February 4976 (Postdated)
Beaumont Circuit (Lourenne)
Qualifying
In this qualifying session it was Ross Motors once again coming out on top, their engine seems to be improving every day and the aerodynamics of their car seems to work perfectly on this tight and small track. Arthur Balzac, the winner of the previous race, once again came out on top during qualifying, winning the first place a second ahead of his main rival, Teofil Gromek, who came in second. Suprises in the qualifying series were Naaif al-Saleh, who came in 4th for his team Vortex Racing while not winning points last race and John Bundgaard for Wave Point, who won 3rd place with a average car, largely due to problems with the Ross Motors car of their second driver, Philipp Oberlander, who came in 6th himself.
The Race
The race at the Beaumont Cicuit in Lourenne was nothing less then a spectical. At the start it became clear that the problems with Oberlander his Ross Motors car werent fixed, as his engine power and grip on track was clearly much less then his teammate Balzac, who began strongly and maintained his first position in the tight few first corners. Oberlander was taken over by 4 drivers including Vratislav Jezek, which brought back memories of many older F1 fans, who were used to the old PRIME - Ross Motor battles on track. At the seventh corner in the 5th lap a crash caused the car of the other PRIME Racing member, Josué Jullien, to be completely total loss, resulting in Jullien his end for this race. The crash, which involved the car of Vincent Hesselink and John Bundgaard as well, caused a red flag as stewards rushed to the scene to get Jullien out and clean up the track. Gromek took the red flag as a opportunity to do a early pitstop, suprisingly changing to intermediate tires. Balzac and other top teams decided to stay on track and start from the grid, causing Gromek to lose positions. Just two laps after the restart due to Jullien his crash rain started to slowly wet the track, giving the intermediate tires of Gromek increased grip. He managed to move from 6th position to 2nd, just behind Balzac, who himself said on radio "we need to change the tires, im losing control." Every corner was clearly a struggle for the driver, after he was eventually taken over by Gromek on his intermediates just before he himself would pit and change tires. Gromek made the right decision with his team and quickly picked up seconds, eventually being 18 seconds in front of the new second driver, Henri Guillaume from Arnault Racing.
Balzac moved to the 11th place after a disastrous stop. Eventually Gromek was even able to do another stop without losing his first position, changing to medium tires after the rain stopped. Guillaume, who was second for over 10 laps, was taken over by Oskar Meli from the L-aħjar team, who used the superior downforce control of his car to his advantage in the narrow corners of the track. Oberlander continued to struggle in his car, ending on the 14th place at the end of the race. The top 3 consisted of Gromek, Meli and Guillaume from Canbar Aerospace Racing, L-aħjar and Arnault respectfully. Gromek thus takes the lead in the leaderboard, with Balzac still in second behind him but ending 4th in this race, not making the podium. It clearly wasnt the best weekend for Ross Motors, who will have to find a solution for Oberlander his problems and create a better stop strategy, something that caused Balzac to lose this time around.
The results of the Beaumont Circuit race. The second race of the season
Next month we will race on the Al-ghani circuit in Cildania.
