Swiss Simracing: This time it worked 🎥
SOUVERNER THOMI AHEAD OF EUGSTER Simracing specialist Adrian Thomi was uncatchable on the virtual circuit of Spa. Lukas Eugster and Pascal Jutz qualified for the final on their second and third attempts respectively. Presenter Jörg Petersen, racing pro Marcel Fässler and race director Alex Maag analyze the key scenes and their consequences. The final online event of the Swiss Simracing Series 2020 [...]
Presenter Jörg Petersen, racing pro Marcel Fässler and race director Alex Maag analyze the key scenes and their consequences.
In the last online event of the Swiss Simracing Series 2020, it was all or nothing for some drivers if they wanted to have a say in who wins the Swiss championship title at the final in December. Lukas Eugster and Pascal Jutz, for example, had to summon up all their skills once again in order to hold their own against the strong competition.
Good from experience
However, Adrian Thomi's 21 opponents were powerless on the seven-kilometer virtual Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. The member of the ieS Simracing Switzerland team had already attracted attention in the 15-minute qualifying session with the fastest lap time (2:21.285) and the resulting pole position.
Lukas Eugster, who gave away what he thought was a sure qualification at the Nürburgring with an accident on the last lap when lapping a slower car, finished second on the grid with a gap of just nine hundredths, followed by Pascal Jutz.
Maneuver with consequences
In the 20-minute race, the Thomi/Eugster duo left nothing to chance. Both made a clean pass through La Source, the first corner after the start/finish, and initially pulled away from the field. Many other riders behind them were unable to do so.
With an overtaking maneuver that was too optimistic, Andreas Bohny triggered a chain reaction that involved several vehicles. The penalty followed immediately. After analyzing the circumstances of the accident, Bohny was handed a 30-second time penalty by the race stewards for unsportsmanlike conduct, which cost him third place and qualification in the Ü40 classification.
Qualification achieved at the second and third attempt
Meanwhile, Eugster put pressure on Thomi, who was ahead of him, to drive him into a mistake. However, Thomi reeled off his routine and ultimately won by around three seconds ahead of the slalom specialist from Herisau (several podium finishes on Ligier Honda sports cars in 2019) and Jutz.
Thomi, Eugster and Jutz - who made it on his third attempt - thus qualified for the final in the Standard category. Thomas Hähnel, Mirco Pompilli and Rolf Imhof crossed the finish line in 7th, 8th and 9th place, securing their places in the final of the over-40 category.
The positions of Yannick Mettler (TCR and GT3), Robin Faustini (F3000 hill climb) and Christian Mettler (OPC Challenge) show that real racing drivers like Eugster (or Thomas Schmid, Felix Hirsiger, Julien Apothéloz and Yann Zimmer, who qualified in Events 1 and 2) are not automatically top sim racers. All three were subsequently given a ten-second time penalty. However, they would not have qualified for the final even without these penalties.
The official result list looks like this:
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This means that 27 drivers have been confirmed for the final on St. Nicholas Day at the Porsche Center Schlieren. A further 15 drivers are still being sought. They can qualify via two offline events.
They will take place from September 25 to 27 at the Zurich Game Show and from November 13 to 15 at Fantasy Basel. Information is available at the following link.
