory came another excellent achievement, the Sports Car Open GT Runners Up for Simone, Simon and Vedran. To finish in 2nd place after only being able to compete in the second half of the series, is an absolutely fantastic result. 2nd, 2nd & 1st Places were our results in those three races, which if you look at that second half alone, we finished behind Williams Esports 66 points to 65… a great battle with another top Sim Racing team.
With Sports Car Open finished, and NEO coming to a close later in March, attention is quickly turning to the VRS GT World Championship for our GT drivers. Before then though, we have a championship to fight for at the NEO Endurance Le Mans 24 Hour. Bring it on! 🙂