Winter and Armannsson Clean Up in Wet Nurburgring Race

Chris Winter and Einar Armannsson took their second victory of the season and extended their championship lead at the Round of Germany at the Nurburgring.

With the early retirement of championship rivals Evgeny Restov and James James Davies, it gave the factory Lamborghini pair the perfect opportunity to take control of the championship. They took the lead at the start of the race and maintained control at the front for the duration of the first stint. But while the first pit stop sequence was happening, rain started to fall in the Eifel Mountains. Forecasts projected the rain to stay around for 40 minutes, but the amount of rain set to fall wasn’t to be as substantial as some predicted. The crew at Racing Team Solvalou for Chris Winter, and People’s Republic Racing for Daniel Einfeldt, chose to pit at the end of the pit window and elected to take on intermediate tires for the middle stint of the race.

The ploy didn’t work. The rain didn’t pick up as much as they were predicting resulting in less pace for that pair and the Pagani then driven by Giulio Mari, who made an additional pit stop to take on intermediates after their scheduled pit stop. Einar Armannsson would also the pits in fourth with the cars behind using the undercut to their advantage. Roland Davidson, taking over for Rossi who struggled after starting on the pole, would pass the Icelandic driver fifteen minutes into the second stint before the pair would battle for the position for the next few laps of the race. The rain would clear up as the second pit window would open and the 02 and 99 cars would come in at the earliest opportunity for dry tires.

The undercut would prove vital for Einar, who stayed in the car for the run to the finish. After being ten seconds behind the leader during the middle portion of the race, he would have a five second advantage over the Gulf Aston Marin being driven by Matteo Rossi once again. The gap would remain stable until the final ten minutes of the race where the Michelin tires on the Lamborghini started to fade. It allowed Rossi, Joey Alliot in the Carson Corvette and Fabian Rei in the Gerald Pereria Lister to close the gaps leaving them with a shot at victory. Alliot would spin at turn 5 rendering him out of the picture and finishing fourth. Rei would run out of time to attempt a pass on the Aston Martin and Rossi’s one chance to pass the Solvalou Lamborghini would be unsuccessful, giving the overall victory to Chris Winter and Einar Armannsson.

The victory gives the Lamborghini pair a twenty-two point advantage over the new main challengers in the duo of Fabian Rei and Ryota Wong.  The Lister pair jumped Restov and Davies after the Russain clipped a white line early on in the wet running and spun out of the race at turn 6, they remain at sixty-five points. Lister maintain their lead in the Manufactures Championship, but the gap has closed to just one point with Lamborghini gaining two points with Morgan Le Fay and Antonio Fazio finishing seventh overall, sixth in class.

The one Independent entry that would finish ahead of the 03 Lamborghini and winning in class would be the Scuderia Belgio Ferrari of Gia Van Dycke and Laurent Seron. This is Seron’s first class win of the season and the third for Van Dycke. The all-Belgium pairing would be the big benefactors of then class leaders and the car driven by Independent Championship leader Valeri Kozar had a engine failure while starting driver Darren Older Jr. suffered a engine failure before the first pit window would open. Van Dycke passed early class leader Sam Winton before settling into second in class before the sudden promotion to the class lead. They would go uncontested for the rest of the race as Winton and co-driver Natskui Yaname fought the number two Boutsen-Ginion Corvette for the duration of the middle and final stints of the race, with second in class being decided late in the race in the favor of the Lister team.

The class pole-sitters for the Independents had a tough race after Koyomi Setou spun after trying to avoid an accident at turn 5 involving Paul Travesen, Li Qi and Nathan Scott. Travesen would spin trying to pass a Euromotor Lister Storm, leaving Qi and Scott no where to go but into the stopped Gerald Pereia Lister. Qi and Scott would need to pit for repairs and would finish off the lead lap as a result. Setou and co-driver Redur Jaffer would rally back the rest of the race and would finish just outside of the top ten and fifth in class.

Race Results – After 62 Laps

Fastest Lap – Car 14 (Gerald Pereria Lister – Rei/Wong) – 1:49.925

Infinite Improbability Drive of the Race – Sam Winton and Natsuki Yaname: They finally get a result they’ve deserved after a trying campaign thus far.

Reject of The Race – Evgeny Restov: Was the fuel gamble in Canada just a flash in the pan, or are chinks in the armor starting to show at Ferrari with this latest regrettable showing?